This is your life. This is your career. No one is going to take charge of it like you are. You've probably learned by now that second guessing yourself generally leads to disappointment. Having high standards can be the difference between having a piece of work you are proud of and having a piece of work you are embarrassed by. Learn to trust yourself when it comes to your art and hold those around you, including yourself, to the highest standards.

For an artist there is nothing worse than spending a tremendous amount of time and effort on a piece of work you are not proud of. Discouragement can destroy the momentum you are working so hard to build. To avoid this negative outcome you have to take the bull by the horns and make sure that you are doing your part to make everything you are involved in terrific and calling out others who fail to come to the table with work that improves the whole and challenges the team.

Whether you are an actor with a management team and an agency behind you, or a director with a PR firm and production company working with you - it is your responsibility to hold others and yourself to standards that continually impress those around you and incite your team to action. When the team is motivated by your amazing attitude, the team surrounds you with positive synergy that you can then use to build a buzz around your work. It's time to make sure that everything you are doing challenges your own learning process and builds upon your experience and understanding of your art. Raise the stakes. Raise the standards.

The primary focus of your high standards should rest on your shoulders alone. You cannot control what others will do, but you can control your own work and the time and attention to detail you put into it. Impress your team by continuing to never settle for less than the best in your own work and they will see a cause worth fighting for themselves. Then they will bring more to the table and contribute to the growing foundation of your career. Don't be afraid to consult your team when they are not living up to their potential, but understand that if you are not challenging yourself to do the same, you have no credibility with your teammates. Get in and do the best job you can and no one can hold anything against you - including yourself. The goal is to go to bed each night happy that you put in as much as you could each day. Create a situation where you are proud of your work and that will build your confidence and help you to define your value, which will in turn help you to more easily raise your expectations of your partners.

By challenging yourself and those around you, you teach yourself and your team what your strengths and weaknesses are. You can then take advantage of that which comes easy to you and put in more work on the parts of your art that you want to be better at. If you are an actor and you are great with comedy, but have trouble getting to the truth of major emotions you should be exploiting your comedic talent to make a living and build a brand name, while simultaneously working to put yourself in situations that challenge you with the emotional work - allowing you to grow and get better.

If you are a screenwriter who is amazing at dialogue, but not as good with structure, use your high selling point to encourage people who are talented with structure to look at your work. Most scripts need a ridiculous amount of development before they are truly ready to go to screen. Have standards that are so high that you are willing to spend time and money making your material, not just good, but phenomenal.

People like to be challenged in this business. Most people got into it for the love of power, money, or the possibility of fame, but somewhere along the way you have to fall in love with the art of learning. It's a long road to becoming a valuable member of the entertainment community. Hold yourself to high standards if you eventually want to rise to the cream. Check and double check your work. Think about it all the time. Clear your plate of the work you can get done today and then spend your time creating other ideas that you can put into action tomorrow. If you have trouble setting goals and finding things to do - hire a consultant who can help you plan out the path ahead of you. Your eventual goal is to generate ideas in the morning, put them into action throughout the day and be receiving results by late afternoon. By setting high standards you train yourself to put in the work load that can bring about excellent results.

Remember you are competing against the best in the business. Men and women who do this full time. They are your competition. You better be willing to bleed if you want to get to the top. Hold yourself to studio standards today and you will find yourself working at that level tomorrow.

Finding Representation:
If you are looking to find an agent to represent you take the following steps. As with anything you want to achieve the best way to reach a goal is to put several options into motion and trust that one will come back to you. Come up with five ways to find an agent. First contact everyone you know and let them know that you are looking. Contact any referrals that come your way and try to set up a fifteen-minute meeting. Then try a mass mailing. You can use the labels available on ShowbizMonster.com to contact sixty to a hundred possible representatives. Write a brief cover letter (first draft, second draft, final draft - it has to be great and to the point; high standards) and send these out. Then do a specified mailing. Do some research and find ten agencies online that you can read about and really get to know better. Then draft cover individual cover letters to each of these (first draft, second draft, final draft) and send those off. Then go to some agency showcases where agents are there specifically to see your talent. Make sure every one of them leaves impressed with you and with a headshot. When you get home, send them a thank you card and a picture. Lastly, get yourself to some agency workshops where agents talk about the business. Listen to what they have to say and make sure to introduce yourself at the end. Make sure they leave with a headshot and then when you get home send them a thank you card with your picture. The goal is to have several meetings set up. When you have only one meeting it creates desperation, which is the enemy. Putting five plans of attack into motion should help you to generate several meetings. These are all that count. Forget everyone else who did not respond.

The Meeting:
Knowing what to ask at the meeting is imperative to coming off as a professional. Make sure you ask the following:

1. Which casting directors call them in an emergency to send their best people in right away?
2. Which casting directors do they have lunch with?
3. What do their favorite clients do that they wish all of their actors did (in the effort of booking work)?
4. What kind of actors are they best known for representing?
5. What are their future goals as an agency?
6. What do they love about being an agent?
7. Are they supportive of you doing non-union projects to improve your demo reel?
8. How many actors do they represent that work above scale?
9. Do they have an open door policy or are you not allowed to visit?
10. What time of day is best to call to check in?
11. What do they like to hear that their actors are doing to better their careers?

It is an understanding of the business like this that will help an agent to recognize what level you are at in your career. Like your cover letter, these questions reveal how much you know and don't know about the business. Be prepared. Be on time. Have your research on them done before the meeting (use the internet). If you have followed the steps outlined above you should have good amount of confidence walking into that room. Be yourself and have fun!

Good luck!!!