A Spoonful of Truth | from TalentSoup

What kills your dreams.

Is your dream legitimate? Not is it realistic, but is it something you’re willing to look at seriously and pursue from a position of strength? Or are you one of those people who thinks it will just magically happen if you’re a nice person who keeps their teeth brushed?

Nothing kills a dream like pursuing it from a position of weakness, with whimsical thinking. It is your dream: never let someone else end it, and never let someone else take control of it. That is weakness, and that is what kills the dream.

What kills dreams? You do.

What grows dreams.

You know it doesn’t take much to keep you feeling like the dream is worth pursuing. A job here or there will do. And sometimes it doesn’t even take landing the job – sometimes just knowing you’re being considered, that you’ve actually been seen – is all you really need.

Nobody cares about your dream more than you do – treat it like it’s your child. You be the one who feeds it, guides its steps, and fights for it.

What grows dreams? You do.



Grow your dream: work.

So what does it look like to feed your dream? If you’re like most people, where a little validation keeps you going, there’s only one thing you need to do: work.

Take the idea of what you are worth out of the picture for a moment. You know the more experience you have under your belt, the greater your value to future projects. Money is important but your dream won’t grow stronger if you choose the path of the arrogant unemployed. There is always someone else who’s happy to take the work, and those are the people whose dreams grow, and whose faces people recognize.

Work where you can. Choose the paths that land you work. Feed the dream. Be seen. Remember: work begets work. Your dream is made real by work, work and work.

Anything that limits you working is the enemy of your dream.

Grow your dream: getting the right help.

There is a race happening within you – will your dream prove itself first, or will you run out of steam pursuing it first? You know that if your phone remains silent long enough, eventually you’ll quietly fold up your dreams, and drop out of the race.

Most people don’t realize this race is happening until it’s too late. You’re different, though – you’re choosing to take your dream seriously and you’re choosing to make smart choices based on knowledge and strength. In a perfect world, you would find lots of help from people who are as passionate about your dream as you are. But you know that’s not how things work. (we don’t want “find” to anchor two sentences in a row)

If an agency wants to sign you, cool – you’ve found some help. If an agency signs you and you lose control over the work you do, or if you find yourself limited to only the work they bring you, then you have to decide whether you’re willing to feed your dream with what that agency is serving it.
There was a time when agencies were the only help in town, and they called all the shots. If you wanted to feed you dream anything, you had to feed it the ration an agency offered.

Today you can get help feeding your dream without giving up control of your dream.

Either/Or: agencies vs. TalentSoup

You do not have to choose between help from TalentSoup and help from an agency. TalentSoup is not an agency – we present you, not represent you. We do not get a cut of your earnings – the people who hire you pay us directly, based on the project, not the names selected for the project.. We want to see you work as much as possible, whether you find the work through us or someplace else.

Anywhere else. We know it’s about feeding the dream, and the more the people at TalentSoup find work, the longer they’ll be able to keep their dream alive, and be available for future projects.

When you’re considering representation, you have to decide what you’re willing to give up – and what you’re not willing to give up – in exchange for the help.

Some things to ask yourself about the help you accept in feeding your dreams:

Will the help from this source eliminate my help from other places?
Am I working enough that I am willing to lose other jobs to get a higher rate?
Am I in the “ramp-up” phase of my career where I will take any work I can get?
Do I believe the help has my best interest in mind or am I just another face?

Is TalentSoup bad for model or talent agencies?

For savvy, agencies that are willing to evolve, no. For agencies still resting on archaic ideas about the business, absolutely. Smart agencies are already using TalentSoup to grow their emerging talent, giving them opportunities to gain experience, increase their value and feed their dream.

TalentSoup will be bad for some agencies. In the past, when agencies where the only show in town and could call all the shots, there was very little pressure for the agency to produce results. Talent signed with an agency (handing over control of their dream) and waited. Good agencies will continue to be made better by TalentSoup, bad agencies will be easier than ever to spot, and the agencies of yesterday will have to make some changes to compete efficiently.

The bottom line is you.

You’re getting into an industry that relies on the sacrifices you’re willing to make for your dreams. This has always been the case, and always will be. You’re the one who puts yourself out there. You’re the one who deals with the confusion and rejection. You’re the one who has to find other ways of paying the bills while you nurse your dream along. You get paid when a job comes along, but the rest of the time you’re the one covering the costs of being in the holding pattern, waiting.

What you have to decide, since you’ve chosen to feed this dream, is simple: what is the best, most realistic, most empowered way for you to minimize the expense of maximzing your dream?

We think the best option is to get into the Soup.