Not Invited…officially…

I had an opportunity unexpectedly come up.  A friend of mine hit me up, saying, “Hey Courtney can you make it to this audition in like 10 minutes, they don’t have enough women?”

“Um heck yeah!”

National commercial, I’m on the way.  I didn’t know I could put make-up on that fast, and thankfully and oddly, I had on the appropriate wardrobe, a summer dress.

I was not officially invited, although funny enough, I had submitted for the audition a few days ago.  The casting director did not choose my picture.  Maybe he/she didn’t have time to look at all the submissions, was only accepting submissions from agents, not looking for ethnically ambiguous, didn’t like my picture, there’s hundreds of reasons, who knows.

So, I do the audition and I’m out of there, back to my day.

And then YAY!  I get a callback.  The people who didn’t officially invite me the first time, invited me back.  Next my agent calls, I’m on “avail,” which could mean they’re deciding between someone else and me, they’re checking the dates before they book me, regardless I’m saying yes, I’ll be available to work those days for them!

Now, my agent hasn’t called me back with a booking yet.  Avails don’t always move to booked and it’s highly disappointing (all the daydreams of how I planned to spend that money)  And do they call to tell me I’m not on avail anymore, usually there isn’t time for that.  Which means there must be a lot of work and deals happening, so that means I need to keep moving forward.

One thought I did have was how many opportunities have I missed because I was waiting for an invitation?  You?

Moral of the story stay ready from having to get ready, and show up uninvited, because rarely are people just holding an invitation for your dream, you normally have to knock on doors, get turned away (rejected), and knock on another door, just as confidently as you did the first.

And if knocking doesn’t work…

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” – Milton Berle

Don’t wait for an invitation to somewhere you’re suppose to be.

Courtney Lindsay