Every rejection you get to a pitch, a question, audition, or anything you have put your all into, can often stifle your creative energy when pursuing a career in entertainment. It’s like getting up all happy and unsuspectedly stepping on lego’s. Another time you bump your head on an open kitchen cabinet and after enough bruises, you start to wonder if it’s worth putting yourself through it all. Maybe you should just give up. Well me and Angela beg to fiffer. Who’s Angela? Well…

Angela Marie Hutchinson is a powerhouse do-it-all, who’s nicknamed “the dream builder” in the entertainment industry and “trailblazer” by the mayor of LA, its city council, and US congress. She wears so many hats so well that I had to ask her how she does it all. But let’s start at the beginning.

How I “Met” Angela

So, I attend this webinar from BReaKiNG iNTo HoLLyWooD with talent agent Brianna Ancel, hosted by Angela. Afterward, I look Angela up on Instagram where I learned that she was the founder of BReaKiNG iNTo HoLLyWooD and that she had written a book called Create your YES when you keep haring NO. On her website, I found out that she had worked for MGM, Warner Bros, TV, The Grammy’s, did a TEDx Talk, wrote a movie for Oprah’s network OWN, has a B.S.E in Industrial & operations engineering, is a social media professor and that was just the first paragraph!

I got my YES!

Naturally, I needed to interview her! When she said yes I was happy! While preparing for our chat, my brain was firing questions at me like: How big of a closet must she have to contain all of the hats she’s worn? How is it possible that all of this, which could fit into multiple lifetimes, was achieved in twenty years? Well, the answer is because she is awesome at creating her “yes”.

How “Create your Yes” came to be

TEDx invited her to do a talk about breaking barriers. She pondered on what subject to choose, wanting something that everyone could relate to. She chose rejection. Because she was sick of rejection herself and because she knew that no matter who you are, or how rich you are, everyone gets rejected.

Even Will Smith, being as famous as he is, still gets rejected. But everyone also gives rejection. For instance, when you go to Starbucks and get offered a special, you reject it, because you want your usual order. So rejection it was.

Just Keeping at it Isn’t Enough

In the industry, there is this idea that if you just keep at it, you will eventually get your yes. But she knew this concept just wasn’t true for everyone. She thought about rejections she’d given during her work as a talent agent.

She looked back at the yeses in her life and realized that they were simply no’s that she managed to change into yeses. they became yeses because the no’s had taught her something and she learned to utilize this in her career.

Utilize your No’s

So how does that work? Start with realizing that if you are going through difficult things in your personal life a no is going to impact you in a much greater way. And realize not to take no’s personally. You need to bulletproof yourself for no’s. Protect your mind and headspace.

Know that your goals and dreams are more important and more important and more precious than that sucky feeling of rejection. Don’t ignore a no! Don’t pretend it didn’t happen and just continue as before. There was a reason for the no. Try to figure out what it was, because your “no” can teach you something that will help you create your yes.

Be Proactive

let’s say you’re a screenwriter who has sent out query letters. It is now three months later and you’re still awaiting an answer. Then you should realize it is a dead-end, a no. Now instead of carrying on as before you could find another way to your destination. Maybe send out an email saying: “I realize it wasn’t a good fit for you. Could you tell me why? I would love to know what you are looking for, so I can adjust my scripts to your taste.”

Sometimes it can be that the person on the other end has a problem with saying no. Now if you mail back, acknowledging that it was a no, you might learn why it was a no. Which will help you to have a better chance at yes next time.

How Do You Start Getting Your Yes?

Identify what it is that you want first. But when you do that don’t think about the milestones you want to achieve. Like being represented by an agent. Because you have no control over that. Instead, focus on the inchstones. The ones you can control. Like sending fifty queries to literary agents. And then you start working backward. Got no’s back? Then ask yourself why you feel you’ve gotten them. And get creative in finding a better way to communicate. Research the people you’re contacting.

Let’s say you’re emailing a bachelor, who doesn’t have kids, a family concept movie about kids. Then you will have to rethink how you communicate with him about this project. You might start your pitch with “This is your worst nightmare” to grab his attention. Figure out a way to speak who this person is.

Help others get their Yes.

Another way is to help others achieve their yeses. Because the person you help, might help you get closer to your yes and it’s also how the universe works. You get what you give. Like how Angela got the idea for the book “Create Your Yes” by doing a talk for TEDx.

I want to thank Angela for giving me a YES. If I can ever return the favor, please feel free to let me know.

See…it works. 🙂

P.S. The BReaKiNG iNTo HoLLyWooD is written this way to visually reflect what it is like to break into Hollywood. Having its ups and downs.

Watch Angela’s TEDx talk about Rejection

here.