Brandon Held - Life is Crazy

Episode 57: Psychology, Talent Agency, and Finding Self-Worth After Years of Depression Dr. Bramante

• Brandon Held • Season 3 • Episode 57

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Developed by a team of Practitioners, men's health scientists, neuroscientists and peak performers. MNLY harnesses the power of blood analysis, machine learning, and AI to evaluate data from four essential components: Biological, Environmental, Nutritional, and Clinical analysis. By leveraging this advanced technology, we develop precise, evidence-based solutions that are tailored uniquely to each individual.

https://www.getmnly.com/ 

Dr. Albert Bramante shares his transformative journey from feeling unwanted as a child to becoming both a successful psychologist and talent agent. His unique story reveals how childhood trauma and feelings of worthlessness can evolve into professional purpose when we confront our deepest insecurities.

• Born an "accident" to parents with much older children, creating early feelings of being an outsider
• Struggled with athletics in a sports-oriented family, finding refuge instead in books and reading
• Experienced profound psychological impact after overhearing his mother say she "never wanted children"
• Battled suicidal thoughts starting as early as age seven that continued through his teenage years
• Became a "professional student," completing bachelor's and master's degrees in psychology
• Found unexpected purpose teaching psychology at age 26 despite having no formal teaching training
• Accidentally entered the entertainment industry through an internship with a talk show
• Founded his own talent agency in 2004, combining psychology with helping actors
• Completed his PhD dissertation on self-sabotage in actors despite wanting to quit
• Experienced a transformative wake-up call after losing his teaching position and having a business relationship fall apart
• Now helps actors overcome self-sabotaging behaviors through his understanding of psychology and talent management

Remember that no matter what you're dealing with—even if you're an adult with suicidal ideations—it's never too late to change your life. Keep making the best decisions for yourself, even when you don't see immediate results.


Go to https://www.brandonheld.com and subscribe to my podcast and support the show!

Want to be a guest on Brandon Held - Life is Crazy? Send Brandon Held a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/brandonheld



Their supplements have been developed by a team of Practitioners, men's health scientists, neuroscientists and peak performers. MNLY harnesses the power of blood analysis, machine learning, and AI to evaluate data from four essential components: Biological, Environmental, Nutritional, and Clinical analysis. By leveraging this advanced technology, they develop precise, evidence-based solutions that are tailored uniquely to each individual.

https://www.getmnly.com/ 

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Speaker 2:

Welcome, welcome back to Brandon Held. Life is Crazy and I am jokingly going to say take two because Dr Bramante, my guest today. We tried to do this before and the lovely weather of New York would not allow us to complete the podcast because it just kept kicking him off his internet. We are going for it again and I'm excited about this because he has a very unique talent and very unique story and I think everyone will enjoy it and really appreciate what Albert can do. He's a PhD in psychology and he's certified within hypnosis and NLP. He's also been a talent agent for over 20 years, securing major roles for actor. The combination of those two and what he can do and how he can help is pretty unique and definitely happy to talk about it. How are you doing today, albert?

Speaker 1:

I'm doing excellent. Thanks for having me on here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thanks for being on, thanks for coming back and trying again after thunderstorms. Wouldn't let us do it the first time, let's just get into it. You know how life is crazy works. We go through a person's life and their ups and downs and what they have gone through, both good and bad, to get to where they are today. So we're just going to start right at the childhood. So just tell us about your childhood.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so things have been a little crazy. Just to start from the beginning, I was an accident in the family. I think I have older siblings that are the one supposed to be 18, seven or eight years different. Now I'm the first one in my family to be in my parents' union, because my father was married prior to him marrying my mother, so I was considered a baby and also the only child in some aspects, because it was just me and I had a lot of challenges growing up Health problems, and I wasn't into everything my family was into. My brothers, my father, were total athletes football, baseball and so for me, the first instance of life is different was I'm not into sports and I wasn't able to physically do this and I had no interest in it. But I love to read, and so that was my first knowledge that life is going to be different for me overall.

Speaker 2:

When you say you couldn't do sports, was it a physical limitation based off of some type of body injury, or was it internal type of body?

Speaker 1:

injury or was it internal? Was this sort of combination of both? I had coordination, you know hand-eye, and I still struggle today with hand-eye coordination. Okay, but it was much more pronounced when I was a child. I really couldn't catch the ball or throw a ball in a direct way. That was needed to play this sport and I think also just my internal temperament and makeup. I didn't have the tenacity for it or the persistence for it, so I just gave up very easily and, of course, my family tried to help me out by doing the classic one, commonly wimp and although the another word which I'm not going to say, but it was just that sort of thing and their approach was we're just going to toughen you up, yeah, and I think they realized that's not going to work with me yeah, you definitely have to get to understanding.

Speaker 2:

I was an athlete my whole life until I still lift weights and stuff, so on some level I still am an athlete. I have three sons and two of those sons are not athletes at all. They have zero interest in sports and I have never tried to. When they were younger and I didn't know that I tried to get them into sports just to try it and see how it goes. It was pretty clear as they got older it wasn't their thing and there's no need to push that on them if that's not who they are. I don't really get that mentality. It just does more damage than it does. Good.

Speaker 1:

And yet you would agree to that, I would say Of course, and I think they caught on right away my father at least caught on fairly quickly, because I don't remember this but the story was that one day he gave me a glove and a bat, I think like baseball, and I just didn't want to do it. And he turned to me and said what's the matter? Why don't you want to play or do you want to be on the team? And I them and said dad, I don't want to be on the team, I want to own the team, and that just, I think that day he stopped.

Speaker 1:

Now I was still like an outcast. I wasn't bullied at all, I really had a. I would really treated well during my childhood by my brothers and cousins, but I was neglected at the same time. I wasn't invited at all the funks, all social funks, because I wasn't an adult. I was a reader. I loved books, and they did. At the time I was upset and always depressed, like why am I not invited to certain things? And now, of course, being an adult, I look back and I'm like of course not. That wasn't for me, though, I wouldn't have enjoyed that and they couldn't really relate to me, because I loved to read. That was my outlet.

Speaker 2:

So when you say I forgot about this, but it just popped in my mind, when you say you think you were an accident, my mom had me at 16. There was no question I was an accident and she made that clear to me. I always knew even though it doesn't take a lot of brains to realize when your mom has you at 16, you're an accident Is that something you and your family never discussed or talked about?

Speaker 1:

That's something you and your family never discussed or talked about. When I was younger, I forgot I was doing something with my mother and I remember that. I could remember that, and I asked her why don't I have any siblings? And my mother, she obviously didn't realize what came out of her mouth, but she said I never really wanted to have kids. Oh, wow, okay, wanted to have kids. Oh, wow, okay. Now my six-year-old mind, of course, took that in probably ways that I shouldn't have. That was just an honest statement and this was. I was born in the late 70s, so it wasn't exactly a time for reproductive rights or all of that right. And then, of course, I was just talking and I was a conversation I heard my mother talking about when topics of abortion came up and she's during my time we didn't have that, and I'm thinking to myself there was. Would I still be here? They did.

Speaker 1:

And I was about to go into my teenage, early teenage years and that again, I'm not saying that was like in a malicious attempt on her proper that really spiraled me down on dark depression yeah, I imagine it would, especially if you don't talk about it.

Speaker 2:

So would assume then that you didn't feel close enough to your parents to have an open conversation about this type of topic, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I did with my mom recently, the past few years, yeah, and again it was son I love you and I believe that was son I love you and I believe that. But I again well, now, what's my understanding is, my subconscious mind was young, didn't really have a rational side, it doesn't really operate in rationality, it operates on emotion, and so I think that really set me up for a rough patch than my things in really early 20s, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So let's talk about that, because, yeah, of course, your mind's going to go crazy with you and your imagination, as it does when people don't talk to people. That's why communication is so important. Conversely, communication could have been a dagger through the heart. You could have heard things that would have really hurt you and it still would have turned out that way, but you also might've heard things that would have eased your mind and made you feel better, but that's not what happens. So how did this affect your teenage years in early twenties?

Speaker 1:

How did this affect your teenage years and early 20s? So I had a gap in me where I felt so unloved. I felt so and again overtly, no one really showed me that they didn't love me. But I still had this nagging, profound, deep feeling of being unloved, unwanted, a burden, and therefore sincerely, for most of my late teenage life, wanted to and was intent on ending my life Like just I'm done.

Speaker 2:

That's sad. When do you think that started Like around what age 12, 13.

Speaker 1:

Now another thing that happened and I don't remember this, but I remember reading a note like later on, when I was seven, I happened to tell my camp counselor that I wanted to shoot myself. Wow, I don't know why, because I don't remember the conversation, but I can't tell you why. But obviously that's not a normal seven-year-old comment, so something, I think, again relating to that issue. So for me, content free. But the unwanted started when I was like 12 or 13 and lasted well into my adult life. Yeah, to the point where I just felt unwanted and a burden to everybody. And of course, and the crazy thing was, nobody really explicitly told me that. To me, on a conscious level, the feel of it, it was a deep hole you.

Speaker 2:

First of all, you're thinking your parents didn't want you. You were an accident. Second of all, you're neglected in many ways because you're not invited to things, you're not being included in things. So I don't think your mind was incorrect just because people weren't being mean to you or telling you they wanted you to die or anything like that. I think I can totally see why you would feel that way. You started that way at 12 or 13 and you said this carried with you into your adulthood. So how did this shape out the rest of your teenage years in your early 20s? How did you go through life at that point?

Speaker 1:

I was just really going through life, especially my teens and early 20s, but I need people to love me, I need to fit in, I need to really do whatever a day. So I was probably the classic poster boy of the person who tries too hard to get approval, person who tries too hard to be loved okay, person who tries too hard to be a part of something. That I, looking back in hindsight, it I pushed. I probably repelled a lot of people too from that because, again, when you try too hard on something, it will sure sure, and that was one of the hardest lessons I've learned in my life.

Speaker 2:

A lot of times it's like when you try something way too hard, it backfires yeah, wanting to be liked by everyone is not uncommon, and some people read that in a person, they see that in a person and it makes them dislike a person just because they don't feel like that person's genuine Like that person is real. They're trying so hard just to be liked by everyone that you don't know who they really are, and I had some of that going on as well when I was younger. I know people didn't like me because they thought I was too positive or whatever the case may be. So did you go straight into college out of high school, or how did that go?

Speaker 1:

Yes, I did. I went right away. I did the four years of college and then I did two years of grad school right after college of college and then I did two years of grad school right after college. So I went for six years to my bachelor's and master's right after high school and I was even determined to go into the PHC program right by at what right?

Speaker 1:

When I was coming after I was like I'm gonna apply to four, four PHC programs to start that fall and look now that back in it. I needed a break, but at that time it wasn't so lucky. But I was turned down from all four of them. Okay, and looking back, most phd programs are ultra competitive, right, so they're not. They're much more competitive than, obviously, an undergrad or even a master's degree program. And obviously, looking back in hindsight, I probably should have doubled or tripled my application. I did so. Now I was forced to get a job. They are at least. This is my first time in September, my entire life, and I wasn't going to school. I was 24 at the time and it was a bit of a scary and surreal experience.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, getting accepted into PhD programs, and I just experienced this recently with my wife. She got accepted into a JD program and she applied for just a couple of different ones. She did get accepted to one, not accepted to another. So you just you can't take anything for granted. So she was lucky to get accepted to one. So I know what you're talking about there. It's hard when you're going through that. It's nerve wracking. So now you know your world's been like you were basically a professional student at that up until this point. So that's what we like to call jokingly phds that get to go to school all the way from high school through their phd professional students. So now you find yourself you got to get out there in the quote-unquote real world. So what are your next steps? What do you do?

Speaker 1:

my next steps were to start applying, start handing off my resume, and at that time, there I was, putting my resume out a lot, nobody would really hire me. I don't want to say luckily, cause I would definitely I wish it had never happened, but 9-11, right around this time, around 9-11. Yeah, and I happened to start volunteering during this time for different organizations that supported non-government causes, which opened up the door for my first job and my second job.

Speaker 2:

Which was what'd you get into?

Speaker 1:

So the first thing, I worked for an organization social services organization and then I did that for about six months and then I was hired for a year for the New York State Department of Dallas Crisis Intervention. I did that for a year and during this time, when I was applying for jobs, initially in the beginning, I put my resume in to teach at a community college. And about two years later, after I put my resume in, they called me up in September and they called me and said we have a vacancy. Two professors just walked out or left. Angate, the classes start tomorrow, can you come in and teach? And at that time time I was laid off my job. I said go, let me go ahead, do that. And so that started my teaching career at an unhired station, which started giving me purpose okay, that's good news.

Speaker 2:

Feel purpose. And how old were you when that happened? I was 26 26. Okay, that's pretty young to be a professor at even a community college, and so were your undergraduate and graduate degrees in psychology yes, okay, okay, and that's the reach.

Speaker 1:

I was teaching psychology and I had no training, and so one of the this is, I think, one of the reasons why, I think, boosted my confidence, because, since I had no training in teaching, it was just like drive like fire yeah, go ready, go right in and do it. And well, there was no training, there was no orientation, there was no classes that we took, I was just way it and that's what I did. I walked in. But the important thing is I was myself. Yeah, that was myself, and what I realized one of the major confidence boosters that really led me to know them this is my life's mission was how effective I was.

Speaker 1:

Most professors, at least from what I've read, their first couple of years of teaching are disasters. Sometimes students don't understand them, they don't understand the student. I was getting stellar evaluations the first semester and I had students coming up to me. This is the best class they were taking. How long had they been teaching? Now, I never told my students in the class, by the way, hi and professor, I had no idea what, but that was the truth. Yeah, I couldn't say something. I had no system, I had nothing, no experience of that at all, cause I was like I'm just doing it myself, I'm not going to draw attention to that, and when I had to express it over, I did confess to somebody soon. That's my first time. He said that they'd never would've known that if I didn't say that. So boosted, started boosting my confidence, like okay, maybe I am needed here and I still been 23 years later.

Speaker 1:

I'm still teaching.

Speaker 2:

Oh, you're still teaching. That's cool. Yeah, I just as a side note, I was a community college professor, just online only for about three years as a side gig from my day job, so it's not always easy. Sometimes you get the quote unquote good students and that's a little easy, but some of those students are more challenging and they can be harder to get through too.

Speaker 1:

It really is. I've always had a mixed bag in every class where we'll have some that were really good, some that are okay, we're not gonna make any up, and then some that were just I can't create. Wow, yeah, but yeah, I think over the years I got a little more confident with that in my own skin. Then I'm like, okay, I can put my services out there, but you're an adult and yeah, I mean then that's on you literally.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes I was going, why are you even in college? Like why are you even here? You don't want to do the work. You don't even ask questions like what are you doing? Why are you here?

Speaker 1:

and or even like when I was teaching and now I'm only online, but when I beforehand I was in person, before, way before Zoom, and I walk around campus and I would see the same students that were missing, clients that were hanging out in the student center.

Speaker 1:

In my head I'm like why are you here, why are you wasting so much time and money? Because even if you're a financial aid, it's still someone else's thing for you to be in that seat, and what I think even got to. What challenged me, for me was that I had a lot of students that were some students that were shut out of the class because it was closed and I'm like could have made room for that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that's why it's frustrating, right. Yeah, that's why it's frustrating, right, because there are other people you could be helping who actually want to be helped, who actually want to learn, and then someone's just filling that spot, wasting everyone's time. So that's true, and I get that. So how long do you do this until you decide, all right, it's time to go back to school and get my PhD?

Speaker 1:

I think it was two years after I was like, cause I'm already halfway there. And this is when I started also working my other industry, which is working on that, and I think I've always made a promise to my grandmother before she passed away that I was going to become adopted to some sort. And I already had six years under my belt and really I wasn't too sure whether my talent business, my talent agency I worked with, was going to amount to anything. So I was like I want to have a backup plan and I think to even make my family a little more comfortable with my decision to be opening my own business, was to go back for a PhD and in order to really have a career in psychology or any anywhere in the field of psychology, you need a doctorate. It's, that's right.

Speaker 1:

Well, since I'm already halfway there, I was like it'll just continue, and so I enrolled in an online university.

Speaker 2:

Okay, which?

Speaker 1:

is more common now. At that time it was relatively new, so it was a bit controversial.

Speaker 2:

I want some people to roll their eyes when they first thought about going to online school. Hey, I will tell you this I hate when people do that, because I don't think they understand.

Speaker 1:

I personally feel like online classes that are exclusive to online are harder than in-person classes. I can 100 agree with you there. So I I did that the first day, the first year or two. I remember sitting there saying whoa, because it's more work, if you think about it. Yeah, because instead of, like you know, right before Facebook you've got these conversations and online you've got to write them out, yep. So that alone is much more complex and even though it is self-paced, so on your own, even in college and grad school, but you're completely on your own Right, it's yeah.

Speaker 2:

And some people are audio and visual learners and you remove that aspect. Now they do videos, a lot and stuff that they didn't do back then. Back then, it was pretty much you're relying on reading and if you're an audio visual learner, which I was, that made it a lot harder. For sure, and I'll tell you this, when I was going through my MBA program, it was mostly online. It was one of those things where Monday through Friday it was online and Saturday we had classes all day on Saturday. So it was pretty unique in the way it was structured. A couple of the people in my program who didn't finish the program, by the way, to get their MBA they were in other very highly recognized schools and had master's degrees already and they would come to class just complaining about how much harder this MBA was than their previous master's degree at a different school, and they didn't finish the program. They couldn't hack it. He couldn't make it. So, yeah, it really perturbs me when people scoff at people who got education from online work because it's hard.

Speaker 1:

It. It's really, it really is, and it was definitely a challenge and an adjustment, because I spent six years in college that was always in person, never online. Yeah, now I'm completely online. There was okay, there was a convenience. I didn't have to commute and I didn't. I didn't necessarily have to log on a third time, but that also made it more challenging because I didn't have that structure.

Speaker 1:

Less structure yep, easy to fall behind and forget. Yep, and I learned that because I struggled in the beginning with that. So I did that and then, when I relatively fast, I finished all my coursework and then it was time to do the dissertation. At first because everything I've read through the courses, I thought this would be easy. Yeah, because I love to write, I love to read. But that's a part of it. Part of it there's in a. It's monumental to a point where you have to do something original, not something that nobody's ever done before, so you can't just say I'm going to do a term paper. It's much more involved than that and the amount of scrutiny compared to the regular course that you get on the dissertation things the far that I'm like anything I've ever seen yeah, yeah, and I told you before we started this podcast I didn't go get my doctorate because of the dissertation process.

Speaker 2:

it's, it was a turnoff for me. I knew some I have friends that have doctorates and they would talk about their dissertation process and I thought, oh my God, I would get frustrated and then I would be so angry that I take three years of coursework and then I don't finish because I don't want to finish a dissertation because of how difficult that process is. So, yeah, I definitely respect anyone who's gone through it and has done it. But let's backtrack a little bit. I didn't want to skim over because I didn't realize those coincided and went together. Let's talk about your talent agent starting that business. Like, how did it even start? Was it just something you wanted to do or did someone want you to help them? How did that go?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I never. It was something I never intended to. Okay, I never thought I would be working in today, never thought that during undergrad years, but I was always interested in a little bit of acting like. I was in a drama club in high school and during my undergraduate years I did take two electives in acting elect and I really enjoyed it. And I also took a theater class like a theater theory and history of theater type of class, which I enjoyed. So I put that aside.

Speaker 1:

And then when I was going for the Masters degree, one of my guilty pleasures that I was working really wasn't working. I was studying full-time. I had a lot of free time during the summer so I watched a lot of you could say, those trashy TV talk shows. So one of them, by stroke of luck, randomly reached out to them and said hey, I have a degree in psychology, do you need any help? And I remember after I had said no, I was like this is silly, they're not going to get back to me, sure enough. Two months later they're like we need to work with an intern. And this was Sally, just throughout the L show.

Speaker 2:

Oh, okay, yeah, I know that show.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was one of the so I got. That was like first foray in the entertainment industry and show business, which I will say one thing that was an eye-opening experience in both a good way and a surprising, disturbing way, because I didn't realize how much of it was acting conscripted, which is all very much the whole thing.

Speaker 1:

So I was working in a council I don't want to say department but there was a case in the 90s with Jenny Jones, for instance, where one of the guests murdered another guest and made national headlines. So now a legal thing for talk-suit has like a briefing afterwards, a follow-up to see how everyone's doing. So that was where I came with my department when I interned in, came into like the counseling afterwards and helping and doing follow-up and finding and getting referrals like whether it's a drug issue. It's like a substance abuse clinic in their town. So that's what I did. Now, after that, the person who was my supervisor was on the ground after 9-11 doing some crisis intervention work.

Speaker 2:

She called me and said I need your help.

Speaker 1:

And so that's where I started with the 9-11 work and that's where we started a company called Operation Healing America. The really company is more of a nonprofit. I started working with actors again and that kind of really ignited my interest in acting. So I tried my hand off in acting, but I realized it wasn't for me. I'm really not enjoying it. But while I was on set I kept noticing I wasn't enjoying the acting or the lifestyle of the actor. But I loved being around actors and I found myself going the extra mile. Maybe this is more than I have people pleasing tendencies, but I would start finding other opportunities on the casting though, which was for actors, and so you give them that. And then about two or three of them came to me and said I know you're not an agent, can you be my agent? Oh, okay. And then I said, okay, I can't do this. What do I do? And then the light bulb went off. Why don't I make this a business?

Speaker 1:

yeah and that's how that started. So this is back in 2004 now. Okay, so I started my first company, but again, just to make my family happy and to make myself happy to go. Fulfillment was I need to go back to my PhD and while I was over at, my dissertation was on actors. So by dissertation, how did you would self sabotage in actors. Okay, and that's what led my book eventually.

Speaker 2:

So that worked and all right. So we'll get there down that road for your book. Towards the end there it's a real all coming together type story. So you get through the pain in the ass. That is a dissertation, and so what are your next moves after that?

Speaker 1:

For one thing, it was just I couldn't believe what was happening. I was like thank you, because there were moments where I was ready to give up. I think I told you this before we recorded. I wanted to give up and I heard of so many people who have given up and they have what they call an ABD title by their name, which is all put into the nation.

Speaker 2:

I never heard of that.

Speaker 1:

I wouldn't want that, because that's not really a doctor, that kind of day and I I dropped that out of dhc, yeah. So I didn't want that. But a lot of people never make it disinvasion. I didn't know that. So when I had that, it was like it was surreal to be like called doctor and of course I was blasphemed everywhere. I went right and adopted and, hey, I worked hard for this yeah, I agree, you deserved it yeah, and so that was different.

Speaker 1:

And then I was like, okay, and at that time I wasn't teaching because I took some time off, so I was like I'm going to go back to teaching now and obviously that's what I did, and so I think life and I kind of had a moment where it was surreal I'm actually a doctor now and one of the interesting things with my family going back to my family support, I did get a lot of support from my family, but I don't think the celebration was quite what someone would expect it to be. Okay, in my own family I have a PhD. It was like that's great and that was it. It was like that and, looking back in hindsight, this is why I also tell people that a lot of times you can't expect your family to always provide the someone that you need.

Speaker 2:

So were you the first one to get a PhD in your family? I was not only to get the PhD, I was the first to go to college, and it was actually one of the reasons I did want to get a PhD, because I wanted to be the first in my family's lineage to have a doctorate. But at the end of the day the fear of the dissertation won out and I decided not to do it. So at least I set my next lineage up to hopefully potentially excel and do better than I did.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

All right. So did you start a psychology practice or did you go work for someone? How did that go?

Speaker 1:

During this process, I wanted to be that when I first started my PhD program, I started in clinical psychology. That was what I wanted to do.

Speaker 1:

But I started to not like the field of clinical.

Speaker 1:

The reason why for me again and this is only most speaking from my perspective what didn't resonate with me was the labeling people, pathologizing people, trying to oh, the over-medication, the over-stigmatizing people Okay, and just keeping people really stuck in a pathologizing state.

Speaker 1:

Or even some of my group colleagues in grad school were telling me what the case is, how they treat this one person and this person with this disorder for nine or 10 years. And it was starting like this question in my mind was nine or 10 years, hey, who's going to be able to afford that in a real world? Because most insurance companies are not going to say, not going to put out that kind of money. And for me I'm like something's not right if you're in therapy for nine years of the same person, because the idea of at least the way I thought, of the therapies to get better right. And and then another thing which I was dealing with at the time I'm sure it's a lot different now was the politics aspect of my field, because it was an online school. Most of the internships that were pre-approved for a PhD student looked at me, looked at a lot of us that were like online. Yeah, I had more.

Speaker 2:

So they didn't take you seriously.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they compared to I didn't take you seriously. Yeah, they compared to I was like an NYU or Columbia in their clinical psych program. I probably would have gotten internships a lot faster than this online university. So I was running into that issue, and so were a lot of my, a lot of my colleagues. Someone had to move across the country to find an internship, which I couldn't do. So I just said you know what I'm going to, I'm this far. Let me just go for the, in most cases an educational psych and research. So just get the PhD. In this way, I can call it a day. At this time I was teaching or joining what I was teaching. The talent agency was taking over. I said you know what? Let me just get a PhD, don't worry about it later.

Speaker 2:

And so how is your, your mental health, evolving as you're evolving? Did you say it was getting better, Did it stay the same? How did that go?

Speaker 1:

I would say I think a lot of it. To be quite honest with you, it's getting older, I think a lot of things, my ego kind of matured a bit and also having some. Really, I think in my mid thirties there were two incidents in my life that kind of rocked things up a bit. What happened was I was hired full-time assistant professor. Now I'm thinking like I'm set for life. It was 10 year track and I was getting a lot of overtime pay. But this was part of my mistake because I told you earlier I was a people pleaser. So anything that they asked me to do I said yes, yeah, which I think really looking back, and I said I might have been taken advantage of. Yeah, completely Physically, spiritually, emotionally, I was burnt out, sleeping all the time and I think obviously the quality of my work was separate.

Speaker 1:

So my fourth year I started doing well, but then we had a change in administration at the college, so nobody knew me, everybody was new. Now the administration side, because we had a new president of the college and vice president of academic affairs totally new, externally hired we get a memo saying that we're going to be letting go 15 faculty members. Every department has to make a couple of cuts. So I was one of those cuts in my department. So I get a letter in the mail I've been to damon's having, I get a letter on the weekend we're not reappointing you, and then you're done pretty much.

Speaker 1:

So that really rocked my world. Now, thankfully, because of my contract, I had another year left, a terminal year, which meant I had another year left, but that was it. So my identity just went because I thought again I was going to be set for life because I had very good teaching, evaluation and awards. Actually I had certificates, plaques on my wall for teaching yeah, apparently no, so that to me just really. I started spiraling down again to where I was like in my teenage years, like contemplating life.

Speaker 1:

Now, in my talent agency business, I hired somebody and it was a very sort of abusive relationship Because this person it was. I was falling under the people pleasing, codependent stage with this person. Okay, and of course we had a really bad falling out while I was looking at my teaching job. So that, believe it or not, it was hard when I was going through it, but when it actually happened, when I like the pervurial blanket, the fan, it was a wake up call I gave the fan. It was a wake up call when, instead of feeling bad, I felt empowered.

Speaker 1:

I felt inspired and I was like okay, I was just turned 36, now this is my time to really spend the time. Do my best in my talent agency, finish my PhD.

Speaker 2:

And like that my people-pleasing tendencies were pretty much over.

Speaker 1:

So you got serious. Yeah, and it was because of two experiences that rocked my world turned around inside out. So that's what makes a lot better today and that's why, like now, I'm really good at setting boundaries. I'm very good at Speaking up for myself. Enables me to position myself above other people.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so let's let's talk about, then, how you fuse your psychology with your work as a talent manager. How do you make those two work together?

Speaker 1:

Because of my dissertation and just my research with looking at with actors. I think it helps me even just generally understanding actors and understanding actor mindset a bit, that maybe behaviors that might annoy other agents or talent reps in my my field, I understand more and so I can connect with actors a little bit more and on a deeper level because of that. So I can help with again with mindset and all of that and I understand that I have a background in psychology. That's my way I can merge the two of them.

Speaker 2:

Okay, you say you wrote a book. What was your book about?

Speaker 1:

So my book is called rise above the script and it's about confronting self-doubt, mastering self-sabotage the performing artist. So it was because what was happening when I first started the agency? Uh, in 2004 and 5, I was noticing a lot of issues were happening with actors. They were self-sabotaging, and when I mean by self-sabotaging missing auditions, not showing for auditions, not being prepared for auditions, turning down auditions and yet, at the same time, really saying how much you wanted to find work.

Speaker 2:

So there was a major disconnect happening okay, yeah and so that is what led me down to it okay, and one of the things that I see that you talk about and I think it's important for anyone to know, not just artists but how do you understand the difference between high self-esteem that's toxic versus healthy self-esteem? How do you recognize those differences?

Speaker 1:

The one word answer for that is humble. Humbleness, humility with high, healthy, high self-esteem, does believe in themselves and takes advantage of every opportunity presented more hard and is proud of themselves but also, at the same time, knows that they are not perfect and that they're always the word okay. And someone with a hot, toxic kind of self-esteem believe that they're better than everybody else. It's like the grandiose, narcissistic side of things where I'm better than you or I'm better than this person and I see this a lot with, sometimes, actors where I'll talk to them, meet them and say where are you training at? I don't need training, I'm a good actor already.

Speaker 2:

Or how can they not pick me? They'd be lucky to have me.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, you know what makes us very toxic and some aspects are very toxic. I would say it's fragile, because when they get a moment of criticism constructive criticism they get offended very easily, yeah, and aggravated very easily. How dare you? Or what's wrong with you? That's a big difference, because without itself, the thing we know that we like to feed back that's the only way we grow.

Speaker 2:

That's true. Humble people and people with humility, which is something I consider myself. You can recognize when someone's trying to shit on you versus trying to help you and give you good guidance and advice that could maybe assist you in more knowledge, or whatever the case is. Being open to feedback is definitely important, otherwise, how are you ever going to grow, no matter what you're doing? So those are good points. All right, albert, I think we're reaching the end. We're about to wrap this up here. What is the last message or thought or idea you'd like to leave with the audience?

Speaker 1:

I would say just have knowledge and wisdom in yourself that you are enough and that you're capable. And that's kind of my own message to that. Many people Realize that the greatness they have within and all everybody you hear listening is great and wonderful. You just have to. You may just have to learn to believe that yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a very kind message. Yeah, that's a very kind message and also true that everyone does have something about them that is special and valuable. You just have to figure out what that is and believe in yourself, which is one of the things people struggle with is just believing in themselves. I want to thank you for being on my show and letting people know your life story and what you've gone through and how those situations led you to where you are today. Would you say you're living your best life today?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

All right, that's what we want to hear. That's what we'd like to hear. So, going from being suicidal probably even as early as seven, but definitely for sure around 12 or 13 to living his best life Now that's what we like to hear. Whatever you're dealing with, even if you're an adult with suicidal ideations or just feeling like your life is worthless and it's not going anywhere, it is never too late.

Speaker 1:

Never.

Speaker 2:

You just have to start making the best decisions for you and your life and stick with those. Even if you don't see instant, automatic change or turnaround, just believe your time will come and it will come. You just have to make the right decisions and make the right choices. So, for me, go to BrandonHellcom and please click on subscribe to podcast. It's only 10 bucks a month and that 10 bucks a month helps support this show and also gets you a couple episodes a month that only you, exclusively, can hear as a subscriber to the podcast. And follow me on my social media. I'm trying to build my social media, so my Instagram is bh underscore life is crazy. And my YouTube is Brandon held underscore life is crazy. And I appreciate you listening to us and giving us your most valuable resource, which is time, and we'll talk to you next time.

People on this episode

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Brandon Held

Host
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Dr. Albert Bramante

Guest