We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mick Torres. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mick below.
Hi Mick, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I am resilient because I have to be. Being an artist and an entrepreneur makes me familiar with rejection. My first acting manager told me, “You’ll grow into your type. The next ten years will be rough, but don’t quit, because you’ll work a ton when you’re older.” That was nine years ago. I’m still here, and I’m a lot better than I was then. I am grateful for the rejection, because I have been able to fail in anonymity and prepare myself for the moment when it arrives.
Rejection is information. If the answer is going to be no, I like to find out quickly so I can adjust my course of action. I learned this resilient attitude from my dad, who early in his career worked as an encyclopedia salesman making door to door house calls. His boss told him, “If you knock on one hundred doors, you’ll get into two houses and you’ll sell to one of those two customers.” So each “no” just means I’m getting closer to the “yes” I’m working towards.
The hardest part of staying resilient is when doubt creeps in. My wife, Ashley, believes in me more than I do at those times. It’s her confidence that reminds me of my purpose and gives me the energy to keep going.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I hope my work inspires people and brings people together, both in fitness and in entertainment. Last year, my wife, Ashley, and I won a few awards for our first screenplay, “The Kindness of Strangers”, including Best Screenplay for the Asian American International Screenplay Competition by Asian Cinevision. Our prize was a table read in New York City where we got to hear our script out loud for the first time, and I got to play one of the roles. Ashley and I are currently working on our second project together.
In fitness, my start up company I’ve been working on for the last three years will launch this year. I can’t announce it yet, but I can say the mission is to bring personal training to folks who wouldn’t have previously had access to it and provide trainers a way to solve some of the inherent issues with personal training. I can also be found Monday through Friday training in-person clients at Equinox.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
One, my coworkers playfully tease me about my efficiency. It can seem almost robotic at times, but to take on all the projects I’m involved in, it’s essential. I optimize from the gross to the finite. Some artists thrive on the pressure of chaos, but I am not one of them. I built a system for my life that provides a stable source of income efficiently, so I still have time for my artistic pursuits.
Two, I connect with most people easily. Everything I do is a collaboration: training in-person clients, working on my startup company, acting, and even writing which I do with my writing partner. I prioritize knowing how the people I work with like to work, and try to communicate in a way that will resonate with each of them individually. Humor helps too.
Three, I’m weirdly good at ping pong.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and Atomic Habits together not only helped me optimize my time management but also led me to purpose driven living. By that I mean when you know your goals so specifically that you can write a personal mission statement, then it makes decision making very simple. Anything that does not align with my purpose is a no.
Contact Info:
- Website: micktorres.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/micktorres
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