We recently connected with Sarah Gaboury and have shared our conversation below.
Sarah, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
How do I keep my creativity alive? I love this question because it’s absolutely essential that I ask myself this very question regularly.
I have kids, a partner, a business…and it’s tremendously easy to sort of fall asleep at the wheel if you’re not careful.
I tend to get all my best ideas – and get into my best flows – when I slow the f*** down and stop doing so much. And this is tremendously hard as a person who does constantly.
My favorite singer and mind-blowing lyricist Adrianne Lenker was asked in an interview where her creative drive comes from and she answered…after a long pause… “It’s constantly coming into the awareness that I’m alive”. And I’ll tell ya’, that sentence stopped me in my tracks.
And there’s really something to that, I think. When I’m not asleep – meaning – when I’m present with my kids and taking precious time with them to connect after school, when I can appreciate the deliciousness of my flannel sheets on a chilly night, when I can savor every bite of sourdough toast with Kerrygold butter because, hey, I’m alive and life is precious. When I’m in that space I can create stuff. I can be intuitive with actors and directors and collaborators in that space. This is when I’m in flow and I feel pretty dang good.
But unfortunately I can’t find a flip to switch that keeps me in that mode…and I’m no stranger to burnout, overwhelm and anxiety. So when I start to lose the present moment and the awareness of the gift of being alive starts to fade (I tend to get a tightness in my chest that clues me in), I go all in on my self-care practices, This looks like daily movement minimum 30 minutes, an almost zero news policy, meditation (I do TM), Radical Acceptance using the R.A.I.N. process, and I put myself into a bubble of audiobooks and podcasts that help me like Brene Brown, Glennon Doyle, Gabor Mate, Pema Chödrön..and of course music! I try to schedule blank space in my week to do nothing. (very hard!) I surround myself with people who love and support me (and not the ones who trigger me) when I’m feeling rocky. And I pay attention to where I might be saying yes when I really should be saying no.
I think all of this is a big part of what helps me keep my creativity alive.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Growing up I literally never thought twice about what I wanted to do for a living. I always wanted to act. And I pursued it hard for many years and got to work professionally in tv, theatre and film, but when I started to get burned out on bartending and working as an assistant, I started coaching actor friends on the side and eventually got invited to work with kids at my friends’ theatre camp in the Santa Cruz Mountians (campyatc,com). It was at camp where I fell in love with teaching and a whole new career was born.
Now, I own and operate Real Actor’s Lab (realactorslab.com), a busy online acting studio, where I get to work with actors all over the world. I travel to teach in person acting workshops and am lucky to get to work as a coach on film and tv sets. In 2021/22 I was the on-set acting coach on NBC’s hit TV show “This Is Us” for the entire last season which was insane and an absolute thrill.
I think the part about coaching actors I find almost intoxicating is getting to be a part of a process that ultimately leads them back to themselves. The stuff that holds us back in our acting is the same stuff that clogs up our life. So, helping actors lean into the present moment, and ultimately the truth about themselves, is the most incredible thing. It often makes me emotional when an actor has a breakthrough, it’s so beautiful. And then, of course there’s the storytelling! When I get into the flow of a creative writing or directing project, I can lose track of time for hours. That’s how I know it’s “play” for me
I was lucky to get to bring in another teacher, the gorgeous and talented actor Adria Tennor, when I started working more frequently on set. It has been really fantastic to collaborate with someone who works so similarly to me, but who is also still working professionally as an actor all the time. She’s so good at what she does. Actors who work in our studio always reflect how truly “safe” the space we create is, which I think is extra special about what we uniquely bring. We help actors get out of their own way so they can tell the story (instead of kill it!). There’s no dogma here and I’d say we pull from a bit of everything, marrying technique with personal growth/inner work. Actors are constantly telling us how blown away they are with their growth in the craft working in our studio and we’re pretty proud of that. It’s all about telling the story. We don’t care if you’ve won an Emmy or if you’re just exploring acting because you’ve always wanted to. I like to say, Stories over StarMeters.
I also get pretty excited when I get to support directors. This is work I love. Sometimes I’ll help prep directors who are maybe still a little insecure about working with actors. A lot of directors come up in the camera world and maybe took a semester of “working with actors” at film school but that‘s it and I can really help them get to the core of what the scene is about and give them language that will elicit the most powerful responses from the actor Directors, even ones who and great at working with actors, have a ton on their plate and it can be so helpful to have another set of eyes behind the monitor I find this work super creative and rewarding. I love being on a team.
We’re always open to working with new people at Real Actor’s Lab, both emerging and seasoned alike. An interested actor/director just needs to set up an interview to make sure it’s a fit and we can find the best way to work together. https://bit.ly/20withsarah
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge?
I need to quote Marie Forleo here for the first one and share a mindset that’s been invaluable to me on my journey as a mom, partner, CEO and working coach: “it’s all figure-out-able”. I’ve hit so many roadblocks on my career path, including the recent double union strike, and it’s easy to panic. But when I focus on what’s right in front of me, there’s always a next step– and a next— and I always figure something out, even when it looks like a mess for a while.
The second is, without a doubt, my personal favorite mantra: “I do my work, I do not prove my worth.” I can’t tell you how often I use this when I start to freak out, doubt myself or go into a negative self-talk / imposter syndrome spiral. I use this mantra when I have meetings with people who intimidate me, when I start coaching a new actor whose work I know and respect, or when I’m working with a new director on set and I start second guessing myself or get afraid to give my notes. It usually calms me down almost instantly and helps my money mind get out of the way so I can do my job.
And lastly, I owe so much to the incredible training I got – as an actor, business owner and healing human – and all that work I’ve done serves me every day in my business. I was lucky to get to study with world renown teachers like Larry Moss and Patsy Rodenburg who influenced what I teach for sure. But I also have to throw a bone to my business coach Dallas Travers (I would not have a business without her!), my many yoga teachers, my meditation practice, my therapists, my breathwork coach Brittany Hatcher, all of Brene Brown’s books and podcasts, my spiritual practice and all the books and workshops that have helped me get back to myself.
How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?
My biggest challenge right now is that I spend too much time on Zoom when I’m not on set and I’m craving more in person opportunities. (And I’m always looking for new on-set coaching gigs!)
I’ve been debating the idea of opening a small physical studio in LA, but so many of the actors my other teacher Adria Tennor and I work with are across the country and world and the overhead of a space is major. Lately I’ve actually been fantasizing about leading destination retreats for actors which I think would not only be incredibly fun but deeply impactful. I have zillion ideas brewing…perhaps this is something I could collaborate with another talented artist on.
Anyone looking to team up or collaborate on a project can contact me directly sarah (at) realactorslab.com
Contact Info:
- Website: https://realactorslab.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realactorslab/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-gaboury/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/realactorslab
- Other: Anyone interested in my work can watch my free masterclass: https://realactorslab.com/free-masterclass
Image Credits
For my first professional headshot: Katerina Hung
