Meet Kevin Bringman

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kevin Bringman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kevin, thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.

I think the general source of my optimism and general positive outlook comes from my grandmother. I know from her history that she has endured a tremendous amount of adversity and challenges in her life and I use her as a general source of inspiration and a moral compass for all of my endeavors at this point in my life. A younger version of me felt that a particular outlook might have been unnecessary and that i didn’t need any moral compass or philosophy for approaching the ebbs and flows of happiness and disappointments that come with life. But, as I got older and some of those disappointments began to solidify into bitterness and regret i realized I had to think about my own disappointments differently and put everything into a broader context. People always go through difficult times. Everyday life is difficult. Navigating the often whimsical madness of everyday life can be challenging, especially if one allows bitterness and hatred to be overpowering and all-consuming forces. I break my everyday life down into very simple terms; eating well and sleeping. My entire world revolves around these very simple needs. Everything else is a product of acheiving a proper regulation of those basic needs and I generally feel like as long as I’m able to satisfy those basic needs then everything is going to be okay. People in the world have much more difficult issues to deal with and my personal basic needs seem trivial compared to the needs of families and the needs of society. There are wars raging on and many innocent people going through much more difficult circumstances than me, so in the broader socioeconomic lense and the basic lense of humanity, I’m doing just fine and my positivity comes from knowing that I really do not have it as bad as others. I’ve endured hardship, homelessness, poverty, personal life trauma, but nothing I’ve experienced has been debilitating or has robbed me of my dreams and desires to achieve my goals.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I discovered the world of entertainment and acting later in life. I spent my early childhood and adolescence in Bradenton, Florida, where I was born and moved to Anderson, South Carolina (birthplace of the late great Chadwick Boseman) when I was fifteen, which was interesting transitioning from a life growing up near the beach to a life in the country. Life in South Carolina is much more modest and practical compared to life in Bradenton. The general culture in the south is either to conform to what everyone else is trying to do or risk alienation and feeling like a social outcast and after awhile of living there and adapting to the lifestyle I wanted to conform not only because I felt like it was the right thing to do, but I wanted to please my grandparents who agreed to raise me after my life with my birth parents basically fell apart. And I did that for a very long time. I worked regular jobs. I went to college and double majored in English Literature and Psychology. I worked regular jobs after graduating, but still felt unfulfilled as if there was a void, a lack of self-worth that needed to be nourished. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, so I went back to graduate school and started a dual MSW/JD program at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. I was engaged and i thought I wanted to finally settle down, but the circumstances of life had other plans. My relationships became toxic and disappointing, shattering my sense of self and sending me into a spiraling nightmare of destructive self-inflicted behavior along with a deep sense of anxiety and pressure that i caved into and I simply could not sustain the trajectory i thought my life was heading. I dropped out of graduate school and i needed to reinvent myself.

I always had a curiosity for acting. Film was a integral part of my life already. Film was the primary way my father and I connected as well as with my grandfather. My maternal grandfather was a tremendous influence on me. He was one of the smartest men I’d ever met who could speak intelligently on almost any subject. However, towards the end of his life he had become reclusive and shied away from interacting with the public and family. I don’t know why exactly, undiagnosed agoraphobia and paralyzing anxiety, but I couldn’t say for sure. Film, however, was the only way we could truly connect. We would watch all kinds of movies and discuss plot and production and storyline and character development and what might’ve gone into developing the character, just really long conversations about movies and the way we felt about them. We didn’t really express our feelings in any other way except through the disection of film.

I got a unique opportunity to study drama at NYU Tisch by auditing classes and with less that $700 in my pocket i up and moved to New York City in my late twenties and embarked on the journey that I am currently on. I love film. I loved living in NYC. I loved the fast pace life and waking up everyday feeling like as soon as I stepped outside I was already in an adventure. I deliberately researched the area where Stanley Kubrick grew up in The Bronx and I moved very close to that particular area. Kubrick is my absolute favorite film maker. I love his approach to making film and especially his approach to working with actors and doing a lot of takes and demanding the actor create something authentic and raw, getting to the absolute emotional core of a character. I did well in NYC, but it took time. I would go back home to South Carolina to take breaks, sometimes those breaks would take longer than originally planned because I would have to help my family and care for my grandmother. I did a lot of short films, mostly lead roles, and I gained a tremendous amount of invaluable knowledge that I think one could only get from living in NYC.

I came to California five months ago after another long break because I wasnt sure I wanted to continue to pursue acting, but the fire still burned and I feel like I still have not accomplished what I know I can. Since I’ve been here I’ve already landed leads roles in short films, a manager, and a job at Universal Studios Hollywood, so I think I’m doing okay. There is constant struggle and adjustment, but I’m generally navigating my way through what I hope will be the conclusion of a long journey beset with sacrifice to do the thing that I’ve grown to love the most, which is being able to connect with people on a emotionally raw level and create complex layered characters that are empathetic and relatable.

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?

Patience is always a quality I believe best benefits anyone on a journey to self-actualization, the realization that accomplishing dreams and goals are not achievements that are going to happen over night. A lot of what happens is dedication and patience, continuing to strive and work for goals that may or may not come to fruition, but that the journey itself is a kind of reward for even making the effort.
Persistence is a major quality that I deem important. Anyone embarking on a journey of any kind need to remain persistent in their pursuit. There are going to be detractors and naysayers and so-called ‘haters’ that are going to object to your pursuits, are going to give you a hard time, are going to make the journey deliberately bumpy and the real challenge is in not allowing these forces to make you second guess yourself or make you feel defeated. These forces and objections should be treated as background noise. There presence is acknowledge, but ultimately one must choose to subdue these forces and treat them as mere distractions to the ultimate goal.
Kindness is also something I value immensely. Such a feeling or emotion will eventually be recognized. The simple act of being kind or demonstrating some level of decency towards people and having a general approach to life of being kind not only makes you feel good about yourself, but adds to a general positive outlook and makes enduring the hardships easier.

Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?

I think self-improvement is always an essential component to growth. I think focusing solely on your strengths is an incredibly myopic perspective and an easy approach to self-congratulatory behavior. Your strengths are only one component of success and I believe will only take one so far. Ultimately, everyone brings different perspectives and strengths to the table and with a sole focus on all of the things one does great or is good at leaves a lot of room to get tripped up by weaknesses. For example, I know that I am generally a patient and kind person, but I have social anxiety and i often find myself retreating into a shell of self-alienation and withdrawal and this limits my ability to be comfortable in social situations when I am not entertaining or performing. When I’m performing I am inhabiting a character that I created from my imagination and from pieces of myself, but in everyday life I am a generally quiet and reserved person that values privacy, so putting myself out there is something that I am constantly working on and challenging myself to do. I think only through knowing our weaknesses, knowing where the need for improvement exists, can one truly acheive self-actualization and through that become more well rounded with humanity because everyone is struggling with something even if there is a refusal to admit. I think finding self-actualization through self-improvement also makes one more empathtic towards the feelings and perspectives of others, which will also serve as a phenomenal oitlet for acheiving success in all areas of life.

Contact Info:

  • Instagram: iamkevinbringman
  • Other: TikTok@immabringman

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