Meet Michael Vitovich

We recently connected with Michael Vitovich and have shared our conversation below.

Michael, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Resilience for me comes from a dark place, it comes from seeing a dream that no one else sees. I have accepted that there will be failures, stumbling and overcoming along the way. My secret power is stubbornness, which means I am driven differently than most others.

I just can’t accept the fact that my dream is out there, and there is a world or universe that I don’t achieve my goals. There is a saying that if you want success you have to get to the position of “burning your boats” this idea is to confront what you are afraid of, Failure…when failure is not an option because you can not retreat, you can’t shy away and it is either this or die trying.

I guess to answer your question about where I get my resilience, it comes from a place where I have no other options, than to succeeded. All I have to do is prepare myself for the fight, which going this path is full of battles.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
My story? My story is full of death, dying, and a very unique way of life. I’ve started to write down a collection of stories of moments and times over my life that someone might find interesting, it’s going to be a real candid look at the death care industry in America. It is going to tell people how someone like me was created, my work on the serial murders of imperial avenue and performing autopsies around the country.

I have been acting for the last 11 years and I have worked in the death care industry for nearly 30 years. I have worked coast to coast on projects and people. That does sound strange but coming from me, it’s not.

I have shifted my career over the last 5 years to be more focused on acting and growth as an artist. I have created characters that are just starting to be seen by major worldwide audiences. Small steps in the bigger plan but I have always said that falling on your face is still moving forward, you just have to get your ass back up and go.

My story is simple, yet the details are complex. I came to the realization that if this life is going to be full of disappointment, hate and sadness then I know what to accept and I know not to pay any attention to it. In life there will be moments that you can find or embrace that show you why life is worth living. We get so busy or driven that we lose perspective when it is right there, in front of us. In 2011 I was diagnosed with cancer and that changed how I saw the world. I had been working as a pathologist assistant for an over decade at that point, I knew what I was looking at as a future. It is one of those things, those dirty little gifts. Years of piecing together the broken pieces of someone’s lives cause us to reflect on our own. This kind of realization reminded me of a quote “battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you” said Friedrich Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil. We are forced to look within when confronting morality. My dirty gift is to see a future of maintaining a course. In other words, you can understand a person‘s beginning if you understand their ending. I knew that if I didn’t adjust or change I would be stuck, maintaining an existence… it becomes daunting when you can see clearly.

During a self-evaluation, after my cancer diagnosis, I had to really figure out what came easy to me, and the things that came easy to me can be looked upon as a gift or a curse. It’s a gift if you know how to use it and it’s a curse if you’re still learning to understand it. The “it” I am talking about are the personal set of skills that I have that I have learned to put to use for me, cultivating your skills is definitely something people should get behind. It’s one of the things that make YOU, unique within yourself. Like I said my story is simple. I have a dream in my heart and I am happy to share that with you and bring you along with me but don’t get in my way. I will go through you, around you, or past you to reach my goal. I only hope that people see it as positive and help, or get out of the way. Death is the end of my story, but I want you to come along with me as I keep writing the best parts.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Passion, hunger and drive. In terms of skills, analyzing, creating and planning… A career takes time to develop, just like skills.

Passion is vital; if you don’t have passion for what you’re doing then you will struggle for things to make sense when things are not going well. Passion is like a fire. You have to feed it and maintain it and if it burns out, it takes a lot to get it going again. From passion, that’s where you get the hunger to achieve, which also drives you to succeed.

Take one second to think what skills do you have? What skills do you need and what skills come easy to you? What do you value? These are all questions that you should be asking yourself because if you’re going on this journey and you have to go it alone, you have to know what skills, qualities and areas of knowledge you might need.

I look at it like this, qualities are something that you innately have or if you don’t they can be built up. Skills can be learned along with areas of knowledge. For me as an actor you need to break down elements of performance, business, and brand. First and foremost if your performance is not believable or not appropriate for the material, you may struggle to get work, so then classes are in your future so you can sharpen your skills and become better. I always liked the quote by Jeff Daniels… he said when young actors ask him what they can do, he would say, “go get good” it’s simple but powerful. As actors we need to get to a place where we develop the skills that we cannot be denied. The business side is tedious, detail oriented and at times painful. It’s networking, positioning, and sometimes it’s luck. Brands are built with time and exposure; podcasts, social media, interviews like this one, and red carpet events are all moments that reflect upon you and the type of person and character that you are when you’re not working.

My best advice is to ask yourself where you want to go in this career, because you can shift gears as you develop. The most important things to remember are to never get comfortable, always look for ways to improve, develop a skill, or simply just understand a concept. Remember, it’s a community of a lot of other people so don’t be afraid to give back because everybody is on this path.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?
The Book of Five Rings by Musashi Miyamoto has had a profoundly positive impact on my life. I started reading this book in an effort to understand what it takes to be the best at something not in my chosen field. They say that it takes 10,000 hours to become a master at anything so the best thing to do is practice. Develop your skills or sharpen your sword so to speak. There are a number of inspiring quotes throughout this book that have helped guide and influence my journey. The one that sticks out to me the most is, “Seek nothing outside of yourself. Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men.” If you’re not taking time to improve each day, are you making steps towards your goal or are you going through the motions and hoping that something else will help you move forward. The key is, are you being the active change that you need to become so you are the best that you can be.

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Image Credits
Chuck akland, Bernie Wentzal, Michael nori

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