Meet Kevin E West

We were lucky to catch up with Kevin E West recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kevin E, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
While I know this is about me, I do however feel, that my answer is more universal than it may appear. Based on my childhood in a single-parent home, and with that parent absent most of the time, I didn’t receive much “encouragement”. Not intended as a sob-story – just factual. Throughout my life, most of the people I have known, befriended, colleagues, partners etc., have had pretty good stories and relationships with their parents. I do strongly feel that a great deal of our early confidence, self-esteem, balance AND the ability to discover or find one’s purpose comes from our parental engagements. Therefore, for me, that was close to zero. Nonetheless, I do feel we all have a core purpose, and over the course of my 20s, mine sort of found me. What do you mean Kevin? Yep, I ask myself my own questions.) What I mean, feel and believe is that your true purpose can be found in what FUELS your daily drive. When we ignore this – we wind up living lives of quiet desperation. I have been an athlete since I was seven years old. I, as many do, wanted to be a professional athlete. When I chose to let that dream go it didn’t change my underlying and evolving purpose it just became clear that my purpose was going to lie in “Coaching – Motivating – Assisting” people with their goals, communications and life skill sets. The tangible reality of my purpose truly began when I chose to create, The Actors’ Network. The key, however, is to set aside that my organization was related to actors or within entertainment, that was just the audience and vehicle. My purpose was in doing private consultations which today fuels me as a corporate speaker and communication freak. To that end, as you seek to find or confirm your own, take note of how life may seem to ironically continue to keep pulling you into similar type destinations, as it did me. All roads kept pushing me toward this simple truth: I am a Communication Solutions-Based Justice Warrior! I can look back on my life and see it was always there and the decisions I made from my gut/soul slowly proved that out over time.

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?
Essentially my two brands today are as a veteran performer. I audition regularly and since this article is coming out shortly after the SAG-AFTRA strike, I have (3) pending movies as well as a ‘Life-Rights’ story I’m working to produce. After all of my years working in television my performer life/career simply idles at all times throughout my days. The other element of my brand would be the educational/consultant speaker part of my purpose. Whether it is social media, creation of a podcast, corporate communication or any other form of imparting information to make one’s life EASIER – that is part of my daily effort. At present I’m a weekly contributor to AbovetheLine.com magazine called, The Acting Biz. I regularly work with actors from all over the world: www.theactormba.com

Going back to the initial question of purpose I’m a constant TOGGLE switch between the performing arts and the individual mind. HOW we think, how we assess, how we solve – resolve, how we communicate, discern, understand nuance and varied situations be it work, personal, life goals or even with family, I am constantly engaging others regarding their mental processing. Ironically, this is also inherently helpful to myself, as a professional actor, because the more fluid and flexible my mind remains by engaging all types of people, ages, ethnicity etc., the better I am as an actor, period.

Due to the recent and unfortunate loss of an acting peer I am pushing a lot on mental health & self-care via VURVhealth.com. I have even managed to get SAG-AFTRA to add them to the National discount program so that union members can get 20% off. Their $0 co-pay for Tele Mental health assistance is a priority for many of us in entertainment. Life has always been a challenge regardless of age, beauty, wealth and other factors. The idea that one’s profession or standing equals happiness of short-sighted and foolish. Some of the happiest people I know live a very modest lifestyle but the strong influence of social media has shaken millions of people mentally since about 2010-ISH in my opinion.

That is why PURPOSE is so valuable and yet so elusive if ‘how you think and process’ isn’t fully developed within you or too clouded by so many other life distractions, emotions and difficulties. I will never stop trying to assist, in ANY industry, helping folks sharpen how they process life and information.

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?
I could spend all day writing and discussing this question…but I digress. Ha. This makes many of us who have crossed over a “certain age” to be reminded we all tend to wish we knew then what we know NOW. Approximately 20 years ago someone introduced me to the: “4-Agreements” and have lived by it ever since. While only one of the answers below is directly from the 4-Agreements they’re all products of the other three, without question. Due to social media and digital technology humans all over the world tend to feel that just because they have a phone – they have an equal skill set for everything, and obviously, this is simply untrue. We’re not all brilliant or experts…in everything, just because everything, can be found by an Internet search. Ironically some 30+ years ago I authored a quote for myself. This was indeed part of my own evolution and internal learning process. One of the key reasons that I coined this for myself was to try and assist in my own decision making process.

“Just because something is possible doesn’t make it a good idea.” –Kevin E. West

We live in a world now where so many options and decision can SEEM possible. Now, be clear, I’m not in any way attempting to have you LIMIT your dreams or goals. Actually, quite the opposite, because what I’m addressing is the absolute OVERWHELM that the Internet and mobile phones have created. In my opinion, this has become one of the biggest issues to overcome for many people globally. So be reminded that the question for was; Qualities, SKILLS, Areas of knowledge, right? This brings me to these three thoughts for you to consider.

Number one is literally one of the 4-Agreements: “Be Impeccable with your word.” If you ever fully learn to ONLY say what you mean and ALWAYS mean what you say – your life will improve a 1000-fold. I wasn’t a liar, I wasn’t flippant with promises or BS’ing people but once you really hear what you say, how you say it, and the commitments or promises you make and you become more and more hyper-specific your life will change. This one quality governs my life at all times.

Many books and pundits have weighed in on my, number two, but again life is about the execution of an idea…not just the idea. Learning the true ART of listening and truly embracing the ability to ask more questions, will also change your life. It can be natural, without being mean or rude, to be thinking about what we’re going to say or ADD to a conversation instead of really hearing and listening to all that is said first. I was terribly bad at this, due to a youthful degree of insecurity, in which I was always busy trying to PROVE myself to whomever was my audience so I’d blurt out a lot of times. Be clear, this isn’t an age thing, it is much more a quality I believe we need to be taught, reminded and can choose to practice daily. But when you learn to naturally listen and ask more questions than you give answers – again, I feel quite strongly the macro and micro scope of your life will change.

And finally, number three, which is a MIX of two of the “4-Agreements” but I wanted to make this a little more universal per the question and that is, trusting yourself. Often we refer to this as “trusting my gut” or “one’s spidey sense” or perhaps high-degrees of intuition. Either way, and however you couch it, this is absolutely a quality, a skill and an area of SELF-knowledge I finally began to master in my 30s and reached a place of absolute confidence in my early 40s. Yet, the ONLY way (in my opinion) you can ever learn to do so is to acknowledge and accept your mistakes. Yes, ALL of them, from the time you can remember. Through our strong-willed failures with people, business, activities, relationships…whatever, only through those, can WE learn to trust ourselves. Once again, go back to my earlier answer related to how we think and how we process. The more core truth you can infuse into information received in life and from others, then HOW you think and process will be improved, which creates consistent confidence.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?
This question resonates so much with me, not only based on RIGHT NOW in my life, but also as doing an interview like this pushes us to reflect on the “journey” of our lives. Life will always present us with obstacles, challenges and commonly they typically have really POOR timing. Ha ha. Whether poor timing is during the Holidays, post a break-up, a death or right after the loss of a job etc. Life can sometimes feel like it piles on to whatever is already tough or difficult. Since I am a solution-oriented person I kinda had to pick this question. I’ve already stated a most helpful book, the 4-Agreements which I simply cannot recommend enough. Get it, read it, re-read it and live it. Why? Because those four principles will assist you with overcoming any obstacle or challenge.

We, humans, do not tend to like to have to CHANGE or PIVOT or worst of all…feel like we’re starting over with almost anything after we’ve paid a certain amount of ‘life dues’. I certainly fall into that category as I’m writing this answer. To flip it to the reverse, when we’re younger we tend to feel we can’t fail, that we’re 100% certain what I think I want to do I always will do for the rest of my life. And yes, all of those possibilities and thoughts are indeed possible. The question becomes, what do you do, if you evolve into another vision of your life, or someone else affects your vision of your life, or circumstances FORCE you into another way of viewing your life.

If, or when, this happens to you please know it is common and it may not be just once. I commonly feel that, and you might as well, my life has been about eight distinct chapters and there still may be one or two left. In this answer, chapters represent, a real SHIFT in your focus, life or career. We tend to be more fearful of this when we’re younger or older and I’m currently in the face of the latter. This is why the first question I was asked matters so much, the word, PURPOSE. Yes, we can all make the Steve Martin joke from the movie “The Jerk” when he “finds his special purpose” but ironically how true and valuable is that. I’m about to embark on a NEW journey, that I feel I could have or should have done in my 20s and yet I didn’t. However, when I really examine what I’m about to embark upon it looks and feels like a very challenging obstacle, but when I step back I KNOW, it’s always been my true purpose.

So that is my parting shot. When you know, find or discover the core of you – that true purpose inside it will always be, and should be, a part of everything you do. So when you face a shift, a pivot, a change, an obstacle or a challenge GET focused on your purpose and use that purpose in the most intelligent way applicable to your current situation and it will help you with constructing great ideas, logistics and solutions to get “over that wall” and swim in the pool of confidence and trust!

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Ajay Jhaveri, Aaron Paul, David Lowe,

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