It was hard for me to learn this as a young man. It was apparently hard for Bryan Cranston, too. The star of Breaking Bad and Oscar nominee ultimately learned the only thing he could control in an audition was his performance. When he stopped trying to please the producers or casting directors and simply expressed the role as he saw fit, he got more roles. The idea to trust the process and not the immediate outcome has also shaped the arc of Phoebe Waller-Bridge's career, who created and starred in Fleabag, which went from a one-woman play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that critics panned to an Amazon Prime series that took home all the Emmys. 

 

I also discuss in this episode a key dictum of Stoicism, best reflected in Marcus Aurelius' Meditations: Control your thoughts and your actions, and accept that you can control nothing else.