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[0:00] Justin Guarini: Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to Audition Secrets. Yesterday was Veterans Day, so I just wanna say a real quick thank you to all the veterans all over the world who are listening right now. Thank you so very much for your service. Today's episode is awesome. Seven pre-audition tips, tricks that will help you rise above the competition. All right, let's get right to it. Welcome to Audition Secrets, the podcast. My name is Justin Guarini, and I'm an audition and performance expert with over 25 years of experience in the entertainment industry. You see me on huge television shows like American Idol, playing characters like Lil Sweet in national television commercials from brands like Diet Dr. Pepper, on Broadway in six musicals and plays, as well as on Instagram and Facebook, where I bring you success mindset coaching on the regular.

Each week on this podcast, you'll learn actionable strategies, mindsets, and tips that take the guesswork out of creating auditions and performances that make you stand out from the crowd and help to increase your odds of getting the job so that you can create the career and lifestyle you work so hard for each day. If you haven't picked up your copy of the book, Audition Secrets, Volume One, then all you need to do is visit auditionsecretsbook.com to get instant access to your copy. The Audition Secrets book and this podcast are your secret weapons to rising above your competition, successfully navigating the entertainment business, and keeping your sanity as you rise to the top. So kick back and relax. Five, six, seven, let's go.

[1:43] Justin Guarini: All right, seven audition prep tricks that will help you rise above your competition. Now, I've spoken with directors, casting directors, all kinds of creative people who sit on the other side of the table, and while they have varying viewpoints on the pleasure they derive from auditions or don't derive from auditions, almost all of them agree that the audition process is unnatural, if not downright barbaric. And it's just as much of a challenge for the people you're auditioning for as it is for those of us who come in and get anywhere from five to seven minutes to prove that we are the one. So I wanna share with you seven ways that you can prepare for your audition so that you can rise above your competition, stand out, and increase your chances of getting the job you're after, the job that you've worked so hard for.

Okay, number one, and let me take a quick second to preface this by saying I wanna go in chronological order and to tackle more of a broad idea for my first tip that the other tips will branch off from. And it's all about one of the first things that you can do to immediately make a difference in your auditions. And funny enough, it happens way before you even get to the audition room or casting office. So let me preface it with a very quick story. Back when I was first kicking around the idea of creating Audition Secrets, I didn't just wanna use my own perspective and my own experiences. I wanted to reach out to my friends who are in the Broadway community, who are in the television community, who are people who've had just as much experience as I've had or more experience in some cases, like Tony Award winners and Emmy Award winners and what I like to call my shiny friends.

And so I sent out a bunch of emails and had conversations and asked questions about these people's experience inside the audition room. And one of the first questions I asked them was this, when does the audition begin? And that's the same question that I'll pose to you. Now, when do you think that your audition begins? And I got a lot of different answers. Like when I step into the audition room, when I step into the casting office, in the elevator on the way up to the casting office, the moment I get out of bed on the day of the audition, all kinds of really wonderful answers, none of which were wrong. But I noticed that the people who have had the most success that I reached out to, the award winners, the people whose names you know and the people whose names you don't know but have been working consistently for decades in the Broadway community and the theater film television community, all responded in relatively the same way.

And their response was this, the audition begins the moment you get the material. And that's what I'd like to share with you for this first of seven audition prep tricks. Recognize that your audition begins the moment you get the material in your inbox or in your hands. Hopefully you get it before you have to go into the room. Sometimes we get things the day of, but regardless, it happens the moment that you get it into your hands or into your inbox. And everything that happens between the moment your material arrives and the moment you leave the audition room has an effect on your audition. Therefore, it is a part of your audition. What you think, what you eat, what you do with your body, what you say, who you hang around with, how you prepare your mind, body and spirit, and of course, how you approach the material.

All of that is a part of your audition. And I know that sounds heavy. It sounds like a lot, but I don't say this to burden you. I just say it to encourage you to be a little bit more aware of what it is that you do, what it is that you think, what it is that you eat, what it is that you say about yourself and even about the material because it's all part of the audition. Your audition begins the moment you get the material. Okay, so that's prep trick number one. Just a bit of a shift in perspective. Your audition begins the moment you get the material.

[5:41] Justin Guarini: Okay, number two, memorization is key. You know memorization is a big deal, but I wanna share with you something that will make memorization a little bit easier for you. A few months from now, I'm gonna release a memorization technique that I use and that I have been working on that I've seen amazing results from. I've seen such amazing results that I was able to memorize a brand new musical, sides, lyrics, blocking, choreography, everything in just a few days using this technique. And I'm not gonna go into the story, but the cliff notes are basically that I was asked to learn this whole new musical and I only had two and a half days to learn it before the first preview. It was absolutely wild.

And look, I was able to hold the sides for the first few days where the previews, but the end of the week, I was using this technique and I had the entire show memorized. It was one of the most wild things that's ever happened to me. An actor got injured and like I said, about two and a half days before the first preview, the artistic director from the theater called me and said, hey, can you please come in and do this? Is there anything that you can do? Because I've worked there before and they know me, they trust me. And I said, okay, because I love this theater. And I was willing to go in and just learn it. And I did it and I did it using this technique. But let me share with you two things that I do to help me memorize material quickly, because that's what we have to do, right?

We gotta learn stuff. Sometimes we get things hours before we have to be called into an audition. It's a luxury if we get them a few days. It's one of the greatest things that could ever happen if we get it a few weeks beforehand or a week beforehand or five days beforehand. But this is what you can do, no matter where you get it in that cycle of time, to memorize more quickly and to get it into your body. And it's gonna help you stand out. Okay, so here it is. Step one, take the material that you're working on, whether it's a scene, song lyrics, monologue, and read it out loud as fast as you can three times. Now, if it's a scene and there's someone else talking, speak your lines out loud, super, super fast, and then silently read their lines in your head as fast as you can.

Then speak your lines out loud as fast as you can and then read their lines in your head as fast, and so on and so forth. If it's a monologue, obviously this is much easier. It's usually just one-way traffic. You can speak it out loud. And song lyrics, the same thing. But why read it out loud as fast as you can, even if you're messing up the words, even if it sounds mushy or whatever? Why would we do that? And there's a whole bunch of psychology behind it. And I'm just gonna basically boil it down to this. It's just another way of getting the words into your brain that gets you past your judgment filter. And what I mean by judgment is like, oh, this is a good line. And oh, how do I say this one?

What do I do? All those things that go through our head as we're learning the lines, we get past those. It's a unique way of inputting the words on your brain in a new way that they usually don't get put there. And that's really not the best sentence I've ever spoken, but you know what I'm saying, right? The old way is to repeat the words ad nauseum and it feels like we're taking a sledgehammer to our skulls. This way is more like a ninja quietly slipping past the guards and getting the job done. The second piece of my memorization technique is to get active. Instead of just sitting there and again, trying to beat words into your head, get up on your feet and as silly as it will feel, act out the words that you're trying to memorize as you say them.

It should look like either extremely bad acting or like early 20th century acting where like you're indicating, you're pointing to yourself when you say the word me or I or almost like an interpretive dance at some points. If I were speaking some dialogue like, oh, look at that beautiful tree over there, I would literally put like the two fingers to my eyes. And when I said, look, and then point over to somewhere where I'm imagining a tree over there. And when I say tree, I would actually do an interpretive dance or some sort of movement that represents a tree. And yes, it is silly. Yes, it is ridiculous, but you would be surprised how much easier it is to remember the words that you're supposed to say because you're active.

They're in your body. They're not just words on a piece of paper. They actually become part of a movement and just part of a physical representation. Again, another way of imprinting the words on your brain and in your body in a way that they're not normally done. And it just seeks in. Of course, you would never ever do this in a performance or in the audition room, right? I mean, I think that goes without saying, but I'm gonna say it anyway. But for rehearsal purposes, it just gets it into your brain and your body and helps you memorize more quickly. Try those two steps and let me know how it works out for you.

[10:31] Justin Guarini: Number three, again, this is a very simple thing, but people forget to do it. Watch what you eat, not just the night before, but for at least a day or two before your audition. Look, dairy and I are not friends. We have not been friends for quite some time now. And yes, I know I'm not gonna insult your intelligence. You most likely know that dairy is something you shouldn't eat before auditions or avoid before auditions because of mucus. Not only dairy, but acidic foods like tomato sauce, red wine, things that are high in acid content, because that stuff will get your stomach acid all riled up. You know this, and I know that you know this. And if you don't, now you do. But I would like to take it a step further and say just these two things, or maybe three things.

The night before your audition, eat an early dinner, maybe even a couple hours earlier than you normally would. That way the food isn't sitting on your stomach overnight and your stomach acid isn't washing up and around in your throat and your esophagus and blah, blah, blah, all the things you know. But I would also encourage you to carefully monitor the dairy and acids that you take in and eat the days preceding the audition. Give your body a chance to clear out the mucus. Give your body a chance to reduce the inflammation that can come with an acidic diet, and you'll be surprised at what happens. Now, I'm not a doctor, and please consult your doctor before making changes to your diet or taking any of my nutrition advice, and especially before taking the next piece of advice.

Inflammation is a huge culprit in our struggle to feel good just in general most days, much less vocally good, physically good in our joints if we have to dance or move, all of that. So how do we reduce inflammation in a way that helps us performers? A couple of ways. Which is a natural inflammation-reducing supplement. You can get pills, teas, darn near anything you want with turmeric in them, right? That's one way to go about it. Obviously, OTC painkillers like Advil can work if you take them in cycles. This is something that my wife taught me. I was like, oh, I have a headache. Boom, I'll just take some Advil, and then we're good to go. Or if my back's been hurt, my knee's hurt, and I'll just take it one time, and that's great.

I don't like to take medication, really, especially when it comes to aspirin and all those things. I don't love doing that. I'll do it if I have to, but it's not my sort of go-to thing. But my wife taught me, she's like, look, you have cycles of inflammation, and you have to take cycles of X, Y, and Z, whether that be homeopathic or an over-the-counter or whatever it is, but in this case, we're talking about Advil. You have to take it in cycles to break the cycle of inflammation. Again, consult your doctor on this one. This is just what has worked for me. But there are a million other ways to reduce inflammation in the body, and many of them are natural and homeopathic. I'm not going to take the time to explain all of them to you, but I'm just here to open up some new perspectives and encourage you, with your doctor's counsel, to try some new or different ways of preparing your body for battle. Battle, in a sense, is the audition, right? And the reduction of inflammation is a huge shield against a lot of pain, a lot of suffering that we go through in the audition process.

[13:49] Justin Guarini: Number four, sleep. Again, duh, but so many people think that getting a good night's sleep before audition is a huge deal, and it is. But just like the audition begins way before you set foot in the room,

[14:02] Justin Guarini: Sleep cycle and getting the proper amount of rest it takes to be able to deliver the kind of performance you want starts well before the night of your audition. I'm not going to go into the stats and facts and figures surrounding how important sleep is for bodies. You're just going to have to trust me when I say that sleep is a vital resource and that the majority of people in our business and in our world just don't get enough of it. Getting a good night's sleep before a big audition is really good. Getting a good night's sleep all week before your audition is excellent. Going to bed at the same time and getting up at the same time helps to create a stable sleep cycle that allows you to heal, to release stress, and to wake up more refreshed and more ready to face the slings and arrows of the day, which we face many of those in the audition world.

There are a million sleep apps and different things that you can do out there that you can put on your phone or your smartwatch and it'll help track your sleep cycle and that's something that you should do that really will be helpful for you because sleep is like, oof, man, it is a number one challenge, problem, whatever you want to call it for people just in regular life, much less in our business. As a matter of fact, I just saw on Tony Award nominee Caitlin Kinnunen's Insta story that she's been tracking her sleep. I think she slept for like 18 hours or something wild because she was exhausted because of her schedule. That's so important to be able to see when am I getting that deep, good, healing sleep or am I just getting restless sleep and am I too hot, all of those things, all those factors you can track and you can measure very easily and you can begin to see amazing results from your sleep.

Again, I know that getting good sleep is auditioning 101, but even with the most basic of concepts, it's good to revisit them and deepen your understanding of the basics because the majority of your competition will not think deeper into the things that they quote unquote already know. Revisiting the foundations of our training and getting good at the basics is what separates the moderately successful from the ultra successful.

[16:06] Justin Guarini: All right, moving right along, number five, mind games. We play so many games, especially mind games with ourselves before, during, and after auditions, but there's one mind game that we can play that will actually help us have better auditions and simply put, that game is called visualization. Again, don't mean to be simplistic. Most likely you have heard of the concept of visualization and most likely you are not using that concept and skills associated with visualizations to make your auditions better, to prepare yourself for the absolute roller coaster of emotions that we all experience before, during, and after auditions. There's a very good reason why Olympic athletes, let's take bobsledders for example, will not only train their bodies to be able to run and push the sled and gather up the speed it takes to get going down the track and then do practice runs over and over and over again, but oftentimes they'll get photos of each twist and turn of the track and go through them over and over and over again as well.

They'll memorize the track, then close their eyes and see themselves taking each turn and each twist of the track with ease and following the best line of attack that will get them through the turn the fastest and most efficiently. Well, in my humble opinion, we are no less athletes than they are. They train for years just to get three minutes of time on the actual field of play, let's call it, and we're the same way, right? We train for decades just to have five to seven minutes in a room to show everything we've learned over those decades and that we are worthy of being number one and getting the job. One way to beat back the nerves, to really truly get a feel for what it's like, what it's going to be like, rather, to deliver the material, to get more than one shot at the audition, is to visualize yourself in the audition.

Visualize yourself in the casting room waiting. As much detail and as rich as you can make your visualization, as much as you can put success and the feelings of, yes, I nailed it, that was awesome, the people on the other side of the table loved it, I felt good, all that good energy that you can put into your visualizations, the more of that that you can put in there, the more of that will come out in reality. I know it's a bit woo-woo, but I like to balance a little woo-woo with science and facts and all that other stuff, but try it, because I guarantee you 99% of your competition is doing it the old way, which is just not preparing themselves in the sort of the mental, physical, spiritual space.

My goal for you is to teach you new techniques and or new perspectives on old techniques that will help you to rise above your competition, and visualization is one of the keys to your success in the audition room, and it can be just however you want it. There's no rules. There's no wrong or right way to do it. There's your way to do it, the way that makes you feel good, and the more that you can feel good visualizing, the more that you will feel good in the audition room, and especially after you leave the audition room.

[19:10] Justin Guarini: Number six, disconnect. I love social media as much as the next person, but it has no business inside of the casting room, certainly not inside of the audition room. I mean, again, that's a huge duh, but I would even go so far as to say that it has no business being in your life the day of the audition. I know that may come as a shock or sound wild, because social media is such a huge part of our lives, and I love documenting my days as much as everyone else, but unlike your competition, you can take all of the creative energy and all of the focus that you put into social media and transfer that into being laser focused, calm, ready, relaxed in your body and free of distraction, so that you can step into the casting office full of that energy, and step into the audition room with the confidence and the focus and just the power that your competition won't nearly have as much of as you do.

Yes, you can still feel nervous. Yes, you can still feel all the feels, but far too often we use our cell phones and we use talking to other people in the casting office as a distraction from how we feel, and look, it works, but I believe it is a cheap alternative to actually feeling our feelings, feeling that nervous energy, and taking command of those feelings, taking command of that energy, and instead of allowing our feelings to work on us, going to work on them, and learning how to use them to our advantage. I've become friends with my fears, and in return, they have taught me more about myself, given me more life, when I've listened to what they had to say, when I've questioned what it is they've had to say, when I've fought back against the fears that didn't serve me, and learned how to redirect the energy those fears took up into energy that strengthened me.

You know, I like to think of it as a simple electrical circuit. Now, bear with me here, I'm a little bit nerdy and I hope I don't lose you, but this is going to make sense, just trust me, but think of a light bulb, and then think of a wire attached to that light bulb, and those wires, or that wire rather, is attached to a battery. It's a simple circuit. Battery, wire, light bulb, and obviously the battery outputs energy, and that energy flows into the wire, that flows into the light bulb, where the filament inside the light bulb is energized, and boom, you have light. But what happens when that wire between the battery and the light bulb is frayed? The energy coming from the battery gets dissipated and rerouted out into the air, and anywhere and everywhere, but directly towards the light bulb, where it's supposed to go, and the resulting effect is that the light is not nearly as bright as it would otherwise be if that wire weren't frayed and split, and sending off energy into the ether.

Well, the same thing holds true for us. If we are allowing our fears to dissipate our energy, and send all of that energy, all that talent, and all the things that we work on day in and day out to be the best that we can be at the things that we love to do, if we allow our fears to dissipate and block that energy going to that light that we shine in the audition room or on the stage, that light will not be as bright. People won't be able to see as much of our talent shine through because we're not feeding 100% of our energy towards it. We're allowing our connection to be frayed. Does this make sense? Our connection is not as strong as it could be. So the way to repair that disconnect, or that fraying of our energy, is not to ignore our fears, or to tamp them down, but to embrace them, question them, bring them into the light.

Because the majority of your fears are things that once you examine them in the light, will fall to dust in your hands. Or they're fears that kept you safe as a small child, but no longer serve you as a young adult or adult. Now I could go on and on here, but the main point of what I'm saying is disconnect from the distraction, and start doing things that will help reconnect you to the present moment. Fears and all!

[23:21] Justin Guarini: I have an amazing exercise, appropriately called my nerve-crushing exercise, and it's a 5 minute audio and a 10 minute audio where I guide you through an exercise that will help center you and focus you and is absolutely perfect for when you're sitting inside the casting room office, and rather than feeling nervous and just kind of like, what do I do? If you just want to feel calm, so that you can focus, it's absolutely fantastic, and it's available for you to download inside the Audition Secrets Online Mastermind area. And you can get your free 7 day trial to the Online Mastermind when you go to AuditionSecrets.com and pick up my book, Audition Secrets. The digital copy of my book is literally less than what it costs to buy one cup of designer coffee at Starbucks, and of course you can find out more about that at AuditionSecrets.com. My final tip is this, think of auditions as less of a performance and more of a dialogue between artists.

I know, I've mentioned this in past podcasts, and I like to bang on about the people inside of the audition room being human beings, just like we are, and I bang on about it for a good reason. Because when we are in the heat of the battle, we tend to forget that our auditors are human and they have just as much at stake, if not more at stake, than we do. So many directors, casting directors, music directors, writers, producers that I've spoken to talk about how nerve wracking the audition process is for them. So how great does it feel for them, the people on the other side of the table, when an actor or a singer comes into an audition room being fully human and ready to play and work with them to create a great piece of art.

As opposed to someone who comes in acting like a robot, pretending that everything is perfect, and then singing at the people on the other side of the table, performing at them, or worse, trying to manipulate the people on the other side of the table into liking them. Ugh. There's an amazing exercise in my book, Audition Secrets, that breaks that down, and shows you how to walk into a room and instantly create rapport, rapport being defined as a close relationship between people who understand each other's feelings and communicate well. Doesn't that sound so much more like something you'd want to have in the room? Being fully present with, and aware of the fact that your auditors are in the same exact boat as you are, just at the other end, will help reduce the stress you feel, and help you discover new ways of shedding the old ideas of the need for perfection or the need for manipulation inside the room, and replace them with the same kinds of feelings you have when you walk into the rehearsal room AFTER you've already gotten the job. It's a different feeling, isn't it?

[26:06] Justin Guarini: Okay, so, let's recap. 1. The audition begins the moment you get the material. 2. Memorization is crucial, but active memorization is the key to unlocking your mind's potential. 3. You are what you eat, but not just the night before your audition. 4. Sleep is vital. A good sleep cycle is next level. 5. Play good mind games with yourself. Visualize like an Olympic athlete. 6. Disconnect so you can reconnect. Get rid of social media for the day so you can focus. And 7. Your audition is a dialogue, not a performance. Work with your auditors to create a great piece of art. That's all I got for you today, my 7 audition prep tricks that will help you rise above your competition. Hey, if you liked this, please leave a review or a rating on this podcast platform.

And if you really like what you heard, please take a screenshot and post it up on your Insta story or Facebook story and let people know that you think would really benefit from this info that you're listening to this podcast. And if you want to find out more about what we're doing in the Audition Secrets world, in the Audition Secrets community, the Audition Secrets book, as well as the Audition Secrets online mastermind, all you have to do is go to AuditionSecrets.com. In the meantime, I'm Justin Guarini. You've been listening to Audition Secrets. And remember, at the end of the day, you're just one audition away. Thanks for listening.