Kent Thalman 0:10

Hi, I'm Kent and I'm Anna. And this is film and family, a podcast about feature filmmaking for professionals in the film industry with families

Anna Thalman 0:17

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Kent Thalman 0:20

Let's jump right. All right. So we are going to be talking a little bit about sheds and kids, but we'd like to have a few announcements and updates from our end first. first of all, we are making great headway on a lot of new content for the film and family academy, which is, members of our film and family academy get a lot of coursework as well. 12 weeks of private coaching currently. And, this is so high value and we are prepping a lot of new course material right now for that film and family academy that we are really excited about. And a lot of it has to do with, Like today, we recorded a lot of materials on how to finance your first feature film. And a lot of the nuances that go into that, which I think for me it was something I never felt like I learned in film school. And I've talked to a lot of my peers and many of them are still. Even producers that I know from film school are like, yeah, that's just something, no one really knows how to do. That's like the most enigmatic part of filmmaking is financing it and we're doing lots of other stuff about pitch decking and screenwriting. And we've been getting a lot, a lot of work done this last week. So we're really excited to share that with you. If you're curious to know more about what that's all about, check out our last podcast episode on the program or. the website, invisible mansion.com forward slash film and family, and learn more about that. But it's just something that's on my mind right now, because we've been doing so much work on it and the more we do the more, I'm really excited for people to, jump into the film and family academy and get all this really valuable knowledge. Is going to be transformational. I feel like to your career, it was transformational about our career. And it's something that we've learned through a mixture of reading loads of books, listening to tons of other people's podcasts, tons of trial and error, industry collaborations, and then just, making movies. And so, we're excited to distill all of that knowledge into a. A course that I think is much needed right now for independent filmmakers.

Anna Thalman 2:25

And this is hard earned knowledge. I think a lot of people when they do learn it, because it's so difficult to learn through their own experience and the time and the money that it takes to learn these skills will often feel like they don't want to share it because they want you to have to earn it the hard way that they did and

Kent Thalman 2:45

that it's possible to do without the program. Yeah, and that could learn this on your own. You can learn the hard way you can make all your own mistakes. You're going to make mistakes, but one way or another, anyway, you can go through and read all the books and whatnot. If you want something, that's going to shoot you directly to your desired outcome. And if that desired outcome is make a first feature film, this is exactly the right course, because it's going to, it's just a direct road to that end.

Anna Thalman 3:09

And we also take you behind the scenes of our latest feature, film, and show you documents that we used. how we organized everything, things we wish we'd done. We really want to incorporate everything that we learned. So that's why we're doing a lot of this content right now. So we can take you through. In more detail with all of these things we've learned. And of course there's the free checklist that we also mentioned in our last podcast. And I can link to that in the show notes again. you can always check that out and that's a valuable resource as well. It's a summarized version of everything that's available in the film and family program

Kent Thalman 3:45

was much less detailed, but. Outline and a valuable resource in and of itself. So definitely check out that free checklist. let's get into this sheds and kids, topic, and I'm gonna let you take that away. I think you've got some more prepared, thoughts to get a start.

Anna Thalman 4:00

Yeah. This is just something that I was taught at some point probably a few years ago. And since then, I've, haven't been able to. See it, I see it everywhere. And I notice how many of you are holding yourselves back with the word should, and this is a word that I've intentionally tried to eliminate from my vocabulary because there is no rule book about what everyone should or shouldn't do whenever you say should you're always judging and limiting yourself. Or those around you, if you're thinking that other people should be different than they are, should do things differently than they are, or that you should be better than you are. That's always coming from a judgmental place. And the result in the model from a sentence was, should in it is never good. So I just want to. Invite you to make this one change of should, to could, and see how much of a difference it makes in all the ways that shows up in your own life. It's just such

Kent Thalman 5:00

an interesting thing. I mean, really think about the word. Should, can you imagine that word existing when you're thinking about it, in terms of your own behavior or other people's behavior that is not judgmental, like it should have been just inherently, we should be able to go back into the past and it just should have been different. Right? It has a, to me, it carries a sense of frustration. It carries a sense of judgmentalism and, I think most of us recognize that judgment or being judgemental. Isn't great. Right. Not only is it not great because it's not very effective at creating the results. We want most of us in our lives, but it also, just doesn't feel great. Like it doesn't feel good and it doesn't generate the kind of feelings that motivate. Positive action or progress. In fact, usually should create a shame and shame creates a cycle and these cycles usually get us stuck doing the exact thing that we're judging ourselves for. Or ironically, I've found that many times judgment, which is born from the word should of other people's behavior gets us stuck. That thing that we're judging other people for. And I've seen this actually in my own life where I think I'm never going to make that mistake that that person made, or I'm never going to do that thing that that person does, or that person shouldn't do that. And I actually find myself right in that boat, and that's not like a hundred percent guaranteed, but when you start to stare at the really bad driver who needs to turn their brights off, you're likely gonna crash right into them. So it doesn't create the results that we want. So, so yeah, we want to talk about the word could,

Anna Thalman 6:35

the reason why judgement does that is because we often judge people for what we struggle with ourselves and what we recognize that we struggle with. Or sometimes don't even recognize that we struggle with and we don't even realize. Yeah, it's so funny to see people, for example, Gossip about someone who gossips

Kent Thalman 6:55

we

Anna Thalman 6:55

complain about people complaining. We get angry at people being angry,

Kent Thalman 7:00

people to stop yelling. This is a perinatal thing mostly,

Anna Thalman 7:04

but this is something we do because we have a thought about a should, that it should be a certain way. And we believe that about ourselves and we believe that about others and both of them. Are reinforcing. This should, when really should, is kind of eliminating our agency. It gets in the way of being empowered to make our own choices. So if you think about should even being used in what seems like the most positive way, like, oh, you should really try this thing out. You should really go do that. Even in a positive way. You're saying, oh, you would love this. You should do it to someone else. it's not as powerful as being able to feel like you're making that choice on your own and not because someone else told you to do it.

Kent Thalman 7:51

On that same token, if we're talking to someone in that way, often we're talking to ourself in that way. Oh, I should do this. I should do that. And we're limiting our own sense of agency, which makes it really hard for us to do the things we actually feel like we want to. And really when we say we should do something, what we're really saying is that we want to do something different. We want to be different or do different.

Anna Thalman 8:13

And when other people tell us that we should do something, it's that they want us to do something. They want us to be different, which is why. We often experience a lot of resistance when people say, oh, you should really do this differently. Even if it's coming from a loving place, your parent saying, oh, maybe you should talk to your children a little kinder or something. Okay.

Kent Thalman 8:34

All right. Yeah, go away.

Anna Thalman 8:37

but it reinforces this belief that there is a right way to do everything right. Kind of a correct and an incorrect in everything. When really there are infinite options, you could do it that way. You could do it another way and you get to choose which one you're going to do. And maybe one you want to do, she want to do might be the same thing that you're telling yourself that you should do, but it feels much better to do it. Believing that you want to do it, then believing that you should do it or that you're a bad person. If you don't do it, it doesn't get so tied up in your identity. It becomes following what you want in your life. I want to speak kinder to my children instead of, oh, I really should. And I'm really bad. And then you just feel terrible

Kent Thalman 9:27

because you should. Has all these implications about, well, there's something wrong with me and I'm so rude and I'm just a bad person. I want to speak kinder that has implications of I want to, because I am a kind person, why would I want to be kinder? If I wasn't a kind person, why would I want to be kinder if I wasn't a good person or good parent or whatever. And so having that could, or I want to, I even recognizing that that's coming from a place where. You want that. Yeah. It just leads to thoughts that are more empowering, that are going to generate the emotions that drive the actions that are actually that thing you want to be doing. And the other reason that I think that we want to do things and when we say should. It doesn't really work. But when we say want, we want to do those things because we want the results. Also, I think many of us can detect what the results are of being kinder or more patient with other people. The result is often a better relationship with those people. mutually from both sides and really positive, happy relationships are a great thing, you know? And so we all want that. Right. And we all know that kindness and patience. Hmm. respect are all ingredients to, those sort of healthy relationships. But then when we don't live up to those virtues, it's quick and easy to say what we should have done it differently when really what we just need to remind ourselves as we want to, and then remind ourselves why we want to and recognize that we've got lots and lots of opportunities to do that. And even in the wake of what we might consider failure. wow. I've really just like, let my kid have it. And I yelled at them or maybe spanked him and a man. I don't think that's right. And I shouldn't do that. And well, if you just say, I don't want to do that and well, what do I want to do as a result now that I've done it the way I don't want to do it? I want to be the kind of person who apologizes or who talks about it or who is humble. and it's still kind, even in the wake of my own personal failings it's just easier to let yourself be that when you say that's what I want to be, or that's what I could do. and you explore those options. I think it's a good point that you made Anna that there's infinite options. So the word could, is more accurate because. Should as an opinion, whereas could, is kind of factual. It's a fact, right? Like we could have done any number of things. I mean, you could have just shot that person to death. It's like, you don't want to, but you could have given them a hug or you could've spoken less and listened more and, whatever, you know, and so that could, is actually more factual. Hopefully opens your mind up to more possibilities and less judging.

Anna Thalman 12:05

I love following up that, that simple verbiage changed from should to could with a want, so changing should to could, and then saying, and do I want to, or not because. If we change the why behind the reason, you know, the why is why we're doing the things that we're doing. It changes the way we feel when we do them. So if we're doing things because we think we should, it's from a sense of obligation, it leads to people pleasing. We're doing this because we think we should because other people think we should, or because we think we're a bad person. If we don't, which is sort of this shame, and those are places that we're going to operate in our best self. from those

Kent Thalman 12:47

emotions and it doesn't create a culture in our families or in our teams or organizations that help other people to feel like they can operate. If your children feel like mom and dad think I should do X, Y, Z, constantly. And that they're constantly under scrutiny, then it becomes hard for them to think in terms of what do I want to do. Whereas if you're presenting options to them and ideas, and then they get to choose what they want to do with their own agency. They're going to mutually be inclined to want to do the right thing. in that same way, it creates a little bit more of a space where they can think that way more naturally.

Anna Thalman 13:24

Yeah. When you can say that to your child, like yeah, you could do that. You could go hit your brother. Do you think that would work? Yeah. Do you think you'll

Kent Thalman 13:32

get what you want from that? Do you want to hit your brother? Do you. To make your brother cry

Anna Thalman 13:39

what else could we do to get this result that

Kent Thalman 13:41

you want? Also, once again, factual, when we say you, you can't do that, don't do that. that's not really true, right? I mean, like they could, they could, and

Anna Thalman 13:50

sometimes they'll want to prove. Yeah, I

Kent Thalman 13:52

can show you, but yeah, when you, you just acknowledged, like you could do that really bad thing. You could go do that thing right now. Do you really want to, you could also do these other things. Would you want to do those instead? It's up to you. You choose what you want to do then, you know, man, that was oddly a super frustrating thing when my parents actually did that. Right. They were always like, I'm going to let you make that decision. Yeah. I know what I should do, you know? And it's like, I wish I wish they would just make it that decision for me, but it's because we know right and wrong and our children know right and wrong most of the time, if we've done a decent job, at least explaining it. and so getting them that agency is powerful though, because it makes them have to own their own stuff. And it's just as powerful to do that for ourselves. And we sometimes forget to do that for ourselves. and it's super hard to do it for others if we're not doing it for ourselves. that's why it behooves us. If we want to be good team leaders, filmmakers, producers, directors, whatever. if we want to be the best parents that we can be it behooves us. Be that person for ourselves first, because if we're that person for ourselves, we're much more likely to treat other people in terms of could in terms of want, what do you want to do in terms of respecting their agency and giving them the space to make those decisions. And they're much more liable to make the right choice when we do that, as opposed to cornering them and pushing them. Coercing them into those things, which rarely works. And if it

Anna Thalman 15:25

does, it's from a place of fear or obligation, which is not actually going

Kent Thalman 15:29

to generate true desire. Yeah. And it doesn't if ever works on yourself, because you end up in that should loop and you rarely do what you should do when you tell yourself you should do it. and you make yourself feel guilty and full of shame. And even if you do. It's from willpower and it's not sustainable. You'll burn out. man, I shouldn't look at that thing or I shouldn't say those words. You might be able to fix that for a few days and then you're gonna burn out and do the thing, you know, you shouldn't do again because, you're not coming from a true place of desire. Your heart doesn't

Anna Thalman 16:05

it's good to acknowledge. I could do that thing. I could do that bad thing if I want. Do I want to do, I want to, yeah. And looking back a lot of times we should in the past tense too, I should have done this differently. We fill ourselves with regret. Oh. If only I had tried something else with my children, whatever, because the past is over and you can't go back and change it. This is not productive, but you can change the way that you think about it. And that is productive

Kent Thalman 16:33

because the thoughts you have are.

Anna Thalman 16:36

Yeah. If anything in the past is bothering you now, it's only because of thoughts you're having about it. Now, in terms of, should you can't feel feelings from your past, you only feel feelings from your thoughts right now about your past. So the past can't hurt you anymore, it's past. but if you're thinking that you should have done something differently, you might feel regret. You might feel emotions that are painful right now, and you can change the way you think about the past. Here's the truth. What you did is what you should have done, because it's what you did. And that's okay. Sometimes what we should have done is made mistakes because that's part of this life exploring that contrast is how we figure out what we want.

Kent Thalman 17:22

Yeah. That was part of the point of being born and coming into this life. I mean, Whether you believe that or not, it's really true. It's part of the point of coming to this life and making mistakes and it's so universal and to act like we're going to be this acception of all exceptions and be the person who doesn't make any of those dumb mistakes is just really few tile. Or from this judgmental place, we

Anna Thalman 17:46

all experience it to some degree, we experience a loss of health to some degree that helps us understand that we want to be healthy and it will inform our choices in what we decide to do. We all experience, pain and sadness and all sorts of uncomfortable things to a degree which only help us solidify what we do want and what we do like and pursue that. with a good motivation and good reasons.

Kent Thalman 18:10

And the same is true for mistakes, and we're all gonna make mistakes that we look back on it. Oh, I shouldn't have done that thing. But once again, when you change the framing of that past memory and say, I could have done this thing and not that

Anna Thalman 18:26

I wanted to do this thing, and now I know I don't want

Kent Thalman 18:29

that. What is this? And, and you can start to learn from that and you can start to make decisions that are actually going to inform your current and future decisions and choices in similar, Or repeated moments like that. or even different moments, but the learning can still apply. And so, yeah, it could, is far more productive perspective. this is something I know I definitely, need more of in my life, is that could perspective over that should perspective. And, it's powerful, it's powerful. And I know that as we start to implement this new way of thinking. We will actually start to live the way we want to. We will actually start to see the results we want in our lives. And I've seen this a lot for filmmakers. A lot of filmmakers say, I'm this old and I haven't made this thing yet. I should be at this point in my career by now, I should be in better habits right now in terms of. I should be dating more or I should shoot my family better, or I should have written a feature screenplay by now, or I should have gotten funding for this thing by now. None of that is productive. Right. I could date more. I could, I could ask that, that, that boy or that girl out on a date right now, you know, it's like, I could, I could ask so-and-so I could, I could write a little more, I could write this idea or maybe this other idea, you know, which idea do I want to write? When do I want to write, how much do I want to write? What do I want my job to look like? Jobs do I want to apply for, should I apply for that job? Maybe I could just say, could I apply what jobs could I apply for? you start to decide your life as opposed to feel bad about your life so much. And I've seen these shifts, whether people realize they're making them or not happen in a lot of the clients that we've worked with saliva. And you see it affect their personal lives. You see it affect their film, careers, and those things that they thought they should be doing. They changed their paradigm to could. And what do I actually want to do? And very naturally they start to do all those things. All of a sudden the things that they never did, even though they just shamed themselves to death and shaded themselves to death. That never worked. It just didn't work. And they tried it for years and then they were like, man, I'm umpteen years old and haven't done anything with my life. And then all of a sudden they just changed their way of thinking and it feels better. It's more satisfying. They actually start to progress and move forward finally. So it's really, it's a great degree.

Anna Thalman 20:59

And what we, a big part of what we try to do is make filmmaking more accessible to more people. A lot of you are holding yourself back because you believe there's a certain way. It has to look that it should be,

Kent Thalman 21:11

or it should be done a certain way.

Anna Thalman 21:13

Even when we outlined this stuff in the film and family program, I want you to take it as a, could not a should. We're not saying you should make your film this way. For saying, this is one way that you could make a film. And hopefully that gives you a new idea, a new perspective that might fit your situation better. If you're someone who has a family or who doesn't want to go, the classic, climb the ladder and LA studio route, and you want to find something else, it opens up your mind to other possibilities. But it's not the only possibility. It's just one more cut. And so hopefully that helps you find an abundance, of creative options that are available to you and not feel like you're stuck in one should that's inaccessible. There are so many different ways to have the things that you want,

Kent Thalman 22:01

where people express that they feel like because of their circumstances, they have to go through some sort of backdoor. Whereas there's this front door that everyone else is going through to get in to the filmmaking industry. And it's really not true. It's like a circular house with an even number of doors all the way around it. Right? It's a tent that you could walk into that tent via any direction, So it's this could thing, right? Once again, there's no front door that you should go through and the rest of them are all shady or difficult or wrong. It's once again, how many ways are there to make a film? Really, the only things that have to happen to make a movie is that someone has to hit the red record button and you have to show it to people. I don't know. There doesn't have to be words. There might be, there doesn't have to be a script, but I like script writing and I like scripts. There doesn't have to be a certain number of dollars behind it. There doesn't have to be certain actors or actresses in it or not in it. It doesn't have to go at the attrical. It could, it could go to the attrical. Nowadays there's so many more kids than ever before, which just means that the world of possibilities are open for filmmakers. Same with family life. I feel like, I mean, who should be working, who should be bread-winning how many kids should you have? Where should you live? Should you buy a house there's actually more options and opportunities for people who want to have families. And because of those things, both being so just available, I believe that filmmakers with families, which is what we're kind of all about. Have more options than ever before to have a family and to have a thriving career that's profitable in feature filmmaking. It's all possible. You can do it. You it's that candidates that could, it's not the should. Yeah.

Anna Thalman 23:37

And if you think about this analogy of the round house with doors all the way around, even if there's a side that a lot of people, you know, are going through, you could go the same route that other people are going, but you want to see. What makes the most sense for you? Because maybe for them, that's the easy route because they're on that side, but maybe for you, there's a much easier route. That's closer to where you are. And so it's different for every person. And when we think that there's one should, one way that it has to be, not only do we sometimes end up taking a longer route for ourselves and maybe never even ending up there, but we also start to judge other people who go a certain way. And say, oh no, you shouldn't do it that way. You should do it this way because we see the world that way is very black and white. Just for your homework, try to catch yourself. When you hear yourself, say the word should either in

Kent Thalman 24:33

your self-talk your inner speech, or even out loud to other people,

Anna Thalman 24:38

notice that and try switching it to a could. And with that could think about, do I want to, do I not want. Just see how that changes your perspective in a variety of situations and notice how other people say it and what that reveals about where they might be stuck and where maybe you could help them see possibility. So keep an eye out for that. It's something that again is a little. Almost, I know you hate the word brain hack. Can't that phrase. But I feel like you've said you don't like that before, but it shouldn't, you shouldn't speak from your right. I could just assume that. I want to assume that you don't hate things. So somewhat of a little brain hack, because it's just a simple word switch. It has made a huge difference for me to notice that and make that switch in my own mind. So we want to share it with you today and let us know.

Kent Thalman 25:37

Thanks for joining us on this episode. And we, hope that you continue to join us on subsequent episodes and be sure to check out all the episodes that are all available, on film and family.com or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. And if you like what you're hearing on this podcast, you're old. Once again, love our film and family academy that we mentioned at the beginning of the session.

Anna Thalman 25:58

Yup. This academy is risk-free. If you follow all the steps in the program, it's one way to finance and finish your first feature film. And we promise that by the end, you will have a finished film or we'll give you your money back. So that's why it's risk-free best of all. We'll teach you how to do this in a way that doesn't sacrifice your relationship. Your values or your sanity. so go ahead and check that out.

Kent Thalman 26:23

Sign up for your free consultation@wwwdotinvisiblemansion.com forward slash film and family. Or we have a direct link in the show notes that you can click on.

Anna Thalman 26:32

And again, we are giving out free t-shirts right now for. Those who sign up for a consultation while supplies last. just as a fun little

Kent Thalman 26:41

bonus. So they're dope. Invisible mansion pictures. T-shirts and you know who, who doesn't need a free t-shirt? I could use more invisible mansion pictures t-shirts in my life. So anyway, nothing to lose. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.-