Move On

Fact: The more you put yourself out there, the more criticism you will receive.

Some of that criticism will be useful. It will be helpful and needed. It will make you think and make you work harder. It will make you better.

But the other criticism? That will be nothing but negativity. It will be from people who don’t get what you’re doing and make no attempts to try. Call them haters, naysayers, your parents, whatever. They will knock you down because they can and nothing you do will ever please them.

Not all criticism is useful. I’ve had bad reviews, poor feedback, and negative comments that bothered me for days.  I didn’t learn anything from them. They didn’t help me improve my craft. They didn’t inspire me to better myself. If anything, they just made me feel horrible.

Once I was even greeted by a reviewer before the show who was very clearly not excited to be attending.

“I hate magic shows,” they told me.

I was on edge for the entire performance, worried they were going to give me a horrible review. Luckily they were kind with the write-up, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

One reviewer wrote that “Mark Toland is at the top of his game” and my show is a “MUST SEE” only to give me 4 out of 5 stars. It was good to know that when I’m at my best, it’s still only an 80%.

Honestly, I don’t care about the reviews. It’s nice to have a pull-quote or an award or a five star rating to add to the poster, but that’s not why I’m onstage.

I’m doing a show for other people. It’s entertainment. I want people to be completely enthralled for my entire performance. I don’t want them looking at their watch or texting their friends. I don’t want them coughing or shifting in their seats. I want their undivided attention so I can transport them somewhere else for an hour.

That’s not to say that a below-average review doesn’t affect me. It absolutely does! But I’ve learned how to deal with criticism so I can move forward and keep progressing in my career.

Negative feedback is expected and uncontrollable. The more you put yourself out there, the more you forge your own path; the more criticism you should expect to receive.

If you’re doing it right then you’re going to stir the pot. You’re going to provoke a wide range of reactions. The best thing you can do is to not respond.

No matter what happens, don’t acknowledge your criticism. Don’t complain, don’t argue, don’t fight fire with fire. There’s no need to go on a tweetstorm or write a long rant on your fan page. That looks petty and unprofessional.

I’ve faced more rejections than I can remember, been turned down on more projects than I can name. For every gig I’m booked for, another 20 events go in a different direction. But I refuse to let those failures keep me from succeeding.

Ignore the criticism. Shake it off or find someone you can vent to in private. Then move on and get back to work.

Keep Trying

I spent six months writing and pitching a TV show last year. I met with agents who connected me with a production company, then we sat down with networks to discuss the show.

Last month I found out the show didn’t get picked up.

If you knew me in kindergarten and asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said “I want to be a famous magician on television.”

That’s always been one of my biggest goals.

I never wanted to do a reality show like AGT. I wanted to do my own thing - a show of my own design. So I poured all of my time and money into creating the best show I could and working to bring it to fruition.

Just because the show didn’t get picked up doesn’t mean I’ve lost my chance. If anything, this is better. This is the closest I’ve ever been to one of my biggest dreams. So now I can taste it. Now I know I have what it takes to get where I want to be. I just need to find the point where my hard work meets luck and creates a big opportunity.

It can be easy to get discouraged by a “No”. When someone turns you down you can either let it affect you or let it motivate you. I choose the latter.

A negative review, a bad show, a roadblock - you name it. Those only end up inspiring me to create something better and prove someone wrong.

I’m working on a new show now. Writing, shooting, pitching, and more.

I can’t wait to show it to you.

The Final Festival

I just arrived in Alberta for the Edmonton International Fringe Festival!

Edmonton is the oldest and largest fringe theatre festival in North America and I’m thrilled to be one of the 230 amazing shows being performed here this year.

Two years ago I started working on the skeleton of this show. It started as a small idea in the margin of a notebook, then turned into a single monologue, and later morphed into a full-blown show. If it wasn’t for my lovely wife Stephanie and brilliant collaborator, Frank Fogg, this show wouldn’t be what it is today.

My venue in Edmonton, the Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre.

The summer tour has been full of ups and downs this year. For the first 12 performances I changed the show every night. I was tweaking the script and removing other pieces entirely. It just didn’t feel right - but that’s why you do fringe.

In the midst of it all, I’ve still been traveling back and forth from the tour to Chicago for my weekly performances of MIND READER. (I won’t be doing that during Edmonton, though.) Sometimes I’ve been so exhausted from travel that I’d start doing my weekly show at fringe or vice versa. I’d realize it part way through and have to adjust accordingly!

But now, after three months of touring, rewriting, rehearsing, and preparing…I feel like it’s ready. It’s still not exactly where I want it to be - but I ran out of time. You can’t be a perfectionist about a show like this or it’ll never get onstage. Done is better than perfect.

For now, it’s a fireworks show with a hidden meaning. I lull the audience into a sense of complacency with rapid-fire demonstrations and only then do I sneak in the philosophical ideas that matter most to me.

The more festivals I do the more I realize that I’m less of a mentalist and more of a storyteller. I love telling stories, it just happens that mind reading is the vehicle with which I tell them.

I’ve written more about this on other posts, but my goal with the fringe tours was always to work on an edgier, riskier show. I wanted to take chances and push myself as an artist. And, I feel like that’s exactly what I’ve done.

Eleven fringes in two years has been a life-changing experience. I like stacking my show up against other shows - storytellers, musicals, plays, comedians, and more - and seeing how it compares. I’ve enjoyed listening to feedback (positive and negative) and learning how to get better quickly.

And, I’ve learned to ignore the critics and the naysayers who don’t get what I’m doing. Sometimes they’re other know-it-all artists who think they’ve found the only way to do art correctly. Sometimes it’s a journalist who doesn’t care for your genre. And sometimes it’s yourself.

The more you put yourself out there, the more negativity you invite. So I’ve learned to ignore it, keep working, and believe in what I’m doing.

This will be my last festival for awhile. There are a few other projects that I have lined up, so I probably won’t go on tour next summer. But there are seven chances to see me live in Edmonton before I stop doing this version of the show and start working on something new.

Stay tuned! The tour may be ending but I’m only getting started.

Mystery

I can pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love with mystery.

It was entirely unrelated to theatre or performance or mind reading. It wasn’t a movie or a book or a play. It was much simpler than that.

It was a game.

A favorite childhood game in my family was “Hide The Thimble” where you take a thimble and, well, hide it. The object of the game was to keep the bright, shiny thimble in plain sight so that you could easily see it from anywhere in the room.

We had dozens of favorite hiding spots. The thimble easily balanced on a picture frame or fit over a lamp switch. You could sit it between piano keys or rest it high atop a ceiling fan. The possibilities were endless.

We mostly played “Hide The Thimble” when visiting family, so we were full of anticipation upon arrival. We’d take turns hiding and finding the thimble, without a care in the world. There were no iPhones or internet back then so we were content to play as long as our relatives would put up with us.

On one occasion, someone (I can’t quite remember who) hid the thimble while the rest of us waited in the other room. Then the seeker (I wish I could remember) led the rest of us into the target area.

Minutes passed and the thimble had yet to be found. We were all stumped and excitedly waited for the “seeker” to discover its whereabouts.

Another ten minutes had passed and still no thimble.

“Show us!” we begged, but the person who hid it had forgotten where it was.

We were a patient family. It was in our blood. We would play chess and tennis and board games for hours. We would design extravagant scavenger hunts for each other and organize massive rounds of Capture The Flag.

What I’m trying to say is that we would have looked for that thimble for hours. We would have stayed in that room and kept looking if my dad hadn’t told us it was time to head home.

“But we haven’t found the thimble yet!” someone said.

“Well, we’ll have to find it next time then,” my dad said, as we followed him to the driveway.

There was no next time.

Time passed, and so did relatives. Things changed and we grew older. 

The thimble was never found.

I think about that thimble often. I wonder where it was hidden and what might have happened to it.

Did it fall off a light switch and roll under a shelf? Was it resting just above our eyeline and we had forgotten to look up? Did the future owners renovate that room and discover a small, shiny object underneath the floorboards?

Or maybe it was never meant to be found?

Over the years I’ve learned to be okay with not knowing. I like it that way.

Jump

I went skydiving this week. For real.

I jumped out of a plane at 13,500 feet with a guy named Adam who I’d never met until the day of the jump. We fell for 60 seconds at around 120 mph before he pulled the chute and we floated back down to the drop zone at Skydive Chicago.

It was unlike anything I’ve done before and I’ll definitely be doing it again.

The whole morning everyone kept asking me if I was nervous. They wanted to know if I was freaking out or going to be sick.

The truth is, I wasn’t.

I really hadn’t had much time to think about it. I’ve been so busy with my summer tour and my weekly show that I hadn’t had a moment to get nervous.

So when it came to the big day I was just excited. I signed the waiver, got suited up, and next thing I knew we were jumping out of a plane.

Piece of cake.

Those questions reminded me of when I moved to Los Angeles after I finished college.

Back then, I was on a quest to go to Hollywood and follow my dreams. So the second I finished school I packed my bags and headed west. I left my wonderful girlfriend (now wife!) crying in a parking lot and my gorgeous mustang convertible behind, all so I could pursue my passion.

All I had with me was a suitcase of clothes, my computer, my props, and 500 bucks. That was it.

Everyone I talked to had a version of the same question:

When did you know you were ready to move to LA?

My answer was always the same: I was never ready.

At the time, my show wasn’t good enough. I didn’t have enough money or a good plan for when I got to SoCal. I was completely alone. But I knew I had to move or else I might never go at all.

Moving right away meant that before I could get nervous I was already there. I was immediately immersed in a new city with new adventures, so I put my head down and got to work. The next thing I knew, I was taking the bus to gigs in all corners of LA. I found an agent, booked a commercial, and started to build momentum.

I still approach things this way. I dive into something and figure it out as I go.

Sometimes I do shows for several thousand people. It’s a huge responsibility to entertain such a big audience, but I don’t think about it. Instead I do my sound check and preparations like any other show, then head to the dressing room. Next thing I know, I’m being introduced and running onstage. There’s no time to be nervous.

Sometimes it’s better not to overthink things and just do it. Go see a movie without reading the reviews. Take a trip without planning it out. Venture out into your city and find something new.

You’ll never be fully prepared for anything. You can sit around and plan all you want. But at some point you’ll have to just go for it. You’ll have to make your move, take a chance, and jump!