Hey there,
Good morning and happy Sunday to you!

If you’ve been hanging with me these last few weeks you know this weekend one of my “30 Day Goals” was unfolding. My father was turning 88 and my “dream” was to spend an entire afternoon going through his life, asking him every question I could think of – and I mean every thing and every question about his life.

Man what a gift!

To say the least I’m incredibly grateful for this dream coming true.

What are you grateful for as you read this? What one thing deserves a moment of true celebration and appreciation in your life?

Take a moment and drink it up. It feels really good to do it.

There were so many blessings that came from out of my time with my Dad but I’d say the greatest was tremendous healing for us both. It felt like every hurt that had ever happened between us simply melted away and all that was left was pure love and enormous gratitude.

But getting there was interesting.

MY GREATEST WOUND

Growing up I was close to both my of parents but being the only boy with four older sisters (a topic for a newsletter someday I’m sure but let me just say I was so blessed to have been born into this “situation”) I was extremely close to my Dad. My love of sports matched his and because I was gifted at sports, that became our bond like no other.

We both thought I was going to play professional baseball but when that dream ended something shifted for us. It felt like he no longer was proud of me (loved me) since I was no longer in the public spotlight and that stung.

We struggled through my 20’s as I struggled to find my way and true purpose. Lots of fighting and arguing and “screw you’s.”

When I announced at the age of 29 that I had discovered my purpose in life – I was going to be an actor – my father’s reaction for the next twenty years broke my heart.

It felt like he never believed in me and he definitely never supported me.

This soon became my greatest wound and it kept cutting deeper year after year.

I remember saying to him one day, “You’ve done the most cruel thing. All my life you’ve told me “I could do anything, that nothing is impossible for me” but now that I’m going after something so difficult you don’t believe in me at all.”

Screw you.

We fought a lot as I continued on and the divide got bigger.

We made real peace about seven years ago (again, another topic for another day) and these days my father could not be more proud of my career and of me.

Recently my daughter announced to me that she too wants to be an actor. I couldn’t believe my reaction and for the very first time I finally understood what had happened for my father twenty-nine years earlier.

I didn’t want her to do it.

And the crazy part is I deal with people from all over the world who want to study with me and I couldn’t be more supportive of their dream of being actors. And I’m not being a hypocrite. If they truly believe this is something they want to do then I’ll do anything and everything I can to help them.

The difference is these people with the dream of being actors are not my daughter and the thought of my daughter going through what I’ve been through was not something I wanted.

Crazy, right?

I mean, I love my career and I wouldn’t trade a thing or places with anyone but in that moment when my daughter said, “I want to be an actor” I freaked. And I finally realized that as a parent all my Dad ever wanted was for me to have a nice, safe, happy life and all he saw for me as an actor was struggle and heartache.

My father wasn’t bad, mean shitty (all the tings I thought for a long time). He truly loved me and wanted my life to be easy and I was going after hard.

And with this discovery I realized what a beautiful full-circle gift this was because I now had the opportunity to handle this differently with my daughter.

So I am all in. I am 1000% committed to doing anything and everything to help my daughter’s dream come true – in spite of my fears and concerns – and it feels incredible!

This newsletter is for dreamers with a dream and my hope and goal is to help in some small way as you march forward so my question is can you relate to any of this?

Is there someone close to you who doesn’t get you and what you’re doing? Someone you love very much yet it feels like they don’t believe in you at all?

It feels horrible, right but my question is this – can you forgive them? Can you see things from their perspective? Most likely they just want you to be happy, too and your dream terrifies them.

Try to help them to understand that some days you’re scared too and maybe, just maybe they’ll come to understand we simply don’t have a choice. We must do this.

(And by the way, sometimes there are people we love us who are incredibly unhealthy and so is their love towards us. So they will never get it or us. We can still have compassion for how crippled they are but it takes two healthy people to be in a healthy relationship so consider the source as well).

OK, this one was longer than usual so time to stop but as always thank you and as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and anything you’d like to share about any of this.

And please know I do believe in you.
Jim

HERE WE GO
Here’s my daughter, Kyla and me on the set shooting the teaser for Talk Is Cheap! She’s an incredible talent and I can’t wait to see where this all leads for her!