Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat…

Skip Lackey: There’s this whole concept of vertical leadership. I think leadership should be horizontal, that anybody from any level of any group in any company should be able to stand up and has a great idea, is creative, has passion, that we can all follow that person. Because to be a good leader, you also have to be able to be a good first follower.

Announcer: This is StoryBeat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the creative mind. StoryBeat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, actor, writer, director, producer, Skip Lackey started his career as a Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus clown. After graduating from Clown College, Skip’s acting credits include Big river on Broadway, national tours of the Secret Garden, Barnum, Big river, lots of regional theater, and numerous off and off off Broadway developmental musicals. He also had the distinct honor of spending two years with Sanford Meisner in a professional handpicked acting class. On camera, Skip co-starred in Jim Carrey’s first film Once Bitten. TV credits include the Guiding Light, the miniseries the Blue and the Gray, and host for Nickelodeon’s Ace Award-winning Think Fast. He’s also been seen in over 100 national network commercials and he’s recorded over a thousand voiceovers. Skip even spent three seasons working as Santa Claus alongside the Rockettes in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular in Chicago. A graduate of the Vancouver Film School, Skip co wrote, directed and produced the low-budget feature film Love at Second Sight. He then became executive producer for Kiwainga, a vision technology company that developed an interactive 36 plus camera system for network broadcast and early Internet applications. He’s worked with Sun Microsystems, NBC, ABC, ESPN, the X Games, the New York Mets, the Golf Channel, the USGA, the NHL All-Star Game, Nike, the US Navy and more. He then shifted his focus to giving personal growth and leadership development seminars. Skip has worked directly with over 25,000 clients, taught over a thousand workshops and made a thousand personal appearances. Clients include the IMDb World Bank for Latin America and a two year leadership development immersion for the Canadian Department of Justice. For the record, Skip and I have known one another for a very long time. Both of us meeting when a musical called Papa Bear Mama/ar played in Little Rock, Arkansas, Atlanta, Georgia and off off Broadway in New York. While Skip was a teenage actor in the Show. I designed the lighting. So for all those reasons and many more, it’s a truly great joy for me to welcome to Story be today, my dear friend, the deeply multi-talented Skip Lackeyy. Skip, welcome to the show.

Skip Lackey: Thank you, Steve. Just so weird to hear, you know, hear your resume, your life, be read out, you know, in succession.

Steve Cuden: Almost like it’s over. But it isn’t over.

Skip Lackey: I hope not.

Steve Cuden: I do, too. So let’s go back in time just a little bit. Let’s look at your history a little bit. You’ve been at the acting writing teaching game for a little while, but at what age were you when the performance bug first bit you?

Skip Lackey: Gosh, I was. I remember specifically I was 15 years old. U. Um, and my grandfather had passed away. And I wash. Uh, I grew up originally, uh, around Washington, D.C. which is where my mom and my family was from. But we moved to Arkansas, uh, in the early 70s. So my mother’s father had passed away, and I went back to go to the funeral, and I did not want to go to the wake. And so one of my uncle, who was. Who was an actor, he’s only about six years older than me, his friend said, hey, I’m going to a, uh, musical practice, a rehearsal of hello Dolly tonight, which I’m in, in community theater. Would you rather go and just watch the rehearsal? And I said anything not to go to the wake. I didn’t want to go the wake. I didn’t want to see my grandfather as the first time I’d ever had a loved one die. So I didn’t want to see him like that. So I was sitting in the audience watching these people perform, and I went, I want to do that. And I had done choir before, right. And I was like, I want to do that. So the next time there was an audition for a show in high school, I was a sophomore in high school. I, uh, auditioned for it and got in it. And that was with, um, our friend Rand Hopkins.

Steve Cuden: Sure. And. And Rand was at that time in Little Rock, where you were correct.

Skip Lackey: Exactly right. And he was the director of the Arkansas Arts center children’s theater. So after I got cast in that high school show, Rand said, hey, would you come down and audition for some of the shows at the children’s theater? So that was Oliver. I played Artchful Dodger and Oliver. And I mean, that was the bug that just. And that’s what I was like, I want to do this for the rest of my life.

Steve Cuden: Would you say that Rand was perhaps your earliest influence and inspiration at that time.

Skip Lackey: Oh, absolutely. He was definitely a mentor. He gave us so many opportunities because, as you said, that show that we met on, Papa Bear, Mama Bear, was a new musical, and Rand was writing and getting us to write with him. And so the whole creative process that. That I was introduced to was collaborative, and it was very flexible. There was nothing, you know, written in stone about it. It was like, let’s change stuff on the fly all the time. So I got this great early education and performing because, hell, we would block numbers, and 15 minutes before the curtain would go up, and then we would perform them. So it was like being in summer stock all the time.

Steve Cuden: It’s, uh, it was a totally immersive experience, wasn’t it?

Skip Lackey: Oh, it was with him. He was. It was a wild experience, and I owe a lot to him. He really gave me the bug, uh, u to want to do it professionally.

Steve Cuden: Well, I’ve got to say, he did the same for me. You know, I don’t talk about him all that often because people don’t remember him too much unless they were around him. But, yeah, he’s the one who first really propelled me into doing what it is that we do, which is to perform, to write, to entertain. Uh, he was the big influence in my life early on.

Skip Lackey: When I talk to people all the time about what got you into it, everybody has that person in their life. Really, that kind of triggered something that. That supported, that, encourage that, uh, gave opportunities to. I. So many of my friends had the same thing.

Steve Cuden: It’s really hard in life if you don’t have that. I think for almost anything.

Skip Lackey: Mentors are important.

Steve Cuden: Yeah, extremely important. And so those of you out there that are listening that perhaps you have been around for a while, make sure that you help others on their way up, I think that’s a good lesson in there. Where did you then continue to train as an actor, as a performer? It wasn’t. Was it clown college? The next thing that was. That took you that way forward?

Skip Lackey: Well, yeah, because what we did at the Arkansas center theater, all that theater that we did then, there was really no training. I mean, we were taking some dance class. We were singing. It was more just. We were learning in the doing. And then my first professional experience was getting out of high school, and I got accepted to Ringling Brothers Barn Bailey Clown College, uh, u right out of high school. So I was 17, and they said, you know, 60 people get picked out of about 6,000 that applied, and out of that, they pick a handful of people to go out on the road. With them. So I went down there and it was a 13 week immersion program into clowning, which I already did some clowning and juggled and, uh, roote a unicycle and walked stilts and did comedy acrobatics. But I wasn’t really a clown per se. Like they, like they teach us, uh, to be with Ringling. But that was, that was one of the, uh, funnest times in my life. And I was actually at several of the people that I was, I was in clown college with and then toured with the circus with. I’m still best friends with today. It’s almost like going into the army and you have that intense experience, uh, because the circuses. 600 shows a year. No, that’s not right. It’s 300 shows a year. There’s 13 shows a week and you make no money. I was at that time in 1980, I think I was doing 13, three, three and a half hour shows a week. And I made $55 a week.

Steve Cuden: That much?

Skip Lackey: Yeah. And had to pay for my taxes. My room on the train was 10 bucks. And all your food had.

Steve Cuden: Oh, they made you pay for the train as well?

Skip Lackey: Oh, and your food. Yeah, out of $155. And I was so damn proud of myself, Steve, the first six months, that, uh, was a cheapskate. Right. And I saved a thousand dollars. The first six months on the show.

Steve Cuden: Were you dipping into the elephant’s peanuts or what were you doing?

Skip Lackey: Well, I was eating a lot of Campbell soup and, and minute rice is what I was doing. A lot of grilled cheese sandwiches that I wasn’t eating very well. But back then I was bulletproof. Right.

Steve Cuden: So let’s talk about clowning for a little bit because I think that’s really interesting that that’s sort of an underpinning for, you know, everything else that came after. Not that you. Not that your lifestyle has been a circus or clown college, but why did you want to become a clown? Was it because you had had some experience with juggling and with unicycle riding? Or did you always want to run away to the circus?

Skip Lackey: Like the cliche is, you know, it couldn’t be any further from the truth. I had applied to a lot of schools. Uh, I wanted to go to an acting program, musical theater program. And all the schools I applied to, I applied late. I was the oldest in my family, and nobody in my family really knew you were supposed to start applying in the fall. So I didn’t apply till like March, February. And by then all these Programs were full and I went to the league and, you know, I applied the NYU, UCLA, USC, and what, NC School, the Art. Its’s always school. Uh, I didn’t get accepted any of them because they were already full.

Steve Cuden: Right, sure.

Skip Lackey: So when the circus came around, I was accepted to a couple of small colleges. I started applying to all these women’s colleges thinking, well, first off, that could be really interesting to be the only guy at a women’s college or a few. And they need men to be able to perform the roles in the show. So, uh, but they were all full too. Other people have the same idea.

Steve Cuden: So the circus was it for you, then you turned to the circus?

Skip Lackey: I turned to the circus. And once I got accepted and I realized how cool it really was, it was, it’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my life on, on any experience.

Steve Cuden: So what were the big challenges of being a clown? What was the thing that was like, how do we get through this today? Anything?

Skip Lackey: Uh, exhaustion. Because you’re, you know, you live on a room on the train and you’re working from the morning till night basically on Saturday and Sunday. And then on Sunday night you go back to your room and you. The train takes off about one in the morning and you travel for a day or two to the next location. So I mean, it was, it was really physical exhaustion, but I was 18, so I had boundless energy. Um, but it was injury, exhaustion, and, um. You know, I think what really kind of started to set in though, was boredom with the performing. Because as fun as it was at that point, they were trying to really streamline the show. And so whatever you did when you left Winter Quarters, when the first show first got done, you had to do that over and over and over again for the six. I can’t remember if it was 300 or 600 shows. May was 300. I keep saying six. I don’t know why, but it was.

Steve Cuden: A lot one way or another.

Skip Lackey: And if you’re, uh, a creative force, which we all had been trained to be at clown College, it got freaking. It, uh, was rough because we wanted to be funny. We wanted to get laughs, and to do that, we wanted to get laughs from each other. So we were doing stuff and we would get chastised for it.

Steve Cuden: Did you develop your own routines in the circus or did they give you the routine?

Skip Lackey: Some of them. They would give you some of the bigger group stuff. But I, because I had a creative background, I picked another guy to be my partner and both of us got Got cast in this one show. And so we wrote all of our own routines and so we owned them basically. And to be a, uh, what’s called a first of May clown, a first year clown, and to have your own routines was unheard of back then. You had to, you were plugged in. But they liked some of the routines that my. My friend, uh, Bob Kramer and I came up with that. They got put into the show immediately and they got put in really good spots. And we got a lot of crap from it from some of the. The uh, senior clowns.

Steve Cuden: What were your favorite things about clowning?

Skip Lackey: Oh, you know, actually just being able to go up into the stands and make a child laugh or a child that was scared and scared of you because you’re a clown. There are so many people that have all kinds of weird concepts and ideas about clowns. Good, bad, or IND different. But a lot of kids, A lot of kids are scared because it’s, you know, the makeup and the costumes are bright, they’re big, they’re loud, and clowns move real quick. So I always made it a point to just get on my knee, stay at a distance, welcome the kids over my. My thing that I always tried to do was I felt like I’d be successful and build, uh, a child, help, uh, build up a child not to be afraid of the next clown if I could get them to touch my great big red nose. And so I would spend all the time I needed, if I could, trying to get that, oh, look, look, me, me, you know, and. And uh, I was successful out of the vast majority of the time.

Steve Cuden: Well, Stephen King hasn’t really helped the clown cause much, has he?

Skip Lackey: No, he has not. It. And that is. That has been the, uh, antithesis of what we all tried to do. Yeah.

Steve Cuden: So you also have been a writer for a long time. Did you train for that or did you just learn it osmotically by doing it?

Skip Lackey: You know, it started in our.. When we were in high school and, uh, Rand would say, hey, go write this scene for something that we were doing. So I got to the point where it was just part of what I did. And then when I had a lot of time, my acting career was. I was living in New York and um, and I was doing a lot of brand new musicals, a lot of experimental musicals, um, that they were trying to launch. So I was around a lot of writers, um, and a lot of composers and lyricists. So it was just something that I just found myself doing. And so I never was a. I didn’t write prose. That was not my thing. But I wrote screenplays and I wrote some theater. I never had theater produced, but I did have a couple of films produced that I wrote, low budget stuff, and it was bad.

Steve Cuden: Do you think of yourself, when you think of yourself in the creative world, as an amalgam of many different disciplines? Do you think of yourself as a performer, as a teacher, as a writer, as an actor? Or is it everything?

Skip Lackey: You know? That’s a great question, and I don’t have an answer for that. Right. I started as a performer, but in performing, I was a clown. I was on. I was a host for Nickelodeon. I was Santa Claus. I did Broadway, I did films. I did all kinds of different things. And then I went to film school and I wanted to learn how to. And so I wrote there. I had a number of projects that I had written that got picked to then be filmed. And if you got your piece picked, uh, at the school that I went to, Vancouver International Film School, then you got to direct it. And that’s what I. My heart was, really. I wanted to direct. So writing seemed to go hand in hand with, uh, uh, directing.

Steve Cuden: Well, directors are actually writing alongside of the writer in the sense that they’re, uh, taking the story that’s on paper and also writing further with the live part of it.

Skip Lackey: Exactly. Writing was just, um, an extension of something that I enjoyed. I really enjoyed it because from an acting standpoint, I understood character development. So often as a writer, you can. Or as an actor, you can get stymied by lousy lines, uh, that you’ve got to try to make work and honor the. Honor it. I remember. I remember doing an off Broadway show one time, and I went to the director and to the writer, and I was like. And I was the lead in this off road. Off Off Broadway. No, it was an off Broadway show musical about the life and times of Rube Goldberg. Okay. It was called Young Rube. And, uh, there was a problem with one of the scenes. It just didn’t. I didn’t understand the transition of me getting into seeing this. This ballad. And I’m like, the setup is just clunky. And. And I was said, well, what we could do was this and this and this. And the director of it at the time said, skip, listen, I’m directing. He’s writing. If you want to direct and write a show, you need to find one to do it with. And I shook my head and I went, you know what? I’m a prop. Okay? That’s how you see me. Okay, great. And you’re 100% right. And that’s why I ended up going to film school. Because when he said that to me, it was like the penny dropped and it clicked. And I’m like, you’re right. I need to be the creative force behind these projects if I want to get them off the ground.

Steve Cuden: As an actor, you are essentially an interpreter of the work that on paper. Unless it’s an improv thing.

Skip Lackey: Yes. And if you can’t feel like you can interpret it properly, there’s a problem.

Steve Cuden: Huge problem.

Skip Lackey: Yeah. Because it’s like you’re not connected to the material. Now, the material was good, but there were. There’s something in every piece that could always be better. If you’re in a collaboration. Sure. I think, uh, I always listen to the actors. I think it’s important.

Steve Cuden: You’re not going to get cast in a Shakespeare and change Shakespeare?

Skip Lackey: No, no, I wouldn’t do that, but. Or you can’t do that if it’s, if it’s a proven project. Right. If it’s a Broadway show, if it was Secret Garden or Big river or any of those pieces, Barnum. Any of those pieces that I did, it’s, I mean, all that’s there, all the movements there. You’re a piece of furniture that’s moving around on stage, saying the lines and singing and you do the best you can.

Steve Cuden: So you have managed to master many different disciplines over time. Do you, do you think of yourself as a master of these disciplines or do you continue to be a student of it?

Skip Lackey: Oh, that’s a great question. You know, I was working and I had a good professional career in New York and LA as an actor. And I saw myself do a couple of jobs though, and I saw myself on film and I went, uh, okay, I’ve got, I’ve got some, some work I need to do on my craft. So that’s when I took two years and I got accepted. I was studying in LA acting, um, at the Neighborhood Playhouse west and with a teacher, Robert Carnegie, who was a wonderful teacher of, um, Meisner technique. And I really liked it. I really felt strongly about it. And then on the board in the back of the theater it said study with Sandy directly in Becia, uh, the West Indies. And so at that time he was in his 80s and he would run these summer programs and he would run up several these summer month long programs, these intensives. And from it he would pick a handful of group of people to work with for a year or two. And so I thought, well, why that? I mean, Bob’s great, but why am I. Why am I not studying with Sandy if I could?

Steve Cuden: Sandy. Sandy, for the listeners who don’t know, is Sanford Meisner.

Skip Lackey: Yeah, Sany. Sanford Miser. We all called him Sandy. And so I called his assistant the next day and I was like, I have to do this with Sandy. And, um, and he was like, oh, I’m sorry, we’re full for the season. And I said, well, this is the part of me that is. I don’t t know if it’s just pushy, but I was like, no, you don’t understand. I have to do this. So I want your address. I’m going to send you a check and that you can hold on to right now. And at some point, someone’s going to drop out, and when they do, I want you to cash my check. And I don’t care if it’s a day before we leave. People leave. I’ll buy my ticket the next day. I’ll buy the ticket in advance. I have to be there. And so I went like, 10th on the list, unbeknownst, and I, I, uh, put some extra money on, on the check. And so I paid a little bit more, I guess, not much. And it was not expensive at the time to study with him. And it was, it changed my life. Those two years that I spent with Sandy, I really, for the first time, I felt like I, you know, you said master the craft. There’s a lot of crafts that I haven’t mastered. But at that time, I really felt like I understood my instrument, which was my body and my voice and my emotions because of the two years I spent with Sandy. I mean, his training was fantastic, and to spend that time with him just was phenomenal.

Steve Cuden: Explain to the listeners who don’t know what are the basics of the Meisner technique.

Skip Lackey: So, you know, there was the. There was Lee Strasberg in the Actor Studio, and there was Samford Meisner in the Neighborhood Playhouse. They all came out of that Stanislavski method acting, that, that school, the group theater, right? They, they had all been a part of that. And Strasberg went west, Meisner stayed east. And the idea, you know, everybody’s seen all kinds of things about the Actor Studio. That was what became famous. Meisner’s technique was his concept was acting truthfully under imaginary circumstances. And the real value to what he shared was, uh, you figure, the Actor Studio method acting. You know, there they would. They would use experiences that they’d had before and they would bring that emotion to the Moment. And they would use it, which works. It does work, but when you have to do it eight times a week in professional theater, it then you have to keep using real experiences. And, uh, after a while, you burn them out. You just, you don’t, you don’t have that many experiences with that intensity, um, to be able to keep that up. Now, Meisner’s concept was, if I can teach you how to feel and be present in the moment, you can imagine something and then you can reimagine it and it can affect you emotionally. So the different moment to moment exercise and those different exercises, they just built up this facile experience of being able to go from one moment to the next, to the next, to the next. And the truth is, it’s not just good for acting. It is one of the best life skills. I use that in my life about a. Around emotions and, and really dealing with the energy of emotion. And the leadership work I did and the personal growth work that I did that I taught others and all the business coaching that I did, teaching people how to use that technique in life, it’s one of the best life skills you could ever have.

Steve Cuden: So you brought Meisner into your personal growth and leadership seminars.

Skip Lackey: I brought the awareness. Uh, I didn’t, I didn’t actually teach moment to moment.

Steve Cuden: You brought the, the sensibility of it 100%.

Skip Lackey: I did, I did. Always. I, I. My time with Sandy, if I, if I just, I mean, I could just sit right now and I get emotional thinking about him because we were talking earlier about mentors. He was such a gift in my life. And, you know, I love, I’m a perpetual student. I love to learn. Right. I am, um, you know, so when you’re like, did I master anything? I don’t know, maybe other people might say that, but I’m a student at heart. And I sat right up next to Sandy on the front row right there, and I just, I wanted to be able to hear every single word. And I didn’t want anybody in front of me to distract me from listening to every single word he said because at the time that I studied with him, he had cataracts. He only could see really out of one eye. He didn’t hear very well. He had a hearing aid and he had a laryngectomy. So he would burp talk.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Skip Lackey: That’s how he would get his words across. So every word that he said was measured, it was specific, and it was a gem. And the class that, right before the class that I took, there was a Writer who sat through the class and wrote a book called Sanford Miser on acting that if anybody has read it, it was written uh, from the class just before the one that I took. So Sandy was. He influenced my life on all levels. I really, I love that time with.

Steve Cuden: So let’s talk then about going into personal growth and leadership, which you’ve done a lot of. Explain for the listeners what that means. What is the concept of personal growth and leadership? Are they the same thing? Are they two different disciplines? Totally.

Skip Lackey: Well, they are traditionally looked at as being two different disciplines. Leadership, uh, training is one, traditional leadership training and then there’s personal growth work and that, that’s a big, big wide variety of things you can do from meditation to uh, neuro linguistics programming to yoga, to any number of modalities that are out there now. Now I believe that leadership should be conscious and it’s bringing consciousness into the workplace and bringing emotional intelligence, social intelligence into the workplace and treating it like the leadership skills should all be personal growth oriented. But we were on the cutting edge of doing that and we were bringing this, this seminar. I did this seminar called the Journey for Years, which was uh, a. Basically it was a trauma release and healing seminar for being able to find your core, find your center and recognize who you were at your core and let go of all the things that surrounded it that had happened to you that could be stopping or blocking you from being able to be your best self. So that was perfect for leadership. And we did it from people that had had abuse, that had death and grief and illness. And then we transitioned it over to the leadership work and it was unbelievably powerful and so powerful that, you know, one of the things you mentioned in my bio was the Justice Department of Canada overhauled their leadership program. And one of the gals had done one of the workshops with me and she said, can you bring this into leadership? I said, well, we’re already doing it. So I wrote up, they wrote up an RFP and we sent that in and we got a two year program with them to help them be the core of what was taught to these uh, really key members of Justice Department on all levels. And it was so powerful.

Steve Cuden: Were they floundering prior to that?

Skip Lackey: Well, no, I wouldn’t say floundering, but they were posturing. Let’s just put it this way, the first day of the first class and there were a number of. With us, they showed up in three piece suits and they were posing and they were trying to power broker. I do this, I do That I write the law, I defend the law. I, you know, I do this. And then by the end of it they had on shorts and T shirts and flip flops kind of falling into our arms, hugging us, it’s sobbing, saying, you’ve changed our lives. You have changed uh, my life with my children, my wife, my spouse, my partner at work. You’ve changed our office just from what they learned. And it really only takes one, I think it takes one person at an office that holds a good strong center as a leader to really allow that kind of um, energy to just spread throughout an office or ah, a division of some kind.

Steve Cuden: Wouldn’t you say that’s true for any organization of any kind that needs one strong core?

Skip Lackey: Yes, and the further up the better. But sometimes you have to start from the bottom and it has to uh, you know, it has to go up. There’s this whole concept of vertical leadership. I think leadership should be horizontal, that anybody from any level of any group in any company should be able to stand up and has a great idea, is creative, has passion, that we can all follow that person. Because to be a good leader you also have to be able to be a good first follower to be able to say, you know what, that’s a great idea, we’re all going to get behind this. Or even if you’re not one of the main leaders, you can say, I think what, you know, Steve just said is wonderful and I’m on board with it. Steve, what can I do to help you get this throughout the company? I’m right there with you. And when you have that kind of energy and that kind of non-egoic leadership, it, it transforms organizations.

Steve Cuden: Even if it starts from the bottom or the metal, not from the top.

Skip Lackey: It does, yes. Because the top, it’s hard sometimes, you know, the tip of the spear, uh, unless they have, they’ve, they’ve kind of awakened to themselves, it’s hard for the tip of the spear to make the change. But sometimes when you have the handle of the spear and everybody’s gripping ono that and, and they’re holding strong onto it, then it can help guide the other end of the tip of the spear.

Steve Cuden: What happens if there’s a difference of opinion between that middle leader and the top leader is, does that ever happen?

Skip Lackey: It happens all the time.

Steve Cuden: So what, what happens then?

Skip Lackey: Well, I mean if your idea is truly good or if your energy is truly good, I mean you can have egoic leadership or what I also like to refer to as charismatic leadership. So you can have these Charismatic leaders and oftentimes they’ll see, oh, there’s some energy there, let’s follow that because people are, are really responding to it and you will have some times where things will get shut down. But um, like there’s a friend of mine who um, was one of the founders of something called Intrapreneur, the League of Intrapreneurs. So it’s entrepreneurship in organizations, of course, corporations. So it’s, how do you think like an entrepreneur in a corporation? So there are, there is. The corporate structure is really shifting and has been for a while. And so I think there’s a lot of more openings now than there have been in the past for sure.

Steve Cuden: Would you say that it’s important for leadership to be a good listener?

Skip Lackey: I think that’s one of the most important things you can do to be a good leader. Because if you’re listening really, really intently and the person feels like you’re listening and ah, that they’re being heard, the way that they feel is remarkably different than fighting to be heard. And then you could even say to them, well, how does it feel to know that you know, hey, this is, this is an opportunity. And then that person then gets ignited with energy, passion and purpose. And so you’re creating one at a time. When you listen to people, you’re creating these, these fantastic souls that will go out and be fully engaged. I mean there is all this data that says that um, um, that the Gallup polls have taken that say only out of every 10 people, and this is worldwide, o7 out of 10 are disengaged at work. That’s a lot disengaged. 3 are engaged, 3 are disengaged and then 4 are actively disengaged. Where someer, uh, people are just showing up to work and they’re doing what they’re supposed to do, but they don’t give you anymore. And out of those people, I mean those are your core workers, but you’ve got some people and I again I think it might be 2 out of 10 that are actively disengaged, that are stealing, that are not working, that are trying to act like they work. So you got 20% of your workforce and a large corporate structure that’s not doing anything in as a matter of factor pulling away from it so that the three that are actually moving the needle are having to fight against the two at the bottom of the spectrum that are actually pulling away from it.

Steve Cuden: So that’s really important that a good leader then helps to guide those people to no longer being Disengaged. Isn’t that, isn’t that the goal?

Skip Lackey: Well, it is the goal. And if you think about out of 10 people, three are actively engaged. What would happen if you got four engaged or five or six? Are you going to get everybody engaged? Maybe some did. I mean there are. Jack Welsh, right, at ge, he did a thing, uh, leadership wise, where the bottom 10% of the performers and they, they did metrics. If you were at the bottom 10% every year, you were fired, you were let go. So that gives you a lot of impetus to try to perform. But, and I think there’s a lot of bullshit performance that goes on too. And it’s a lot of posturing, potentially stealing. It’s not, it’s, that s not a good thing to do. But then you hear, you know, historically, Steve Jobs, right, pushed people to go beyond their limits. The same thing with Elon Musk. And that’s why these companies thrive. Uh, because they would take, they wouldn’t take no for an answer. We can’t do that in this timefraame this way that.

Steve Cuden: Let’s talk about an Elon Musk or a Steve Jobs for a moment. Um, because both of them have. Well, Jobs had. And Elon Musk has a reputation for being a little bit brusque and a little bit tough on people. Is that a good quality in a leader?

Skip Lackey: Well, you have to have a very specific. Now this is, we’re opening up a can of worms around personality types.

Steve Cuden: Sure.

Skip Lackey: Right. There’s, there’s something called the enneagram. Um, I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, Steve. It’s a personality typing, uh, modality that allows you to see really what people, how people are hardwired to react and respond. It’s one of the things that we teach in our leadership program, but in life it’s one of the best personal growth tools that I think anybody could ever learn.

Steve Cuden: So explain it to us. Explain what the enneagram is.

Skip Lackey: It’s a, it’s a big teaching that says you, you land and you, when you’re born, you kind of aim in one of nine directions. There’s a triangle in the center, uh, of an enneagram, which is a nine sided model. And that you’ve got these three core emotions, mind and body types. And out of that each one of them has three types that move towards a way and against. So it’s, it’s a very, I mean I can’t go into the big part of the model but what I can say is when I First started learning about this, about myself, about my family, about, uh, other people, my, you know, my girlfriends and partners. And what I learned was, is everybody is hardwired to react and respond a certain way. And everybody falls into these being a chapter in a book on some level. And what I realized is when I really honestly looked at it and went, oh, all that stuff that happened, it’s not personal. They were kind of hardwired to react and respond like that. I thought it was personal towards me. It’s not. So from a leadership standpoint, if you recognize and you can shortcut that, then you can go, however anybody responds, it’s not personal. And if you’re in the middle of the company and you’re looking up and you see the way that the leader is responding and. And you know what their enneagram point is? It’s like, it’s not personal. They’re just doing what they’re hardwired to do.

Steve Cuden: Is that something that you down here can make a determination about of a person? You can figure out what the enneagram is.

Skip Lackey: If you, if you understand the models well enough, you certainly can. So, for instance, I’m working in organization right now, and I’ve got this u. Uh, the owner of this organization. Great guy, great guy. And he’s u. What’s called an 8 on the enneagram, which is the challenger, the loss, the leader. Right. Well, my father was that point. And over the years, I’ve worked with so many people that have been that enneagram point. I know how they react and respond and they have a tendency to be very passionate and they, they get all worked up really quick over things, you know, and it’s. And they’ll. They can raise their voice and they can say things, but these people fits their fallback. When they get under pressure or stress, they go right into this behavior. And when they do and when he does or when other people in my life have always done that, I’ve gone, wow, okay. It’s not. Not personal. I don’t have to. I don’t have to get pulled into that energy right now because it’s not going to serve anything or anyone for me to get pulled into it too. So because of that, he and I have a great working relationship. Um, ###m and he respects me, but it took a while for to earn his respect. And that is. I mean, when I worked with Kay Wzingo, one of the partners in the business was an eight. And it took him about nine months of me being the executive producer and working with him side by side. And it was one time he said, you know what? I trust you to do this. And then I was like, okay, that, that was the magic word for that, that enneagram point trust and trusting me. And then after that we were inseparable and we worked really well together because he understood that I was there to make him look good too.

Steve Cuden: Well, he once he believed that you were doing what he needed you to do or wanted you to do, right?

Skip Lackey: U. Um, because at that point I was the executive producer, but I was running the, the production for that, that experimental camera technology and this one of the owners was jumping in and we were doing it together. But he, I could tell for a long time he just didn’t trust that I was going to do it. He’d probably been let down on a million different projects. And once he did, we started working and we were inseparable and we were. It was like he treated me like a brother and a partner and that was, that’s that leadership. And we, we did great things together because we were passionate and we never said can’t do it. We said yes to everything and we did it. We pulled it off.

Steve Cuden: Can leaders be made or is it have to be somewhat of a natural thing?

Skip Lackey: No, I believe, uh, 100% that leaders can. It can be something that can be taught and it comes with emotional intelligence. It comes with being able to be in the moment, be able to be a good listener. You brought a lot of this up and understand how human, human behavior and that it’s not personal. And also to be able to be, um, to be able to be resilient and, and have a lot of grit in times when challenges show up. There’s a wonderful book called Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holliday. I’ve read that book two or three times and it’s a simple book. I think everybody that’s in leadership, everybody that’s in this business should read it. Because obstacles come up all the time in different projects that we’re trying to do. And it teaches you how to go, okay, so that happened. What are we going to do about it? So you don’t get upset about it. You don’t throw in the towel. You just go, okay, so that happened. What are we going to do? And on different jobs, uh, I’ve seen that happen again and again and again and again where something happens that’s out of your control, that’s going to happen and how you respond, um, is how successful you’re at down the line.

Steve Cuden: So you. Not only are You a leader, but you also then did something on top of it, which is to teach leadership, which is a different skill set. Teaching something is different than doing something. And so I’m curious, in your ability to communicate this to people, did you use your skill sets from being an actor in bringing your teaching forward? In other words, were you able to use your ability to. To perform, so to speak, as a teacher? Was that useful?

Skip Lackey: Yes. All right. So I’ve been in front of over a million people live.

Steve Cuden: Wow, that’s a lot of people.

Skip Lackey: It’s a lot of people over the years. And I kind of roughed out, oh, if this many people, this many shows. And one of the things I realized is what had brought me to the fact that I was a good leadership teacher and a personal growth teacher was I had had so many different experiences in so many different ways, and I had pivoted so many different times. Uh, and throughout my life, I had a story to tell about just about every kind of situation that could have come up. So, yes, I got to one point and I went one day I was meditating and I went, wow, how did I get from there? As his kid from Arkansas growing up, who didn’t want to see his grandfather, you know, in a casket, to being, you know, standing in front of tens of thousands of people and being, you know, uh, this, this teacher. And I realized that what it was is everything I’d learned along the way, uh, which was story structure, how to tell a story, how to communicate it, how to be in the moment, how to listen to when something is said by somebody in the audience, how I could then make people laugh and be goofy enough like the clown bringing the clown and the physical comedy that I would. With the storytelling and the writing with that, you know, the story beats that you’re having to do. And. And I could do it. I could create what was called a nested loop. And that was, I learned from Tony Robbins. I was at Tony Robbins first seminar in New York when he was 23 years old, 24, and I was 23, and he would do this teaching where he would tell these stories and he wouldn’t finish them, so they keep you hanging there. And then he would come back and he would wrap them all up. So, uh, unconsciously, I learned that by watching him so many times, because I was, I was. I staffed for him on I don’t know how many events when I was younger. And, you know, that was. He convinced me that I could walk on fire, walk across the bed of red hot coals. Well, I did it, I don’t know, 60, 80 times. And if you can do that, what else can you do that you didn’t think you could do? Right. Um, so all of these skills, everything that I had learned from the production and being able to put on theater and film and direct, and that’s what I was putting on these seminars to help people be their best self. So everything that I’ve learned, and I believe this, everything that we ever learn, can be a skill, uh, that you can bring back as a skill set to share with other people.

Steve Cuden: I think that’s exactly right. And I think that it’s always amazing to me, it’s fascinating how people go through life sometimes having no plan at all. And they bump along and bump along and bump along, and then suddenly everything that they’ve learned comes into play on something that they finally focus on.

Skip Lackey: Yes. And that’s what it felt like for me. I mean, I, I, my personality type is the Peter Pan. Right? So I’m more new and different. So I went from circus to broad Broadway to film television. I started writing, I would, I went to film school, I was directing, I was hosting TV shows. And in the meantime I owned a, uh, restaurant that would hold 800 people. And I had a production company. And then I went after film school, directed a feature that I wrote and starred in and that got released and a couple of other ones. And then I took the job as a producer and worked all over the United States with all the networks and, uh, you know, and doing it at a really high level. Somehow I became this vision technology expert because no one had experience in the field. And I was doing it six days a week, 10 hours a day in the studio and figuring this stuff out. But I’m like, I always, people say, well, how did you learn all this? I was like, uh, geez, I trained a clown college, for God’s sake. Anybody can learn this. If you, if you’re really passionate about it. If a clown can do it, anybody can do it. I used to say that all the.

Steve Cuden: Time, especially if a clown can do it.

Skip Lackey: Yeah. You know, and that was, you know, 45 years ago that I did that. But, um, for that I did clowning. But that sense of humor with everything that I do just is a, uh, is a flavor, everything.

Steve Cuden: Well, I think the key, and you correct me if you think I’m wrong, the key in the hub of it, in the core of it, is that you are at heart a storyteller, that you know how to tell a story. And that becomes valuable because then you can communicate those thoughts to people. If you didn’t have that ability, it would be a lot more difficult.

Skip Lackey: Anybody that teaches as a storyteller, and I’ll take it one step further, you’re selling. Anybody that sells anything is a storyteller because you’re weaving a story around. And I believe we’re all salespeople at heart, especially in this business, you know, in the, in the entertainment industry. I mean, I have gotten to the point where I said, you know, people would say, what do you do best? And I’m like, well, I kind of sell because I understand how to tell a really good story. And when you could tell a story from your heart and honestly tell it, it inspires people, inspires people to take action. And what better gift could you have in the world? You know, if you’re not going to be in front of the camera or up on stage telling these stories that other people have written and you’re interpreting it. But if you’re going to be, uh, a teacher, a writer, I mean, that’s the reason I started writing is because I wanted to make a difference in the world. I wanted to actually tell stories that would inspire people. Uh, so they were, they were messages of redemption, of forgiveness. I wrote. One of the screenplays that I wrote was about the Holocaust. I’m not Jewish, but I remember hearing a thing when I was in my early 20s has said. And this was, this was in like USA Today, 50% of all high school seniors believe that the Holocaust was a hoax. And when I heard that, it literally hurt. It hurt me that that was even in consciousness and our world at that time. And this would have been in the 80s. And I don’t think that number is still the same. But I mean, uh, gosh, everything is about telling stories.

Steve Cuden: But that’s because those people that believe that have been told a different story.

Skip Lackey: That’s exactly right. And they believed them because somebody else’s narrative was so u, uh, believable and powerful.

Steve Cuden: And no one was counteracting it.

Skip Lackey: Nobody was counteracting it. Right. There was, there was a limited amount of information and there weren’t enough people that were educated or understood or read or, you know, or had ever met somebody that was in the Holocaust. So they didn’t have that same story that I did, uh, where I knew that that couldn’t be true. So you’re right. Everybody, every, uh, through time, everything is.

Steve Cuden: About telling the story, including being a good leader, isn’t it?

Skip Lackey: Well, leadership is really spinning a story. What it is, it’s your mission, your vision and your values. Your mvv. Right. Mission, vision and values. So you spend this story about, here’s our mission, this is what we’re trying to do. Here’s our vision, this is how we’re going toa do it. And they, here are our values, and this is, this is our rock. These are our ten commandments that we’re going to live by to get to that mission and our vision. So, yes, everything, leadership is all about storytelling. It all ties in and all ties.

Steve Cuden: And I can tell at this point you have been doing this for so long that it’s very much ingrained in you, that you have all of the thought and processes that you go through already ingrained in you. But when you first started doing it, how much of this did you have to memorize? Or did you have it on cards? Or how did you present your seminars? What did you do?

Skip Lackey: Gosh, that’s a real interesting question. When I, uh, yes, it is who I am now. And everything I do comes through my filter of my experience. Sure, right. And I think we all do that. Right. So, like, if I’m, if I’m right now I’m working at a company and I’m helping this company grow, uh, through selling construction projects. What do I know about construction? But I have a 95% close rate. 95%. The industry standard is 35. Where does that come from? It comes from I started telling stories to the potential clients that they went, oh. And I educated myself on potential answers to questions they might have. So I would go out and watch other people that sold and said, ooh, that’s a really good story that we can. That’s a good story. This really, you know, and I, you know, I gathered up a basket of, uh, good stories to be able to tell. And then when I started doing it for a while then I had my own story. What I would do is I would write a script, basically. I wouldn’t write it out word for word, but I would say, I’m going to tell this story, I’m going to tell that story, I’m going to tell this story. And then we’re going to do this, uh, uh, exercise, and then we’re gonna have this experience. And so this. Those were the beats that I was the story beats, literally, that I was going to use in the.

Steve Cuden: Thank you very much.

Skip Lackey: Yeah, a little, you know, a little promotion. And with those, with those beats, then you can build the structure, the larger experience. And then as time went on, you’gather up nice little subplots and sub stories as you started teaching it, and then you’d add to it. So at first it would be, you know, say it was. The day would be six or seven hours. Ten years later, the day is. Is like eight or nine hours. Because there’s so many good things and little moments that you found that you want to share, that it made the experience so much, uh, richer.

Steve Cuden: Would you say that your experience as a director also comes into play in managing people or organizations or teaching? How does the directing part of your experience also take part in this?

Skip Lackey: Well, you know, it’s interesting because when I directed, I also oftentimes would act. So I would have to be able to do, uh, do a scene sometimes and then watch myself do the scene, disassociate from it. To actually go. Was what I just did in a good. Do we need to shoot that again? So what I got really good at was in the moment is being able to take stock. And Is what I’m saying moving people, Are they, uh. Is this being successful at what I’m trying to do? So I would get to the point where I would start to then. What’s the right word? Self. Calibrate. You know, And I got to the point where my calibration was really clear because I was speaking and teaching. But I would also ask questions, or I would say, does anybody have a question? And from those questions, if you really listen and then say, did I answer your question? Not some bullshit answer where they are not getting their question answered because the person doesn’t really have an answer. I wanted to answer their question. So. And I would calibrate that way. And then it got to the point where I. It just became a natural part of the process.

Steve Cuden: So you could actually view yourself from, I guess from afar or from above and tell whether you were doing something that was helpful or it wasn’t helpful.

Skip Lackey: Well, there were. There were times when I was doing these personal growth classes, and people would get triggered. They would get triggered. I’d say something or. And they would respond in a maybe not as elegant way as they would have liked to have. And I would find myself getting triggered back and wanted to defend myself. And I would have to stop and go, this is the antithesis of what I’m trying to teach from a leadership perspective. Be still. Breathe. Okay. And say, okay. And be honest and be vulnerable and say, you know, Steve, when you just said that, it triggered me. And I felt myself get defensive, and, uh, I felt hurt. And I’m not sure that that’s what you meant to do. Maybe it was, but I don’t think it at your core that that’s who you are. So give me one second to get really still and give you an honest response rather than an egoic response. And I’ll be honest with it. People would respond 1. They would. They loved it because it was the truth. I mean, I was speaking the truth. I always did.

Steve Cuden: I love what you just said a moment ago about that you had to stop and breathe. I think that that’s something that’s taken me a long time to practice, to understand, to know that when I get triggered, when I’m upset by something, that the smartest thing for me to do is to step back and take a deep breath and just let the air flow through. I think there’s something very important to that. Is that truly something that leaders can use too?

Skip Lackey: Uh, well, I think that leaders, if they’re orators and are speakers, they need to learn how to use their breath and. And breathe properly, because that can. You can control a room by just getting everybody to be breathing at the same pace and tempo. And it’s possible to do that consciously and unconsciously. But you can. I want to say manipulate. That’s not the right word. But you can control the room by doing that and taking certain pauses. And I’ve learned from watching some of the best speakers in the world get up and speak where they say something or somebody asks them a question, and rather than immediately just coming back, they calibrate to what the question was. They. They settle in and go, you know what? Let me think about that for one second. And they just take a breath, and they let the entire room catch up to them, and they take this big pause, and then they come out and say, what this does is this brings up this to me, and they tune in. And I think that is true leadership. I think that’s so powerful. I would watch Steve Jobs do that when he would give his. His things, when he would come out with these new products. Yes, he had it down, but there would be times when he would take questions from the audience and he would walk for a second, he would pace, he would pace. And I’ve read a lot of stories about him, but I admired his creativity and his creative process beyond. Beyond words. It’s. It’s a beautiful process. I mean, you watch Barack Obama, who I thought was a good orator, but he would take these pregnant pauses between words, too, and after a while, it got to be a little much. Uh, but he would pause when he would be asked a question. And I think a lot of good speakers do that, especially a lot of good leaders, because they don’t want to just give the, the rote, oh, this and something falls out of their mouth and it’s diarrhea. They reallynna. Okay, how can I use this answer to actually create a different space to move people to share the mission, to bring more people onto the mission by talking about. See, I think I was in one time I was doing, uh, some work with my friend Rick Lewis. Right, Rick. So he was going into a lot of Fortune 100 companies in doing this, um, uh, this. It was the comedy act, but it really was something called the Seven Rules You Were Born to Break. And it was wonderful teaching platform. And we were in this multi-billion dollar company in San Francisco and they were saying, oh, our employees are not doing this, this and this and this. And I said to the um, I said to the group, I said, well, what’s your, what’s your mission, vision and values? I can’t actually now I’m thinking about, I can’t remember where I said it or Rick said it. One of us said it. And they went, oh, uh, and it was the CEO, the coo, the CFO, the CMO, the CIO. They were all there and none of them could remember what their mission, vision of values were. And one, the CEO finally said, oh, it’s down in the hallway at the bottom of the 45 store building, you know, and it’s on a plaque there. And our statement to them was, okay, so your employees are not, uh, doing what you want them to do, but you haven’t told them what you want them to do because you don’t even know what your mission, vision and values are. You should always use every opportunity as a leader to bring it back to those core tenets of what you, who you are and how you’re going to do it. And, and, and at what level are you going to do it at?

Steve Cuden: That’s where businesses fall apart is when they stop following their mission.

Skip Lackey: Absolutely, absolutely. And it’s such a simple practice. Hey, you know, Mike, I appreciate the way that, you know, uh, one of our values is, is to, to always act with integrity when no one’s watching. And you know, Bob, your, your division chief told me about the way that you did this on your own without being told. And so you’re following our values and I greatly appreciate that. You are a model in this company. I mean, how does that make somebody feel? It makes them feel like They’re a million bucks.

Steve Cuden: Right?

Skip Lackey: And it’s so simple. It’s so simple.

Steve Cuden: But a lot of people in business don’t do these things because they have no concept of it nor have they been trained in it. And they don’t realize what’s going on.

Skip Lackey: Well, they just don’t understand the importance of it. And you know, people are being, they’re going through and getting their MBA and they’re, they’re cramming for tests and. But the actual getting your, your masters’in business I think should also come in hand in hand with leadership because you know, you can be smart and have a lot of business sense, which I have studied like crazy. Uh, uh, you know, my daughter, my 18 year old, well, she turns 18 in a few days, uh, is going, she wanted to be a teacher and, which I thought was very honorable. And I said, what kind of teacher you want to be? And she goes, I want to teach, uh, fine art and I eventually want to be a principal. And so she’s double majoring in uh, education and in leadership. It actually she said to me, dad, it’s a really small program. It’s so small that the, that the dean of that, that um division invites everybody in, in the group over for their home because it’s only about 130 people and this is at a university, it’s got 40,000 students. So it’s not, it’s not something that a lot of people are doing. But I’m thrilled that she’s doing it. Sure. Because I have told her since she was child, you know, and that’s part of. Can you raise a leader? Absolutely. Both my kids are me, all three of them, but my younger two definitely. But my, my youngest, my 13 year old is at a leadership uh, camp right now, a Rotary Club called Young Leaders. And, and it was, it’s a free class that they put on out here for eighth graders. That’s great. Kids going from the seventh and eighth grade. So. Yeah, yeah. So leadership is a big part of our whole family and what we believe in and you know, step up and take the lead because if you don’t do it, no one else is going to.

Steve Cuden: So I have been having the most fascinating conversation with um, my, my old and very dear friend Skip Lackey, and we’re going toa wind the show down a little bit and I’m just wondering, you have clearly been doing this for quite some time and you’ve worked and met with lots of humans, as you say, a million people. You’ve been in front of U. Uh. So surely you must have a story that you can share that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat, strange, or just plain funny.

Skip Lackey: Yeah. Uh, when I did my first movie, uh, I was, uh, as you said in the bio, I did, uh, Jim Carrey’s first film, Once Bitten with Lauren Hutton and Cleveland Little, and I co starred in that with him. And, um, um, there was a. There was a nude scene in the movie. And this was. This came out in 1985. I don’t think this movie would. Would fly today because it was Little. I mean, I guess. I guess it would. There’s still some stuff that’s out there like it. But, um. Um. So when we were in rehearsals, this was Jim’s first movie. It was my first film. We went to Howard Storm, who was the director who had directed all the More and Meny. He said, oh, we’re going to give you these little socks to cover up your. Your penis when we do the nude scene. And we were like, oh, okay. And, um, so it was the day of that we were going to shoot it and it was in this high school gymnasium locker room. In the shower. We had a shower seat. And so we walked in and the. The. The person who was in charge of the costumes said, all your stuff is laid out. And when we went there, it was a robe and a towel, nothing else. And we went, hey, what happened to the little, you know, the sock? And the woman who was in charge of all the wardrobe said, I have no idea what you’re talking about. And so we went to Howard. The three of us did. There were three. The other character that played the co star with me, we were like, you know, the. His two best friends went, howard, what happened? And he goes, oh, come on, guys, I was lying to you. Uh, I. There’s no sock. You can’t do that. We’re not going to see anything anyway. Just man up. Uh, be a man, you know. And he goes, once you’re naked for two minutes, you’re not going to bother you anymore. Anyway, so we were filming these scenes

Steve Cuden: and is this with Jim Carrey?

Skip Lackey: Jim Carrey. I’m grabbing Jim from behind and we’re naked and I’m holding on to him. And the other guy trying to look for a vampire bite. Right? It was. It was a vampire movie, comedy vampire movie. He’s got his leg spread. And so we had filmed it whole bunch. And he. And Howard was right. Once we filmed it a few times, you were like, uh, whatever. I’m Naked. Who cares? You know, I really didn’t care. None of us did. Well, Samuel Goldwin Jr. Walked in to the scene and it was a close set, but after a while all the, all of the male and female, uh, members were all on set. Samuel Goldman Jr. Walked up and we, um, were naked. And he walked over to Jim and he goes, hey, Jim, how are you? And Jim stuck his hand out like really big. And Sam kind of reached across, grabbed Jim’s hand and Jim pulled him right up against him. I mean, right up against him. And Sam was. His face was just squirming, you know, because Jim was naked. We were all naked. And the crew started laughing. And then Jim just took his midsection and started flapping his, his. His thing back and forth, almost like one of those little toys that. And uh, Sam was trying to let go and Jim is going. And you know that it’s that kind of stuff. I knew that Jim Carrey was going to be a huge star because he entertained us all always.

Steve Cuden: Well, this was before he was. Before he was well known. Right.

Skip Lackey: It was his first film. He had done. He had done the Duck. The Duck Factory, I think it was called. It was a failed TV program.

Steve Cuden: That was it.

Skip Lackey: Yeah, that was it. And this was his first movie, first anything. And uh. But everybody had seen his brilliance. And uh, to this day I still can see it in my mind. And we hysterically laughed. Say, I’m trying to put his head away and not look as Jim was just doing that. Yeah, there. I mean, there were lots of stories along the lines like that, of funny things that happened, um, either in production or. There was a time when I had this, this camera technology and there were 36 cameras that we could stop time and move in time and space. So you could go through the 36 cameras and we would also create a thousand camera positions in between them with. With uh, this flow field data that these 18 patents would create a virtual cameras. And we got hired to do. We were doing the X Game, summer and winter X. And we got hired to do the um, the NHL All Star Game. So we showed up at the Staples arena to hang this thing. And ABC and ESPN had not told anybody we were there to do it and where we were going to get hung. They had already planned lighting and all of that. So, um, um, it was, it was like one of those things. You’re like, okay, so what are we going to do? So we had to work all night. We couldn’t work during the day because there was stuff on the ice. And we had to work all night. We, we’d come in at midnight and worked till like, seven in the morning. And, you know, you just made stuff work. You made it happen.

Steve Cuden: That’s how it is in show business, isn’t it? You just make stuff work.

Skip Lackey: Just make. Just. Just make it work.

Steve Cuden: Because it’s often one off. It’s often. There’s no other thing that you’re ever going to use something for. Now, in the case of, uh, Kinga, uh, you probably used it in many different applications, but each application would have been a little bit different.

Skip Lackey: Yeah, everything. Every single one of them was different. And they were. Every single one of them presented their unique challenge.

Steve Cuden: Uh, no doubt. So, last question for you today, Skip. Uh, you’ve already given us just a huge amount of very valuable and wonderful advice all throughout this whole show. But I’m wondering, do you have a solid piece of advice or a tip that you like to give to those who are just starting out either in show business or in leadership or whatever it would be, or someone who’s in a little bit and trying to get to the next level?

Skip Lackey: Yeah, you know, we kind of talked about this earlier, earlier, which is look for mentors. Look for people that are in front of you. Uh, those people will help shortcut your process. Um, I’ve had a number of mentors, and early on I had a mentor that said, get mentors, get mentors. And there was a gentleman, Robert Fola, who was the drama turk at Circle in the Square that I met. He was directing a show that I did, and he and I became friends and we would meet once a month and I would buy him lunch and we would sit at a restaurant for two or three hours. Did this for years. He passed away. He was actually one of the first recorded cases of HIV over England. He and his partner, uh, but Robert, we had this most unique friendship, and he gave me such good feedback over the years. So I really try to help people when I can. I literally how I got one of my first breaks in theater. I went to a casting director’s office. I didn’t know any better. They opened up the door and said, hey, we’d like to audition for Barnum. Um, we’re clowns with Ringling. We were in the circus at the time. And the casting director went to shut the door, and I literally stuck my foot the door, I mean, in the story, and said, no, no, no, you don’t understand. And ended up getting cast in the show. If you don’t know better, just Be willing to be, think outside the box. And there are two other pieces of wisdom. I had a teacher when I was studying to be on, on soap operas, I was studying soap opera acting because it’s a very specific style. And he said to me one time, he said, skip, what do you, what are you trying to accomplish with this character? This. Before I took acting with Meisner and I said, well, when I read this, I thought the character was such, such and such. So when I’m doing this, I’m doing it like this. And he goes, you know what? There’s always going to be somebody that’s going to be a better character actor than you. And he said, if I can give you one piece of advice, just be the best you that you can be. Take your style, how you do things, and just do what that is, because you might not be right for that specific role. But first off, the casting director, the director, uh, one of the producers will remember you if you were just being the best you that you can be. And they’ll see somebody pretending to be you and say, you know who we really need for this is skill. Call him in. And uh, here’s, here’s an example of that. Steve. So when I go on an audition, didn’t know what it was for, and I get put on, on tape was for this movie, the script said Back to the Future. So it was for the Michael J. Fox Ro. Michael J. Fox was not cast in it. I was the New York choice and flew to LA to audition for the lead. And Back to the Future Steven Spielberg flew in and Robert Zemeckis were there and they read me for about an hour through all these scenes and I, and I was always an actor that loved to get feedback. Um, and use I would, I could, I could, I could, you know, shift things. And when I was working, I said to, to both Zemeckis and Spielberg, what can I do? Is there anything I could do differently? And they both said to me, and I realized it was a huge compliment. Skip, I don’t want to give you any direction because what you’re doing is so uniquely you and different and I don’t want to mess up your performance. And then when I screen tested and did all the tests with, uh, you know, Chris Mc Glover, Leah Thompson and Christopher Lloyd, we did all these, we did all these screen tests. Zameecka said the same thing. I don’t want to give you any feedback that might take you in the wrong direction because I love what you’re doing and it’s Uniquely you. So at first I didn’t know what to think of that, but then I realized later that. That you couldn’t be any different because so there’s so many people that are trying to find their own style or their own who they are. And apparently I had stumbled upon it at some point and was doing a good job of just being me. And I was the. I was the second choice for so many different things along the way. You know, me and Woody Harrelson for that role on Cheers and, uh, so many different films that I was so close to. But I knew that what I was doing was right because directors were pulling me aside, casting directors pulling me aside, going, don’t stop. You’ve got something really unique. It’s just a matter of time. There was a director one time that said, look, everybody will get some kind of shot. If you’re really talented, you’ll get the opportunity of doing it again and again. So what’s here for you? What, what is it you really want? Me, I just wanted to tell stories and I wanted to work. I didn’t care whether it was theater, if it was film, if it was producing. I just wanted to be a part of something that was telling stories. And we, um, told stories with that, uh, vision technology. It was a really cool story that we had. We went out and sold it over and over and over again to all kinds of different opportunities just to share that, um, they’re still using that technology on, um, on TV now. I see it in football games and some basketball games, some hockey stuff. And we were way ahead of our time. So don’t be afraid to pivot, don’t be afraid to get mentor. Don’t be afraid to say, I don’t know and ask questions and be the perpetual student. You know, you don’t have to have it all figured out. And people like to be around people that are nice. So re. If you are likable, you’re probably going to get more work because you’re easy to work with. Show up on time, know your lines, be a nice guy, and be willing to do whatever’s necessary.

Steve Cuden: Well, all that’s extremely, extremely valuable advice because, uh, people who are starting out frequently think that they have to do something different than just being the best that they can at what they know how to do.

Skip Lackey: Be the best them that they can be. Be the best you.

Steve Cuden: Skip Lackey. This has been a fantastic hour plus on StoryBeat today, and I. It was great seeing you and talking to you and, uh, I can’t thank you enough for spending your time and your wisdom with all of the listeners today on StoryBeat.

Skip Lackey: Thank you for inviting me on, Steve. This is. We go way back, way back. And what a thrill it’s been to kind of reconnect, uh, especially around this and, and to be able to share whatever wisdom I guess, uh, that I have. It’s been a real joy. And you’re a wonderful interviewer. Really enjoyed the conversation that we had.

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating or review on what, whatever app or platform youe listening to. Your support helps us bring more great StoryBeat episodes to you. StoryBeat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, I Heart Radio, stitcher, TuneIn and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden and may all your stories be unforgettable.