On this episode of the That Luxe Life podcast, I’m interviewing Ashley Sutton who is an actress living her career dreams. When I first met Ashley, I was stunned to know that she was an actress living her career dreams in Los Angeles. Over the years, I had met individuals who had wanted to pursue acting but met roadblock after roadblock and eventually ended up completely giving up, but not Ashley.
Ashley is living her career dreams and with the support of her family and friends, continues to push forward in her career and is fighting the fears that come along with pursuing your career dreams and breaking down those roadblocks that come along. She shares that roadblocks will arise and will also be there no matter what your career dream is, but that it shouldn’t stop you from doing what you want.
Ashley is an actress that has been acting and singing since she was a child and it was evident to her family that she has the knack for it.
As she got older and even had a job as a reporter, she decided that it was time to quit her job and decided to pursue her dreams and enter into the acting industry. She began taking acting classes and going to auditions, and though she felt like giving up from time to time, she kept going and is securing gigs in various films and shows.
Drawing inspiration from actresses such as Sandra Bullock and Viola Davis, Ashley is continuing to grow herself as an actress and, every day, is proud that she is pursuing her career dreams and she is sharing tips on working in the industry and pushing towards your career dreams.
Navigate to Where You Want to Go:
1. How to Follow Your Career Dreams
2. Overcoming Fear to Pursue Your Career Dreams
3. Getting the Training to Be Successful in Your Career
4. Dealing with the Lack of Diversity in Your Career
How to FOLLOW YOUR CAREER DREAMS
It’s hard to follow your career dreams. We face fears and, often, we don’t always know where to begin. Ashley went through the same thing. When she was about to enter college, her mom was pushing for her to apply to Julliard and pursue her dreams, but doubt was holding her back and she went down a different path. But when she was working as a reporter, she realized that she couldn’t just focus on the fact that she needed money, but she had to focus on her happiness and where she saw herself down the road. So she made the leap and decided that it was time to follow her career dreams. Ashley, in order to enter into the acting industry, put the voice of doubt on mute – a voice that she says still pops up from time to time – and made the leap. And that is what she says is the first step in following your career dreams. You just have to make the choice and take a leap of faith and know that there will be times where fear and doubt will come into play, but the happiness that comes with being in the career that you truly want to be in needs to be the feeling that you should focus on.
Overcoming Fear TO PURSUE YOUR CAREER DREAMS
Everyone is always met with fear when it comes to pursuing career dreams. As Ashley entered into the industry, she met moments of rejection and sometimes, just not hearing anything. She says that “I would have panic attacks about everything”. She would constantly consider quitting and getting a “real job”. Ashley says that though it never really stops, there are ways to overcome that fear and it starts with having a support team around you and taking chances. She also says that you have to know that what is meant to come to you will come to you, so don’t let the fear stop you from taking your journey and pushing towards those opportunities.
Getting the Training TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN YOUR CAREER
Training is essential no matter what your career is. You may have a knack for a certain skill or a certain career path, but that doesn’t mean that there is never a need to train and grow your skills. Ashley, as an actress, immediately put herself into acting classes so that she could not only expand upon her skillset but learn new ways of thinking when it comes to her career. Her one major piece of advice when it comes to training is that you should always look for different teachers and training so that you can look at things from different points of view and learn different ways of improving your skillset. Similar to how we learn from different teachers in school, Ashley goes to different teachers who have different specialties so that she can branch out and become a master in her field.
Dealing with the Lack of Diversity IN YOUR CAREER
In many job industries, there are diversity issues. In the film industry, Ashley constantly notices that there is a lack of age diversity, and gender diversity that she says is constantly apparent. For example, she talks about how there is a lack of women being cast within their 30s or even shown in movies or TV. Her first tip with working against the disparage is to communicate with others in your space. If you go into a career and you know someone that is also in your same space, talk to them about the monetary offers so that you know what you can ask for and even counter if you are offered a lower rate. The second tip is to have conversations with others to talk about representation and to not be afraid if you are entering into a space where you don’t see yourself represented because you may end up being the representation that others see so that they pursue that career as well.
About the Episode
If you enjoyed this episode and are looking forward to future episodes on That Luxe Life, make sure to subscribe! There are new episodes bi-weekly on Fridays covering topics from business to travel to motherhood and more. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And if you really enjoyed this episode, I would love for you to LEAVE A REVIEW on the podcast because more reviews will help the podcast grow and be able to bring you more amazing guests!
CONNECT WITH ASHLEY:
– IMDB Profile
– Ashley Sutton Website
– Ashley Sutton Instagram
– Ashley Sutton Youtube
Photo Credits for this Post: Stephanie Girard & Mike Garcia
