Wendy Braun is a working actor, mindset coach, and creator of the Success Breakthrough workshop featured in Forbes — but this episode is really about the moment she sat in her car outside a preschool, ready to quit the business, and chose to stay.
Working since 1995 with credits on Grey's Anatomy, This Is Us, Atypical, and Criminal Minds, Wendy built a parallel life coaching actors through the inner game of auditioning — writing and recording her own guided meditations, building workshops, and helping thousands of actors shift from proving to playing.
Now she's on Jury Duty Season 2 as the villain, and her audition story is a masterclass: a 24-hour self-tape turnaround the day after a 10-day meditation retreat, a live callback where she brought apples with lime and Bristol Farms chicken, and a booking that arrived 30 years into her career — when she finally stopped needing it.
We also talk about self-tape vs. in-person prep, memorization, motherhood and ambition, and why "nerves are just excitement without the breath."
These are the unforgettable stories that landed Wendy Braun right here.
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