How to conquer pressure — the Jim Belushi way

Sometimes, when Jim Belushi feels anxious, he tells himself he’s actually just stoked. “Physiologically,” the actor, comedian, and entrepreneur tells Big Think, “what happens to your body when you’re nervous or fearful is exactly the same thing as what happens when you’re excited,” so all you need to do is flip a switch. It’s one of several tricks he learned early in life that stuck with him throughout the various chapters of his long and storied career, from Hollywood to Oregon pot farm.

Born to Albanian-American parents in the suburbs of Chicago, Belushi began acting in high school — an experience, he once told the Connecticut Post, that “made me feel good for the first time in my life.” Following in the footsteps of elder sibling John Belushi, he cut his teeth at Chicago’s renowned Second City improv troupe before joining the cast of Saturday Night Live while the program was in the middle of its golden age. 

After John tragically passed away from a drug overdose at age 33, Jim honored the Belushi legacy by joining the TV-movie-music phenomenon, The Blues Brothers, performing alongside Dan Aykroyd at Super Bowl XXXI and on subsequent tours. Most recently on screen, he starred in the musical drama Song Sung Blue as well as The Chronology of Water, the critically acclaimed directorial debut of actress Kristen Stewart.

Like Ryan Reynolds, The Rock, and other enterprising Hollywood stars, Belushi has been exploring business ventures outside the entertainment industry. In his case, not tequila or mobile phones, but Oregon-grown marijuana, cultivating strains like Captain Jack’s Gulzar Afghanica, also known as “The Smell of SNL” on account of its former popularity on the set at 30 Rock. 

Belushi’s passions came together in Growing Belushi, a reality TV show on the Discovery Channel that documented his day-to-day responsibilities, personal mental health journey, and advocacy for criminal justice reform and medicinal use: “If John had been a pothead,” Aykroyd once said, “he’d still be alive today.” 

Belushi sat down with Big Think to discuss what his background in show business has taught him about regular business, how improvisation has shaped his life for the better, and why — sometimes — all you need to do is count to ten.

Big Think: Your roots are in improvisational comedy. Are there any lessons from that world that have stuck with you to this day?

Jim Belushi: Absolutely — improv is the basis of my entire career. More than anything, it forces you to be in the moment, to be spontaneous, because you’re surviving from one sentence to the next. You don’t know what the other person is going to say — you often don’t know what you yourself are going to say. In many ways, it’s the best training for life’s challenges one can have. Practice, and the ability to act in the moment — and the feeling that goes with it — become instinctual. You carry that spontaneity into everything you do. I even bring it to scripted material. Growing Belushi was entirely improvised, too, made on the spot — and it was beautiful because of that.

Credit: Tyler Maddox

The same goes for my acting work. It’s called show business, after all. You’ve got to do a lot of business in order to do your show. All of my roles have been instructive to me — from theater to television to film. I look at everything the same way. Whether you’re growing a plant or studying a script, it’s about focus, attention to detail, and a commitment to risk by throwing yourself 100 percent into it. A lot of us struggle with commitment, in relationships and almost anything else. Being able to put yourself into something 100 percent is essential, I’ve learned. Sometimes we hold back, only throw ourselves in at 80 percent — and it just doesn’t work.

Big Think: How do you overcome that struggle to commit?

Jim Belushi: When I was younger, I didn’t even know I was taking risks. I was just doing things. As you get a little older, you start experiencing consequences here and there, and you become more cautious, with knowledge. Now I choose a little more carefully whether I’m willing to take a risk. But when I do, I risk it all. 

Big Think: You recently starred in The Chronology of Water — it’s been getting very impressive reviews. When you’re reading scripts, how do you recognize a good idea, even when it’s still in the rough or other people don’t yet see its full potential?

Jim Belushi: I met Tony Curtis many years ago and he told me: “Do everything.” I said, “But some things are better than others.” He said, “You never know.” And it’s true: you never know when you read a script whether it’s going to be good or not. There’s so much involved — the director’s vision, the timing, the culture at that moment. 

There was one year when there was a script going around in Hollywood called To Live and Die in LA, and another called Tender Mercies. To Live and Die in LA was a good script, detailed, and well written. You’d read it and think, “Wow, this is gonna be great.” Tender Mercies on the other hand was very thinly written. You’d read it and go, “Nah, I don’t think so.” And yet, Tender Mercies ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Do it all. And do your job. Gene Hackman once said, “Look, I’m not a script picker. I’m an actor. I act.” There are a lot of movies I did that I thought were going to be really great, and then they went nowhere. You just don’t know, so you take a risk.

Big Think: Those who’ve worked with you often talk about how personable you are. How did you learn to get along with others — to make friends in any room you step into, no matter who’s in it?

Jim Belushi: I’m definitely big on collaboration, getting people’s opinions and arriving at the best idea together. As an actor, I’m first and foremost an ensemble player, and I bring that same ensemble feeling into my business. The farm was an ensemble: everyone had an important role to play. Some people did things better than I did, and that’s why I never let my ego get in the way. “You know better — let’s do it.” 

And ensemble thinking is very simple: you have to think about others. On stage, you’re constantly asking yourself, “How do I make the other actor look as good as possible?” If we’re both just trying to make ourselves look good, that’s a different energy.

Big Think: A lot of people talk about discipline as the key to success. What about a sense of humor?

Jim Belushi: I wouldn’t put those two in conflict with each other. I’d put them in tandem. They’re like two wheels on a bike; you need both to ride. You need a sense of humor to grease the wheels, to soften the edges that get created in relationships. 

Discipline might be easier to cultivate, though, because you have firm rules, outlines, lists you can follow on a daily basis. A sense of humor is more elusive, and the pressures around you can stifle it. There’s a line I did in a movie [About Last Night] written by David Mamet that people still quote to me when I walk down the street: “Dan, Dan, Dan, don’t ever lose your sense of humor.” I live by that. 

You’ve got to be aware — body and mind — and ask yourself, “What am I feeling right now?” You might realize, “Wow, this is really intense. I’m going down a rabbit hole.” And you can get out of that rabbit hole, or you stay in there. 

Big Think: The business world often glorifies stubborn perseverance. But what about knowing when to quit?

Jim Belushi: There’s this story about an older gentleman, 89 years old or so, and someone asked him, “Oh wise man, after all these years, what have you learned?” He took a long pause and said, “Everybody waits too long to get out of something.” It’s like being in a bad marriage — you often stay one or two years longer than you should. You should just call it quits, but instead you just punish each other. I’m not a quitter, but you have to know when to quit. Often, pride gets in the way.

Big Think: Sometimes people don’t quit because they’re afraid of failure. How do you deal with that fear?

Jim Belushi: Failure happens. What are you going to do? You mourn it for a couple of days, then you get up and move on. What else are you going to do? My father was a guy who failed, and once he failed, he couldn’t get up again. It devastated him. I told myself I wouldn’t let that happen to me. You fail, you get depressed, you beat yourself up for a couple of days, and then it’s like, “All right, let’s go. Next!” You’ve got to keep moving. You’ve got to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Otherwise, you’re stuck in quicksand, and you get swallowed up by your mind.

Big Think: As an actor and a public figure, how did you learn to deal with the pressure of being watched? How did you learn to perform to the best of your ability when all eyes are on you? 

Jim Belushi: If you even start thinking that way, you’re going to put your body into shock. You become so self-conscious that you can’t do anything. There are a lot of talented people out there — people who are funnier than me, who can act better than me — who never made it because they let their head get in the way. You’ve got to be able to play under pressure.

Now, I’m a pressure player. The higher the pressure, the better I am. And the way I do it is simple: by really studying my roles and being well-prepared before I walk onto a set. When you’re 100 percent focused on what you’re doing, you’re too busy to think about who’s watching you — you’re thinking about what you’re doing in front of you.

It’s all about bringing your body into the present. That’s why I like yoga. By the end of a yoga session, I’m in that Zen moment — so present in my body that I can feel everything. With work it’s the same: you’ve got to put yourself in your body before you get on stage. Otherwise, you start thinking, “My God, someone I went to kindergarten with is watching me,” and then you’re in your head again.

I have this little trick I taught my daughter once. Physiologically, what happens to your body when you’re nervous or fearful is exactly the same thing as what happens when you’re excited — the same sensations, the same response. So instead of saying, “I’m nervous,” say “I’m excited.” Switch the perception. If you’re excited, you can’t wait to show people what you’re doing. That small shift in perception really helps.

Sometimes, I just count to ten and then start. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten — and I step out and go. See what happens. It’s fun. It’s a joy.

This article How to conquer pressure — the Jim Belushi way is featured on Big Think.