Reinventing the Five-Second Rule with Laurie Anne Creus

Witten by: Brianna Coccia - March 2022
Edited by: Travis Ryan

Did you know that you have five seconds before your brain convinces you not to do something? Long Island musician Laurie Anne Creus defines her comfort zone with Mel Robinson’s theory on the five-second rule: “If you have an instinct to act on a goal, you must physically move within 5 seconds, or your brain will kill it.”

Expanding further on this theory, LA says that you must “take the big pictures that you have in your mind and then keep shrinking [them] down until you find the smallest step you can make. Then go from there.” So, when she realized her largest goal was to make an album, the first step she could think of was calling a bassist. Sometimes you just have to “accept that inevitably, people will have negative things to say, but there will be people on the flip that are so happy you did it.”

Behind the scenes of her most recent photoshoot with photographer Andrew Millan, LA gets real about her former camera shyness; it’s been 20 years since she started performing, and yet she only had her first solo shoot back in 2018. She notes that it took her so long to book her first shoot because the idea made her wildly insecure. To prepare herself, she researched articles and blogs from curvy models on what techniques to use, how to pose, and how to move her body to get the look she wanted.

During her research and prep for her first shoot, she found an article amongst the masses that talked about allowing yourself to take up space. The article was about a girl who was resentful because she let her insecurities keep her from being photographed and in turn was not a part of any of her own memories.

“The truth is I gained weight, and what’s the problem? That’s the truth,” states LA. You don’t want to go four years down the road and not see yourself in photos because you didn’t like the weight you had on you. 

To help her get amped for a shoot, Laurie Anne puts on hype music and pretends like she’s Beyonce—don’t act like you haven’t done it too. LA says she favors prog hip-hop (with a definite preference for DOMi & JD Beck) for her shoots as of late. Before she enters the studio, she tries to be completely present in the moment and remind herself that everyone here is her equal; she is not less or more.

The key to a good photo or video is the storytelling. “Everything has a craft to it, even bagel-making. The simplest looking things are not, and that’s beauty.” Capturing your essence can be rather difficult, but “the more you get to know yourself as an artist, the easier it is to pose and stage a shoot that matches that energy.”

So, how does she stay accountable to herself and get in front of the camera? She chooses to love herself now—it’s mandatory. As LA says, “I have to do this for myself now because I am going to lose the time.” She knows she must see past it and embrace all the external accomplishments she’s had regardless of her body image.

In the end, if you’re scared to do something, just do it. Break it down to the tiniest step, and then do it.