Posts tagged Career Advice
What you believe is vital
feb 1st
Take a few minutes to read Dan Friedman’s latest blog post called What Do You Believe? These are sage words of advice that I hope you will both read and heed.
Invite the Avalanche – part 6
jan 30th
Yesterday I wrote about the pitfall of being average. Now, let’s get very real for a moment. No one, no matter how talented and dedicated and industrious is going to be able to excel at everything. We’re all going to have areas of weakness and average-ness. Even in our professional lives, some things are going to be outside of not only our comfort zone, but our ability.
Having established that, here’s what I also know. You can be exceptional if you will take the time and exercise the humility needed to learn what you need to learn in order to become exceptional. Once you’ve begun this process, stick with it. The main thing that can derail you on your journey to being exceptional is to change directions or change focus. Doing so will derail your efforts every time. Needless to say, quitting will also derail you.
And once you’re on your way, here’s something you won’t hear from a lot of people. Don’t be afraid to say “no.” Know yourself, your strengths. You can’t please everyone. You really can’t be all things to all people. So don’t even try. Say “no” to the things that aren’t right for you. I do this all the time.
But, when you say “no,” keep in mind that this can still be a win for you. Refer a job that isn’t right for you to someone it is right for. In fact, when you do so, it’s a win for not just you, but your friend who gets the job and the client who gets when he or she needs. Do that often enough and you won’t know what to do with all the work you do have.
What? Turning down work leads to more work? Yes. Because at least some of those people to whom you refer work, will refer things back to you. And at least some of those clients you helped are going remember you, too and when they have something that is right for you, who do you think they’re going to call? Yep. You.
The more you concentrate on doing the work you are best at, the work you most enjoy, and turn down everything else by referring that work to someone else, the bigger your avalanche is going to grow.
Playing the averages
jan 29th
Average is just that, average. As Seth Godin points out in a piece published at Business Insider, being average not only isn’t good enough any more, it’s much worse than that. This is true in the voiceover business as much as it is in any other business. I need to keep raising my skills. So do you. This isn’t so much to get ahead as it is to simply keep moving.
The real secret to avoiding “average” however, is to be you. If you’re trying to be the next whomever, stop. Find your voice. Build your business around the things you love voicing. Not only will you be happier, you’ll almost certainly be better paid, too. Just as I am the world’s exclusive source for voiceovers by Bob Souer, you are the world’s exclusive source for voiceovers by you.
The Actors Library
jan 26th
While it’s not just for voice actors, there’s a ton of valuable information available for us voiceover types at Kristine Oller’s The Actor’s Library. Highly recommended. As is Kristine herself. Oh, The Actor’s Library is completely free!
New additions to Pat Fraley’s Free Lessons
jan 12th
Pat Fraley is a top flight voiceover talent, a superb and thoughtful coach, and a friend. He’s also prepared a number of free voiceover lessons on a page at his website called, originally enough, Free Lessons. He’s just recently posted 3 new lessons on demos, confidence and flow, but really if you haven’t visited the page in a while, it’s well worth exploring.
Fees and things
jan 8th
My friend Derek Chappell writes a very fine voiceover blog. Recently he posted some thoughts about rates and fees that is well worth a few minutes of your time.
Faffcon 4 registration will open on Friday
jan 4th
General registration for the 4th edition of Faffcon, which will be held March 23-25, 2012 in Ventura Beach, CA, opens at Noon Eastern/9:00 AM Pacific on Friday of this week (January 6th). 25 of the 100 spaces available will be released 24 hours earlier to us frequent Faffers. I will register the first moment I can. I hope to see you there!
Invite the Avalanche – part 2
okt 10th
The power of accumulated time is something most of us don’t understand or if we do, we don’t really want to. My friend Dan Friedman blogged today about this subject with great eloquence in a post called The Most Difficult Part to Being in Voiceover. I’ll wait a minute until you’ve had the time to read and absorb what he said. When you’re done, click the “back” button and we’ll pick up again.
Good, but a little difficult to swallow in some ways, isn’t it? We don’t want to have to wait, but Dan’s right. Waiting is part of the deal. By the way, the waiiting bit is true for those of us who have been doing voiceover for years, just like it is for those who are just getting started or who’ve been doing voiceovers for a short time. And not just in looking back. We all have to wait, sometimes for a long time, in lots of different ways. It’s part of the deal.
The cool thing is that there’s something you can do to make the time pass a little more quickly. It’s to harness the power of the magical little E.L.B.s. You can read about these magical little creatures in the archives of the Monday Morning Memo, if you’d like to know a bit more. But, here’s the short version.
Every day, every single day, don’t go to sleep until you’ve made at least one step forward on your journey. It doesn’t matter how big or small the step. It doesn’t matter if it’s publicly visible or something only you know about. But every day you have to take some kind of action, move at least some tiny bit in the direction you’re going. If that’s success doing voiceovers then that’s the direction you need to head.
And the cumulative power of those little steps, taken one day after another, day after day will amaze you because it’s not one day’s action added to the next day’s and the day after that and so forth and so on. They don’t just add one to another. They begin to compound and multiply and before you know it, you’ve made an amazing amount of progress.
For 26 years I worked on voiceover as much as I possibly could, and things have gone pretty well for years; but it wasn’t until just the last 5 years or so that things have really taken off.
If you really do want an avalanche (remember I’ve all ready warned you it’s not fun to be sitting until that avalanche when it falls on you), you’re going to have to work at it every day, one little bit at a time. Unlike a real avalanche, which can be accelerated by explosions and the like, the avalanche of work has to be started one little bit at a time.
Are you ready to do the work? The only thing necessary is for you to start.
Pat Fraley and his character voices are coming to NYC
sep 21st
Pat Fraley is making a trip to the East Coast next month. If you are interested in character voices, audiobooks, animation and games you really should study with Pat. Details are on his web site.
