I came across this post by my voiceover colleague Doug Turkel via Facebook. This is one of the most amazing articles that I have read on growing and maintaining a voiceover career.
Doug’s blog is titled “50+ Vital Business Resources for Voiceover Talent”. I’ll be reading, re-reading this article and applying this knowledge starting now.
Thank You Doug!
Here’s the link:
http://dougturkel.com/blog/2011/09/08/50-vital-business-resources-for-voiceover-talent/
Cheers!
Attention VoiceOver pals, non voicies…
Who’s on the winning team?
I am!
YOU are!
Here’s a fantastic video that was passed on to me by one of my podcast and twitter colleagues, @mikeleighcooper. Enjoy!
It’s so wonderful when you meet a voice over pal that you’ve only known via the internet. My friend from the vo-bb Chuck Davies was recently visiting here in London. Chuck, his wife Kate, and I met up at a pub in Covent Garden and spent some pleasant time getting to know each other.
Fabbo!
When I’m not voicing, I’m here:
It’s my Facebook page for cool arts, culture and crafts news! Please pop by for a visit and a “like”. >^..^<
Happy Fourth of July to all my friends and colleagues in the US. It’s not a holiday week-end over here in England, but still there are lots of festivals going on and the weather’s great.
Rodney Saulsberry’s got a new YouTube video out – Practice Fast Commercial Tags With Rodney Saulsberry – I’m looking forward to adding that to my repetoire of pre audition/gig warmups. Here’s the URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umXojMruUSg&feature=youtu.be
Penny Abshire of the Voice Acting Academy wrote a really powerful list of 7 Ways to Maintain a Positive (and grateful) Attitude. It’s brilliant. With Penny’s permission, I’m reprinting it here. You can find their URL on the right hand side of my page.
7 Ways to Maintain a Positive (and grateful) Attitude
1. Keep a “Happy File.” Keep a file or box full of special things – birthday cards, an encouraging note, an award you’ve won, a love letter, a special picture, etc. When you are feeling low, take a few moments to look through the file. As you do, allow yourself to feel the same emotion of pride, love or excitement you did when you received that letter, award or card.
2. Train yourself to “turn it around!” When a negative thought enters your mind, find that one extremely positive thought you keep in reserve (your touchstone), see it clearly, feel it, and then push out the negative thought! Positive and negative thoughts can’t co-exist in the mind and positive thoughts are much stronger!
3. Keep a Gratitude Journal. Take a moment each day to write down something you are grateful for in your life. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. (For instance, I am VERY grateful for the hot water I receive at a twist of a knob each morning when I take my shower.)
4. Develop the habit of daily prayer. Like any other parent, our Father in Heaven wants to hear from us. He wants to hear how we are feeling, He wants to hear about our trials, He wants to enjoy our successes and most of all, He wants to help us. So, when life gets dark and dreary, don’t forget to pray!
5. Remove negative self-talk from your vocabulary: “What a dumb thing to do!…..How could I be so stupid?……I’m an idiot!…..I am so fat!” You see, your subconscious doesn’t know the difference between fact and fiction. Keep telling it you’re incapable, stupid and fat and guess what you’ll be?
6. Develop the habit of consciously thinking about how you’d want tomorrow to be. Play it out in your mind before you fall asleep – see it like a movie. If you write a positive, happy “script” you’re more likely to have a good tomorrow! (For instance, “I wake refreshed and feeling confident. I enjoy a wonderful hot shower and then a delicious breakfast. I look forward to starting my day,” etc.)
7. Count Your Blessings! Whenever you start “feeling sorry for yourself,” get out that Gratitude Journal or your Happy File (or make the list in your head) and start concentrating on all the incredible blessings you have in your life – from the largest to the smallest. Pretty soon, you will be feeling so much gratitude that you will forget why you were feeling down.
New Arts and Jewellry Facebook Page
One of my colleagues suggested I start a separate FB page for my jewellry and crafty bits (my FBook account is for my voiceover business). So, taking his excellent and respected advice, I started a FBook arts and jewellry page a couple of days ago.
It’s a bit lonely over there with a few likes. If you don’t mind, can you visit my page and – if you feel so inspired – “like” it ? Thanks so much!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/BeadedDelightsByStef/201721309873775
Cheers all!
A colleague of mine from the motivation, lifestyle group Morning Coach (http://www.morningcoach.com), recently broke down Mr. Ruiz’s Four Agreements – from his book The Four Agreements – into four easy-to-understand principles.
These, I think, are good rules to live by in our work as voice actors and generally speaking – in our lives as members of the human race!
Here they are:
1. Be Impeccable with your words- then we will not spread poison or spells
2. Don’t take anything personal- it is only personal when we view it through our own judgmental perceptions
3. Don’t make assumptions- realize that we do this all the time, thinking we know what someone needs before they are even finished speaking
4. Always – Do your best- this one brings it all home, for doing our best on any given day cannot always be measured the same way, when we are rested we perform better by external measurements than when we are sick or rundown, so are best can change from day to day.
Cheers!
Stefania 
Find me on twitter:
@stefsvoice
@AudioMysteryTym
This lovely story was in my email from a website called Inspiration Line ( http://www.inspirationline.com ). I just wanted to share this with my friends and colleagues here on my blog! It seems to me that this philosophy is a good one to embrace in general life, or even in a short-term situation such as recording in a studio or working with others in a different capacity.
A Sioux Indian story…
My grandfather took me to the fishing pond
when I was about seven, and he told me
to throw a stone into the water.
He told me to watch the circles created by the stone.
Then he asked me to think of myself as that stone person.
“You may create lots of splashes in your life,
but the waves that come from those splashes will disturb the peace
of all your fellow creatures,” he said.
“Remember that you are responsible for what you put in your circle
and that circle will also touch many other circles.”
“You will need to live in a way that allows the good that comes
from your circle to send the peace of that goodness to others.”
“The splash that comes from anger or jealousy will send
those feelings to other circles. You are responsible for both.”
That was the first time I realized each person creates the
inner peace or discord that flows out into the world.
We cannot create world peace if we are riddled with
inner conflict, hatred, doubt, or anger.
We radiate the feelings and thoughts that we hold inside,
whether we speak them or not.
Whatever is splashing around inside of us
is spilling out into the world, creating beauty or discord
with all other circles of life.
Remember the eternal wisdom:
WHATEVER YOU FOCUS ON EXPANDS…
~Author Unknown
st albansclocktower
Legends
Harvey Mackay knows nurturing your network is the No. 1 habit for creating and sustaining success.
(Liz Davis September 30, 2009)
When speaker, author and CEO Harvey Mackay walks onto a stage to deliver one of his trademark talks, people sit up and pay attention. His good-humored interest in the topics at hand—and, more important, in the audience—comes across loud and clear. Within the first five minutes, everyone in the room is buying whatever Harvey Mackay is selling because he demonstrates one of his own most fundamental sales maxims: “People buy from other people because of likeability.” It’s no wonder Toastmasters International has named him one of the top five speakers in the world.
Never mind that Mackay isn’t really selling his audience anything. Instead, he gives them a lifetime of organized, practical business wisdom, targeted to the group’s specific needs. And his wisdom has resonated with readers, too, with five best sellers and more than 10 million books sold. Two of his books, Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive and Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt, were New York Times No. 1 Best- Sellers and listed by the Times among the top-15 inspirational business books of all time.
Preparing to Win
Harvey Mackay was born and raised in Minnesota’s Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, where he still makes his home with wife Carol Ann. His father was head of the Associated Press in the Twin Cities for 35 years and was partial to aphorisms related to happiness and success, which he posted on the refrigerator. Mackay continues that tradition in his weekly syndicated column, which runs in 52 newspapers nationwide. Each motivational article ends with Mackay’s Moral, a compact, thought-provoking statement about some aspect of success.
Mackay attended the University of Minnesota, with no inkling that he would one day head up a multimillion-dollar company or write best-selling business books. “At the time, I thought I was going to be Ben Hogan,” he tells SUCCESS. When he found himself up against the nation’s best young golfers at an NCAA golf championship his sophomore year, Mackay realized that he was in way over his head. The competitors from warm states like Florida, for example, had been playing golf year-round for much of their lives, while Mackay could only play golf for about four months out of the year in Minnesota’s colder climate. So even though he’d been playing golf for as many years as some of the other players, they had about three-times more cumulative experience. Those players were simply better prepared. “So I gave up that dream and became an entrepreneur,” Mackay says. In his 1997 book, Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty, he wrote that preparation is “a way of life for anyone who wants to succeed in any activity.” The lesson he learned as a 19-year-old golfer about the importance of extensive preparation and practice was one he never forgot.
After graduating from the University of Minnesota, Mackay had a slow start as an envelope salesman for Quality Park. But he was still an excellent golfer—good enough to convince the Oak Ridge Country Club in Minneapolis to admit him without the steep initiation fee (after a protracted sales pitch). In return, he would help the club get out of last place in the Minneapolis City Golf League. Mackay made so many business contacts playing golf at the club that he would later write in Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty, “There’s no question that this was the one single act that most helped me launch my career.”
“People don’t care how much you know, once they know how much you care.”
Over the next few years, Mackay’s fledgling network became the lever that lifted him to the No. 1 sales position at Quality Park. In 1959, at the age of 26, he felt ready to strike out on his own, so he bought a small, floundering envelope company and went into business for himself. Today, MackayMitchell Envelope Company (formerly Mackay Envelope Company for 46 years) does $100 million in sales annually and has the capacity to produce 25 million envelopes a day.
Humanize Your Selling Strategy
The power of a robust network was evident to Mackay from the beginning of his career. He built his foundation as a salesman by playing golf and developing relationships with people. To implement this vital practice of networking at an organizational level, Mackay developed a 66-question customer profile, known by his employees and devoted readers as “The Mackay 66.” Salespeople at MackayMitchell (and plenty of professionals who have read his books) fill out this 66-question dossier on every customer, prospective customer and supplier.
The Mackay 66 starts with the basics: name, age, hometown, etc. Then the profile gets more detailed, with questions about the customer’s favorite restaurants, preferred topics of conversation, professional goals, attitudes and concerns. The 66 questions provide a highly detailed portrait of the customer as a human being, which gives anyone at MackayMitchell a serious advantage when it comes to approaching that person. As Mackay puts it in Swim with the Sharks: “The sweetest sound in the world to you, and to your customer, is the sound of your own name on someone else’s lips.” Each profile is constantly updated, with every contact recorded and the next contact scheduled. If a salesperson takes the customer to lunch for his or her birthday or sends a link to an interesting article about the customer’s university, it goes in the profile.
So why all this research? Because, quite simply, it works. “Every time I talk to someone, I’m scanning them, finding out what’s important to them. I’m demonstrating that I understand that person as a human being,” Mackay says. No one would argue that successful salespeople should know as much as possible about their company’s products and services. But Mackay would tell you it’s far more important to know about the people involved. “People don’t care how much you know once they know how much you care. So find a creative way to stay in touch.”
An easy way to begin networking is to focus on the other person. Mackay’s best advice for developing your network is simple, and it calls to mind his customer-centered 66 questions. “When you meet an interesting new person you want to stay in touch with, always ask yourself first, ‘What can I do for this person?’ And don’t expect anything in return.”
Believe in Yourself, Because Your Network Does
In 1988, Mackay completed his first book, the business classic Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. He was an unknown, first-time author. In general, new authors’ books are published in small print runs of 10,000 copies. This makes it much easier for publishers to recoup their losses if books don’t sell well. But Mackay knew these customarily small print runs are part of the reason so many new authors never get the chance to prove themselves and publish more books.
Mackay made a bold move when he met with his publisher—he requested a print run of 100,000 copies. When the executives in the room responded incredulously, he pulled out his Rolodex, which at that time had more than 6,000 contacts. Some of these contacts were from enormous corporations where, Mackay reasoned, the book would surely be recommended to his contacts’ co-workers. In an unprecedented leap of faith, the publisher agreed to 100,000 copies, and Swim with the Sharks was a New York Times No. 1 Best- Seller for 54 weeks. Mackay went on to write several more books and will release yet another book next year.
Don’t Be Boring
Mackay cites enthusiasm and creativity as major cornerstones of his success. “There is no substitute for passion. I’m looking for three qualities in a salesperson: a hungry fighter, a hungry fighter and a hungry fighter. Once I’ve established that I can trust someone, the main thing I’m looking for is a deep-down burning desire to succeed.”
Mackay tells the story of a New York City cab driver to illustrate creativity in meeting a customer’s needs. When he got into a taxi one day, the driver presented Mackay with a printed mission statement that said he intended to get his passengers to their destinations “safely, courteously and on time.” He offered Mackay an array of CDs to choose from and the use of a cell phone. When the cab came to a stop, the driver presented Mackay with a brown-bagged snack. The taxi driver’s innovative approach and pride in his business garnered him thousands of extra dollars in tips every year. That cab driver, in effect, had the same motto as MackayMitchell Envelope Company: “Do what you love, love what you do, and deliver more than you promise.”
The idea behind Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive, and at the very heart of Mackay’s philosophy, is that in order to stay competitive and successful you don’t have to become a shark yourself. In fact, the opposite is true: If you demonstrate that you care about others, they’ll want to do business with you. You don’t have to be cutthroat to survive in a cutthroat marketplace. Mackay’s lifetime of achievement is proof that if you combine genuine caring about your network of people with a genuine love for what you do, success is inevitable.
Mackay’s Moral: People don’t care how much you know about them, once they realize how much you care about them.
BlackBerry Moment-Recording with Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio8 from Stefania Lintonbon on Vimeo.
I’ve learned so much from the various forums, my VoiceOver colleagues and my teachers. I’ve wondered what can I bring to the party.
Well, I’ve been experimenting with my little BlackBerry phone’s video function, and discovered that not only can I have fun making videos but they can be posted on the major sites like Vimeo or YouTube. So since I have a little knowledge about editing gained from my experience with gigs and auditions, I thought I’d pass this on for beginners to recording – be they voice artists, podcasters, small businesspeople, etc.
I hope it’s useful and answers a few simple questions for someone who might be in “scratch head” mode with their Sony software!
Read a brilliant post by blogger Seth Godin ( http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ )on how, and I quote,
“Self sufficiency appears to be a worthy goal, but it’s now impossible if you want to actually get anything done.
All our productivity, leverage and insight comes from being part of a community, not apart from it.
The goal, I think, is to figure out how to become more dependent, not less.”
I think it’s most important to choose your friends well. I’m very happy that I’ve met some wonderful friends in voiceover and other circles. Their help and encouragement has been invaluable. You can find many of their blogs and groups on the right hand side of my blog page.
The best of luck and blessings to all my wonderful “online” and “real world” friends!
Here, to celebrate the festive holiday period, are three special Christmas narrations which I recently did for my podcast – stefsvoice4you Broadcast (iTunes).
This week’s holiday narration
Christmas Poems – Chrissy the Christmas Tree; Tis Time
The previous Christmas special podcast
And the first one:
The Legend of the Christmas Stocking
Happy and Safe Holidays to all my friends and readers! See you in the new year.
I found this article from the “innerspace” centre here in England in Covent Garden, whilst I was clearing out my emails this morning.
It’s a good one, so I thought I’d share it with my friends in cyber-space.
As a matter of fact, I’m thinking of changing the way I relate to the term “bad habits”…from now on, I’m going to call it “unproductive behaviour”. That motivates me to change things which have no purpose, rather than beating myself up over something that I perceive to be “bad”. This is a more positive and loving way to look at change & personal evolution, I think!
Breaking Bad Habits
Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of. How to break bad habits:
- focus on changing just one habit at a time
- acknowledge how the habit dis-empowers you
- realise how you alone can break the habit, no-one else can do it for you
- separate yourself from your habit and understand that you aren’t your habit
- visualise yourself without the habit
- replace the bad habit with something positive
- don’t focus on the “not doing”, but instead, focus on ” doing” the positive action
- don’t beat yourself up when you slip up, just break the habit as many times as it takes
Maybe we can take some of these tips to leave unproductive habits behind us, with regard to our VoiceOver careers as well!
I’ve started monitoring my auditioning, marketing efforts, etc. in journals on my iPodTouch. I’m finding this makes it much easier for me to keep track of things and see just how diligently I’m working (or not working) on the various aspects needed to keep a VoiceOver career more often in full bloom, vs languishing.
Take care friends, and thanks for all of your much appreciated support!
Cheers
I started off the day with a lovely, giant bunch of flowers from hubby, Mr. Special Guy. Flowers always bring good energy to the heart and home, don’t you think?
Time to evaluate goals and make plans for the move up to the next rung of the VoiceOver ladder. I’ve been working on that. And keen to do it with style, just added the ME diary app to my iPodTouch to keep track of marketing plans, their status & results. The diary’s/journal’s top notch for me – I can add words and pics as well, AND it’s pink and black! Business and beauty!
This is a good time for personal, physical and spiritual reflection as well. I’m most certainly grateful for family, friends (real world & cyber), health and the voiceover success and progress I’ve made so far — with gratitude for the gigs to come as well. Takes work and planning, but I’m well up for it.
Many blessings to all…
Stefania
^•^
