A great show kicked me in the head
A few weeks ago I was watching the Season 4 finale of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. If you haven't seen it yet and don't want spoilers, hold off on reading this until you do.
Are you still here? Good!
So I'm watching the show and enjoying the hell out of it when I hear this line
"Don't plan! Work!" - Lenny Bruce
That line sent me reeling. It felt like a gut punch. I'm still trying to figure out why. I think it's because I'm all about crafting a thoughtful yet actionable plan to run your voiceover business and I do things every day to move my business forward. But hearing him say it with such conviction, such passion, it stirred something in me. And it made me think about you.
Tip Of the Week
Should you have a plan? Yes! Of course you should! But there is a time to plan and a time to DO.
Some of you have become "professional students" who do nothing but take classes, read blogs, and listen to podcasts but you never go for it. I'm sure some of you have good reasons why you haven't yet (logistical, maybe financial) but the rest of you, who have nothing holding you back, what about you...?
If you've gotten professional voiceover training from a quality coach, produced a decent demo, built a website, and set up a home recording studio, get out there! Start auditioning, now. Pick an online casting site and dive in. You will suck a lot, you will fail a lot, and you will suck some more but you've gotta start somewhere.
Lenny Bruce was not a brilliant standup comedian on his first set. He bombed. They all bombed. But then he got better. He worked. And he worked and he worked. And he developed his craft. Until he became the legendary comedian that he became.
Lenny Bruce was Lenny Bruce because he put in the time to both develop his art and navigate the business. You must do the same. This is a long haul. There are no shortcuts to being a successful voice actor. So if you don't have a good reason to start that thousand-mile journey with a single step right now, stop screwing around. Don't plan, work.
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Tom Dheere is the VO Strategist, a voice over business & marketing coach and demo producer since 2011. He is also a voice actor with over 25 years of experience who has narrated just about every type of voiceover you can think of. When not voicing or talking about voicing, he produces the sci-fi comic book Agent 1.22.