13293: On Arguing For Your Limitations

Raw transcript:

The book Jonathan Livingston Seagull may
be a familiar title to some of you.
Richard Bach was the author of that. He
said something in one of his other books
that I want to share with you today that
has to do with just how far you can get
in this business or not. And we’ll do
that in this episode of the VO Heroes
podcast.
Richard Bach wrote another book called
Illusions and he said this very famous
quote. He said, “Argue for your
limitations, and sure enough, they’re
yours.”
Think about that. Tell yourself things
like, “I’m too old. I’m not good enough.
I’m too fat. I don’t understand how to
do certain aspects of my job as well as
I should to get paid for it. Uh I can’t
do accents or dialects. Characters scare
me. I only want to do non-fiction. Uh
you know, other people are better than I
am. There there’s a million different
limiting beliefs, which is really what
Richard Bach was talking about. And we
sometimes spend an awful lot of energy
convincing ourselves
that those limiting beliefs are actually
valid when many times they are not.
We even go so far as to ignore evidence
to the contrary. I’ve had many clients
who have said, “Oh, it’s too late for me
to start uh doing uh audiobook narration
or being an on camera actor or working
in voice over or being a writer.
And yet
they’ll try it. They’ll get booked on
something and it still won’t prove to
them that that thing that they told
themselves, that limitation that they
argued for
wasn’t actually true or at least wasn’t
true all the time. Yeah, maybe you’re
not good enough for some things. Maybe
you need more skills to be developed to
get some kinds of work.
But if you argue for your limitations,
there’s a very good chance you have the
best possibility of convincing yourself
that you are absolutely correct. Argue
for argue for your limitations and sure
enough, they’re yours.
What can you do differently? I submit
that you can question everything you
assume about yourself. everything you
tell yourself isn’t good enough or isn’t
enough at all is too much. You know,
you’re too old or you’re not old enough.
Who knows?
But I beg you to really double check
and see if those things that you’re
telling yourself about yourself
are actually true or are still true.
Maybe they were true at one time,
but maybe they’re not anymore. Just some
food for thought. Uh, I want you to have
as many opportunities as you possibly
can. And if you keep arguing for your
limitations without checking to see if
they’re valid, those limiting beliefs
versus enabling beliefs,
you can’t help but be limited. They’re
yours. Thank you, Richard Bach, for
pointing that out. What do you think
about this? Tell me in the comments
below on Vio Heroes where this episode
lives. If you’re watching on YouTube or
one of the other socials or listening uh
in your podcast uh app, go to
viohereroes.com, scroll down, leave me a
comment. I’d love to know what your
thoughts are on this. You can hit the
like button if you like what you’re
hearing. You can subscribe to the
channel. You can press the notification
uh bell and be notified when a new
episode comes out. You can even share
this with another actor who may be
telling themselves things that are fairy
tales, that aren’t really true, that are
limitations, that they’re arguing for.
I’m David H. Lawrence, I 17th. I thank
you so much for watching and for
listening, and I will see you in the
next episode of the VO Heroes
Podcast.

(from YouTube)