0081: Are You Judging Your Success Too Early?

Raw transcript:

you’ve heard me mention in the past my
definition for success and that is do
more of what works
and less of what doesn’t
uh in fact you might be sick of that by
now i hope not because
it’s something that i remind myself of
over and over and over again but
recently
i’ve also added
a bit of a test
to it
and it has to do with time
and i’ll tell you more about it in this
episode of the vo heroes podcast
[Music]
so success
my definition is different from other
people’s definition again my definition
is do more of what works and less of
what doesn’t and you can’t help but be
successful because you’re increasing the
number of things that are working for
you and decreasing the number of things
that are not necessarily working for you
however
there’s a big aspect
to
sort of determining whether or not
things are working for you whether
they’re not working for you whether
you’re feeling success
and that
is
when
you choose to see
if you’re successful or not
i remember watching uh
david letterman uh interview samuel l
jackson right after snakes on a plane
came out
and
he said something david letterman said
something like wow you’re just like this
overnight success you’re everywhere
you’re in the marvel movie
and samuel l jackson famously said it
took me 15 years
to become an overnight success
right so if you’d asked samuel l jackson
when he was on 21 jump street because he
was on 21 jump street nobody remembers
that but he was
um
if he was a success he’d probably say
man not yet you know
but after
being on all the marvel movies and you
know all the just massive success that
he’s had the commercials and everything
now
as the time has changed
same thing he might say yeah you know
i’m pretty successful i appreciate that
uh james clear big fan i’m a huge fan of
james clear atomic habits i’ve read it
and listened to it and i’m rereading it
and re-listening to it as we speak
he mentioned in his weekly 3-2-1
newsletter which you can
get and it’s just fascinating he
mentioned
a similar notion
that
choosing when you test for success is
important uh the example he gave was
that i think it was 2015 that he signed
the deal
to
write
atomic habits it wasn’t published until
2018 so if you were like okay 2015 2016
is it a success nope not finished yet
not a success not even close 2017 nope
2018 not yet but wait
later in the year
it was
and i think this applies to us as well
especially as you’re learning new things
my vo heroes pros my acx master class
students uh the people that i coach
privately in both on camera acting and
voice work
you know
as you learn things
as you acquire skills as you acquire
experience
and it’s easier for you to execute
things to make better choices
to do things on a more professional
level
you sometimes
jump the gun when it comes to gosh i’m
not doing so well i’m not successful
enough or you choose
metrics that are weird like how many
times you’re booking which you can’t
really use to judge success but even
that early in your career you’re not
booking so much
later incur in your career
hopefully and maybe i i wouldn’t know
but it’s when you make that test when
you dip the litmus paper into the
reagent
you know when did you do that you know i
remember thinking to myself i’m not
gonna put the pressure on myself of
thinking am i successful
as i’m first starting off because
i i i just i’m not i’m just not
and that’s something that’s hard for
people to admit i’m not yet successful
not i’m not successful but i’m not yet
change the time later in your journey
later in your career
all of a sudden yeah i’m doing okay this
is good
yeah things are things are cooking with
gas i like it
but the answer is different depending
upon what time
where you are in the process
at what point in your history or your
journey
that you ask that question yeah
so don’t be so hard on yourself if
you’re still learning
if you’re still
gathering all of your tools and getting
to know them and getting to know how to
use them
give yourself a break
what are your thoughts tell me if you’re
on voheros.com pop into the comments
below let me know what you think about
this
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way we’d love to have you
i’m david h lawrence the 17th i thank
you so much for watching and for
listening
to this episode of the vo heroes podcast
[Music]

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