0058: As A Performer, Are You Hooked On Hope?

Raw transcript:

a common
thread
that runs through how my family and my
close friends that aren’t in our
business look at my acting career and
doing voice work is wow that’s a pretty
big gamble
i mean you sure you want to gamble with
your future that way that’s that’s kind
of like that’s a iffy proposition you
know
and
i was in a zoom call recently where this
came up the notion of
the hope that we have that we’re gonna
get booked
and i want to discuss today the
parallels between
acting and gambling
and to find out if you’re hooked
on hope
we’ll do that in this episode of the vo
heroes podcast
[Music]
so i was in a zoom call recently and one
of the attendees was talking about a
professor that she knew a behavioral
psychologist
who had talked about the notion of being
hooked on hope
uh and it was talked about in the realm
of gambling because people who gamble
they lose much more often than they win
sound familiar
um if you parallel losing as not getting
booked with winning of getting booked i
don’t necessarily look at it that way
and i would be careful about that but
just in case that’s how you look at i
lost out on a roll
uh or i won a role or you know
there there are some parallels there and
there are some easy ways to jump to that
conclusion
but she said that one of the things that
keeps people
gambling and doing
things
as a pursuit that are anything but
guaranteed again sound familiar
is this notion of being hooked on hope
like we hope we’re going to book we hope
the casting people like us we hope we’ve
picked a really good accent for that
audiobook and that the audition that we
send off on acx is gonna make the rights
holder book us immediately right
and that feeling of hope
is something that can feed our emotional
needs can feed our
desire to be successful and in so many
ways
become a
substitute for the satisfaction of
actually booking
or again if you follow the parallels
winning right so i did some research on
it
and there’s an article that i put in the
show notes for this if you’re looking at
this on voheros.com
uh about an article from the bbc
uh called the buzz that keeps people
gambling and there’s a quote in it that
there’s a couple of quotes in it that
i’m going to share with you there’s one
quote in it that really got me thinking
and this quote is if people lose a bunch
that lowers their expectations of
winning and that will increase
how happy they are
when they do finally win and it made me
think well you know what do we do as
actors
we we put it out there we roll the dice
we do an audition and however
packaged and systematic
i try and make my auditions there’s
still that thought in the back of my
head maybe this is the same for you let
me know in the comments below there’s
still that thought in the back of my
head is that this is this is a this is a
role this a gamble right
and there’s another quote and that is
that all of what you
feel
when you’re gambling the article is
about gambling but there’s so many
parallels with acting and voice work all
of this contributes to the idea that
much of gambling
isn’t about winning at all
it’s about the process and the feelings
of betting itself
right
and all the attendant factors that make
that enjoyable and that was a takeaway
for me because that fits in perfectly
with what we do
when we talk about acting when i talk to
you about you know ways to make your
acting and voiceover better
enjoy the process
so you know we sometimes think oh if
you’ve got a gambling problem call 1-800
gambling you know like there’s a problem
but look we can we here’s a takeaway
that we can actually use
enjoy the process
rest on the fact that you enjoy the
process whether you win or whether you
lose and whether losing a lot which is
the standard performer’s state
if you look at not getting the job is
losing
you’re going to lose far more often than
you win right
and so if that’s the case it’s enjoying
the actual process of acting you know we
see these parallels gambling is acting
winning is getting the job uh losing
you’re not getting the job you know like
if if that’s something you can bear with
for just a moment you can get this
useful
uh useful notion from that and that is
enjoying the job
is something
that can
help us understand
the long stretches of the desert of not
booking with those momentary
lapses of judgment on the parts of our
production partners when they book us
right
but what really
made me think about this is that i
believe pretty much all of us
are
hooked
on that notion
that we could someday
book that job the hope
that what we do
is
uh good enough
that it fits in the story that our
production partners are trying to tell
and that our look and our presentation
and our execution of the script
also fits in with what would serve them
and we hope that we’ll you know it’s a
match right
i will just state i am hooked on hope
i love the notion
that there’s a possibility that i’m a
book i may win
and so i continue
to frustrate my relatives and close
friends in some cases
and continue this notion of gambling
on a career as a
as a performer i’m wondering if that’s
the same for you are you hooked on hope
is this something that resonates with
you i’d love to know in the comments
below if you’re not looking at this on
voheros.com head on over there that’s
where the conversation is i certainly
appreciate you watching and listening
and if you know of an actor
who
uh who might find this useful why don’t
you forward this to them forward the
link
uh and see what they think all right
i’m david h lawrence the 17th again i
thank you so much for watching and for
listening and i will see you in the next
episode of the vo heroes podcast
[Music]

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