Don’t Confuse What Works With What You Like

Hey there!

Recently I’ve seen a number of instances of a phenomenon that really frustrates me.

It’s so easily avoidable, but sometimes, we just can’t bring ourselves to admit that it’s an issue for us.

The thing is…we may like, even love, something…but that doesn’t mean it’s best for us. The reverse is also true.

Here’s the skinny.


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Hope this helps!

David

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hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
today I want to talk to you about
something that’s kind of frustrating for
me actually I’ve seen it happen a couple
of times in the last few weeks and I’ve
seen it happen a lot over the time that
I have been teaching people and I’ve
been working in this business especially
the world of performing because we have
so many things that are not easily
definable and reproducible like getting
booked or understanding what this scene
is about you know you can’t just go back
to the crux of things and go oh yeah
yeah that’s a that’s version number
seven of what I learned when I was
learning acting everything’s different
everything’s new and in particular
what’s happened in the last couple of
weeks is I’ve heard people defending
their positions on things for the
strangest of reasons they decided to dig
their heels in because they liked things
even if the evidence and the results
pointed to the fact that the thing that
they liked didn’t really work so I think
what I’ve settled on is that people
often give more value more weight to
things that they like that they’re
attracted to that they prefer that they
approve of that they think should work
as opposed to things that actually work
and the reverse is true as well we tend
to say oh that won’t work if we don’t
like something if we don’t think that it
should be possible for that to actually
be true we just assume that if we have
negative feelings toward it then it
can’t possibly work and that kind of
removes counterintuitive things from
everything that we do if we assume that
if I can’t figure this out of my head
and get a positive feeling about it well
then it absolutely can’t work you know
that that’s hard sometimes I mean when
you think about especially in our
business when you think okay I don’t
want to I don’t want to audition anymore
because clearly I don’t know what I’m
doing
and I don’t like the process of
auditioning and it doesn’t work for me
so that’s that as opposed to okay well
that one didn’t work but the next one
has every chance of working it’s going
to be a completely new scene it’s gonna
be a completely new commercial that I’m
auditioning for or audio book that I’m
auditioning for so I guess what I want
to convey here today is sometimes we’re
presented with things in life that don’t
score well on the positive side in terms
of our scorecard but they happen to work
and I mean you know it’s easy to come up
with things like exercise and eating
right and you know being head doing
healthy things and believe me I’m just
as guilty as anybody of thinking you
know well I like cake you know of course
it works you know I like not exercising
and being a slug of course that works
right so I guess I guess my advice or
what I would like you to consider is
checking when something isn’t working
for you do you keep going to it because
you like it because you think it has to
work eventually and this isn’t to say
that you should get better and better
and better at things and once you do
you’ll like them because you’re more
effective at them but what I don’t want
you to do is confuse the idea of
approving of something liking something
be attracted to something and it
actually being something that is
necessarily because you like it because
you’re attracted to it necessarily
effective and think to yourself well if
I’m rejecting something out of hand does
that mean it doesn’t work
if I’m saying to others oh that you know
don’t ever work on a play to play site
because you know no don’t do it don’t do
audiobooks because you know I’ve been
rejected so many times I can’t book them
or whatever it is especially and
especially in our business because
there’s so much beyond our control that
we can tend to try we always want to
find out why something worked or why
something didn’t work it’s one of our
main pursuits and if we can’t answer
those questions well then we just
described I don’t like that it’s not go
ahead zip forget it or I do like it it’s
great it worked once for me so it’s
gonna work forever so just sort of
analyze it and tell me in the comments
below if what you’re hearing resonates
with you because sometimes people are
very very this again this thing that I
noticed in the past couple of weeks very
very adamant that because they don’t
like it it can’t possibly work or
because they love it it has to work
sometimes the reverse is true you know I
don’t like looking at that piece of
chocolate cake and going I love you but
I can’t have you not tonight not if I
want my my blood sugar to stay
reasonable anyway that’s my thoughts
tell me what you think in the comments
below I’d love to hear what you have to
say if you want to subscribe to my
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that’s what they do here I’m David H
Lawrence the 17th I thank you so much
for watching and I’ll see you tomorrow

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Responses

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  1. David,

    First, I LOVE this video series. Getting one first thing in the morning helps focus me for the day and always seems to have a tidbit (or more) that applies to me and my voiceover career. Thank you!

    Second, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear anything else on this video after the first time you said the word “cake.” I think I’ll have to go listen to this one again. 😀

  2. Ditto on what Vicky said. I have to go through my emails each morning and ditch the junk, but these are going in a file in VO2gogo under “pearls”. And yes, cake=shiny objects.

    When I first learned to edit, it was doing PSAs and new stories on reel to reel tape, transferring to carts and giving them to the DJ. What’s a cart? Think 8-track, sort of. What’s 8-track? See Smithsonian. But going through my recordings, hearing something I don’t like, and not using the stair step method, because rerecording that line later and splicing it in is so much more familiar. Yes, stair step is faster. I’m working on it. My confession for the morning.

    Heather

  3. This is definitely a hurdle to overcome for many, including myself. I have refused to do things because they didn’t feel right. I try to push myself outside my comfort zone sometimes though…sometimes. This is good to think about. Thanks for the video David.

  4. Thanks for another great piece of advice, David. This is challenging for me personally. Particularly when it comes to taking advice of mentors or role models that I follow in voice over and other industries. They’ll give me advice on what works, but (probably because I’m stubborn lol) I don’t think it’ll necessarily work for me. Or, I can’t see how it will work for me.

    I’m doing my best to take the advice and do what’s uncomfortable. The desire to be successful is a motivation to be willing to take the advice. Thanks again for the video!