13157: It’s Not Your Schedule, It’s Their Schedule

Raw transcript:

for the umpteenth time I’ve heard somebody
complain that they made vacation plans
got ready to go to the
airport and they got an audition or they
got booked on something and I thought
well that’s kind of how our business
works it’s not our schedule it’s their
schedule and I want to talk about making
that better in this episode of the vo
Heroes
podcast
one thing we have to remember when we
think about our performance career our
voiceover career our acting career our
stage career uh all of the components of
what we do as performers
is show business isn’t organized to
benefit the performer the organization
nobody sits there and goes oh you know I
wonder if there are any actors available
for for doing this job no no they know
there are many many more actors than
there are jobs so they’re not worried
about whether or not somebody is
available and to that end we have to
remember that it’s our responsibility to
be ready whenever now you should
certainly be kind to yourself if you
need a break if you need a mental health
break or if you need you just need to
like you know rest and recreate yourself
you should do that you should do that
but you also need to
remember
that they need help when they need help
not when you’re ready and willing to
help them when it comes to booking a job
or auditioning for a job and it’s got to
kind of be something you’re at peace
with because if you’re constantly
complaining about that grousing about
that you might just be in the wrong
business and one way to make that easier
is to make sure that you are
prepared for most contingency some
things you just simply can’t be prepared
for right I remember booking out to go
to uh a reunion in Boston and I told my
agents I told my manager I’m booking out
for the weekend it was like Memorial Day
weekend right so you’re like nobody’s
gonna nobody’s gonna want me to audition
for anything anyway right I land at
Logan and there’s a message waiting from
my agent right I know you booked out but
could you possibly like use your cell
phone this was like in 2010 or
11 and it was the Disney Channel wanting
me to audition for which show was it I
think it was
um I don’t remember I know I booked
it and at that moment I was grateful
that I had set up my
business so that work comes first even
when you’ve told people I’m not
available and that was my
choice and I want to invite you to make
it your choice cuz it’s not that hard to
do you just have to do one thing and
that’s be
prepared the moment that a client wants
you to do something you’ve never done
before that’s pretty much all the time
it’s unlikely that you have played a
rudaba that speaks right you’re going to
be presented with all kinds of things
that are brand new and one way you can
make sure that you’re able to do your
best in those cases is to be prepared
you know um the the current state of
affairs in our business is is kind of
filled with Strife we’ve got things that
are on hold right now if you know what
I’m talking
about so now is a great time to get
prepared uh as I’m recording this coming
up later this month I’m going to be
offering vo Heroes one more time and I I
always want to tell people hey look this
is a really great opportunity you got
nothing else that is distracting you
from adding to your preparation from
adding new skills adding New Joy to your
performing career Now’s the Time to do
training to do rehearsals to do practice
to learn new skills to get better
prepared for those inevitable Universal
moments when you didn’t expect your
inbox to have an invitation to audition
or get booked for something you don’t
know when these things are coming up so
now you know there’s less demands on
your
time and Now’s the Time that you can add
to your preparation add to your overall
preparation because every chance you
have to say yes to an audition is a
potential chance to say yes to a job who
knows I mean it’s not likely as my good
friend Michael C says you’re not getting
the effing job anyway right so consider
that consider increasing your
preparation level increasing your
ability to exist in the Wild on berries
and and and uh you know your own
foraging give yourself more tools now
consider getting some more training
consider getting uh your scheduling and
your uh processes a little bit more
honed and refined you have the time to
do it so why not do it the one thing I
want to leave you with is be better
prepared and you’ll be happier even when
you land at Logan and your agent says I
know you booked out could you just set
your your phone up on the you know which
is what I did the television in my hotel
room in Boston uh did the audition and
booked it I mean I’m not saying that’s
going to happen to you because I very
been many times when I’ve set up my
camera on the teleph television in the
hotel room and I haven’t booked it but
at least I had a shot at it and I want
you to have as many shots at it as you
can tell me what you think about this
what kinds of things do you do to be
really well prepared and are there
things that you think you could make
better let me know in the comments below
I’d love to hear what you have to say if
you know of an actor that would benefit
from this message please go up to the
address bar copy that URL and forward it
on to them hit the like button if you’d
like to uh hit the uh subscribe button
if you want to subscribe to the channel
if you’d like to subscribe there’s a
notification Bell you can ring uh until
it gets cracked from where so that
you’re notified when there’s a new
episode that comes out I’d really
appreciate if you did that I’m David H
Lawrence the 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)