0012: Making Social Distancing Your Secret Weapon

Well hey there hero! I’m David H Lawrence
the 17th, and about 35 years ago, I almost
died. What does that have to do with
what’s going on today? I learned
something recovering from that incident
that I think can be really effective in
today’s covid-19, coronavirus Laden
world and I’m going to show you and
explain to you a couple of the things
that we can put into use now, on this
edition of the voheroes podcast, next.
[Music]
So, our world has changed entirely. I’m
not gonna be one of those people who
tell you this is what coronavirus is…you
know this is how to prevent yourself
from getting it, this is how to prevent
the spread of it. I’ve been getting a lot
of emails from very well-meaning people
with things like, “you know, if you can
hold your breath for 10 seconds and not
cough, well that means you don’t have the
virus!” Not true. Or, “You know, Lysol… it says
right on the label: KILLS HUMAN
CORONAVIRUS!” Again, not this one. Not true.
So when you see those things, don’t
forward them just because somebody
forwarded them to you. That doesn’t mean
them that they’re true. And it’s hard to
know what is actual fact. That’s why I
look for medical professionals, as
opposed to voiceover talent who are
well-meaning,
but not necessarily holders of medical
degrees, when I want to get information
on that. And we’re all going to become
very, very expert in this over time, but
for the most part, I’m watching, just like
you are, what’s happening with what’s
going on and how devastating this has
been to us, as a community of performers,
a country, a world, and how things are
gonna be a new normal, for a while at
least. And when I got sick, I got a really
really really bad case of food poisoning.
I ate some prime rib, at a restaurant in
Connecticut, and it was not good prime
rib. I could tell at the time I was
eating it. But it ended up putting me
in the hospital for five days, and that’s
where I came close to death, but then I
had to recover for another week and a
half to two weeks. And after about maybe
a day of being by myself, and watching
game shows, and and and you know, soap
operas on television…there was really no
internet to speak of… there was
CompuServe. AOL hadn’t become a thing yet
when I got this. But [the Internet] wasn’t the
resource that we have today. And I had to
stay by myself, cordoned off, in private
you know, nobody… I had people bring
me foodm but they would leave it outside
the door and
and I would pick it up. And it’s a lesson
that I learned. Because when that
happened, and after that first day of
total absolute boredom, and knowing that
I had many many days to follow, and
trying to figure out what to do with my
time, I ended up reading all the books
that I hadn’t gotten around to reading. I
ended up watching a lot of educational
television… there were cable channels
that I could watch that taught me how to
do all kinds of things.
I read manuals from the computer
equipment that I had at the time. I had
this new Macintosh, and I learned how to
use it really really well. So I took that
opportunity to turn what was a very very
negative situation into something really
really positive, and that’s what I want
to share with you today. You likely if
you’re in a situation where you go to a
day job, a survival job, or you go to
someplace where you communicate with
people all the time, you’re likely going
to be changing your behaviors, and doing
something called “social distancing”
sheltering in place, but social
distancing is keeping a distance between
you and other people. What do you do
there, when you’re all by yourself? My
suggestion to you is: turn it to your
advantage.
Turn it into a super weapon. Take the
time to do all of those things that you
couldn’t quite find the time or the
concentration to do leading up to this,
right? And one way to do that is to go
through your email (if you don’t delete
emails) just go through your emails
looking for receipts for courses, online
courses that you’ve paid for, but have
never gotten around to taking, to
actually doing it. You think yourself at
the time, “Oh, it’s 19 bucks. Yeah, I’ll buy
that. That makes sense.” Or maybe you
bought VO Heroes, and it was two thousand
or three thousand dollars, and you haven’t
quite gotten around to engaging with it.
Well now is a great time to do that. You
can take this moment of focus and
concentration and isolation, and a long
period of time with no interruptions… I
mean yeah you can keep flipping through
your newsfeed on Facebook, and you can
keep you know looking around and playing
casual games on
your phone if you want to, but why not
take this time, take this opportunity to
turn this into a super weapon. To charge
yourself. To learn things. To do self
improvement and personal development. And
you know when I heard about social
distancing, I was like “…yeah we’ve been
doing social distancing for a long time,”
because we offer our workouts and our
private coaching over you know zoom and
via the internet. We do have live events
which we’re talking about suspending for
a while, the live workouts, just for a
while, but there’s an advantage to doing
these things online. And one of the
advantages in our case is that when you
learn how to do something with your
microphone, or when you learn how to do
something with copy, or how to do editing,
you’re not coming to a classroom with
the teacher’s equipment and standing up
in front of the class, and doing things
in a setting which might be daunting,
might be embarrassing,
might be a little anxiety, you know,
creating… you’re doing them right there
in the privacy of your own home and
you’re not doing them on my gear
standing up in front of class… there’s
advantages to doing live things, but one
of the advantages of doing it from home
over the web is that you’re using your
equipment, in your setting, and you can
apply exactly what you’re doing to your
situation. it’s called ‘in situ’ (i-n s-i-t-u).
it’s a Latin term that means “in the
exact situation that you find yourself”
so kind of like when you go to set, and
they say, “So, on the day…” meaning when we
do it, right, so when you take courses
online, you can put them to use right
away. When I was learning how to do my
Macintosh, I was actually working with my
Macintosh right there. I wasn’t going to
a classroom somewhere where some guy or
some woman was standing up in front me
going “Now when you get home and work on
your Mac this is what you want to do…” So
all of those things together. We are
about to enter into a phase where it can
be really depressing. It can be really
really anxiety ridden.
It can be sad. It can be very very
isolating. But if you choose to think
about it in a different, more productive
way, that it’s your golden opportunity to
not have the phone ringing, to not have a
co-worker or a customer interrupting you,
where you can… like if you’re doing the
VO Heroes courses, and you’ve already
done all the classes, do them again.
Remember the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve.
You’re gonna find things in all of those
classes that I guarantee you you missed
the first time around. And if you haven’t
gotten around to doing the classes,
well, again, now is your opportunity to do
just that. Take advantage of this moment
in time that has put us in this
situation that we’re all in, and really
put it to good use, Turn it into a super
weapon and do so in your space, at your
pace, with your gear. I hope that helps. I
hope it does. Tell me what you think. What
do you plan on doing if you have to
shelter in place? What do you plan on
doing when you have to do some social
distancing? And does this make sense? I
mean you might find that you don’t have
any courses. Maybe you want to go find
some courses. We’re gonna do a launch in
about a month, where we’re going to open
registration for the spring edition of
VO Heroes, and there was some
conversation about not doing that and
I’m like, no, I think people are going to
be wondering what to do with their time.
And they also know that when we’re
through with this, when we fix this, and
we -will- fix this, they’re gonna want to
get back into the swing of things and do
so with an advantage. And that’s what I
want to create for you, is that advantage.
So tell me what you think about this in
the comments below. I’d love to know. I’d
love to know if this is something you’ve
thought about, if you have other plans
that you’d like to suggest, but you know
if this makes sense to you, if turning
social distancing not as a negative but
into this lovely super weapon that you
can use for self-improvement and
self-development, personal development, if
that makes sense to you. I’d love to have you
in the tribe doing just that. And if
you’d like to get notified when these
videos come out
once a week, go ahead and join the list.
If you’re on voheroes.com, go to the
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that says “get on the list” and you’ll be on
the list! I appreciate it very much. I’m
David H Lawrence the 17th. I thank you so
much for watching and for listening and
I will talk to you soon.
[Music]