13275: The Swedish Concept Of Lagom Might Be Just Right For You

Raw transcript:

Did you ever watch a show and think to
yourself, “Oh, that actor’s trying way
too hard.” Or hear something
voiceover-wise and go, “They need a
little bit more.” You know, I I just
discovered something called Lagom
that the Swedes have been using for
years, and I’d like to see if you’d like
to embrace that. Let’s do that in this
episode of the VO Heroes podcast.
It’s pronounced lagome. L a g o m. It’s
a Swedish concept that means not too
little, not too much, just right. Right.
Not too cold, not too hot, just right.
Not trying too hard, not trying hard
enough, trying just enough to get the
job done. Just enough to enjoy what
you’re doing. And I think sometimes we
ignore this concept of, yeah, it’s okay.
It’s just enough. It’s just right. Don’t
don’t push it too hard or you need to
try a little bit harder to get where
you’re needed to go, you know, so that
it’s just right. Um, so many things that
we do are artistic choices, whether
we’re writing or we’re doing voice over
or we’re doing uh on camera work. and
finding that sweet spot, that Goldilocks
spot. Here in the United States, uh it’s
become a, you know,.com bro, uh, best of
breed sort of jargon, the Goldilocks
concept of just right. And who knew? The
Swedes had this all locked up for
centuries. This this uh concept of lag.
I’m wondering if this is something that
maybe has been roaming around in your
head. You know, could I benefit from not
spending so much time on something,
trying to make it perfect that it delays
me from actually executing? You know,
they say that perfection is sometimes
the enemy of shipping, right? Just ship
and then you can make it better. Just do
it and you can make it better. or if
it’s just not working for you, maybe
trying just a little bit harder will get
you into that sweet spot of just right.
There’s so many ways that this can kind
of manifest itself. And I just feel like
it’s been a joy in my life to embrace
this without knowing that it’s called
lome. Uh you know, for me it was termed
Goldilocks or you know, just right. It’s
it’s what I need. It’s like just as an
example, uh you don’t need ProTools.
You don’t want something that is
amateur-ish that doesn’t do the job
well. But Audacity is a great example of
Log. It’s just right. You know, as voice
talent, we record 99% of the time we
record single track mono unprocessed
audio. And boy does Audacity do that as
well as any other sound software.
And so it’s the very embodiment of lome
for me. Uh and then you can take
advantage of different things that
different thing that different pieces of
software, different pieces of hardware.
Again, my microphone I feel like is a is
a perfect example of that. It’s just
right. So I would love to know what you
think about all this. Hit me up in the
comments below. And I mean on
vioheres.com
uh where this podcast episode lives. Uh
certainly you can hear it on all the
podcast players, you can watch it on
YouTube, but that’s where the show notes
are and the links are and so on. Um let
me know what you think about this notion
of just giving yourself the grace of
doing things just right or having things
be just right.
Uh you can hit the like button, you can
subscribe to the channel, you can click
the notification bell and be told when a
new episode comes out. You can share
this with another actor who or writer or
voice talent who you think might not be
trying enough or might be trying way too
hard and could benefit from the ease of
lag.
I’m David H. Lawrence the 17th. I thank
you so much for watching and for
listening and I’ll see you in the next
episode of the VO Heroes podcast.

(from YouTube)