13137: Three Simple Words To Help Shape Your Future

Raw transcript:

for those of you who have been on this
journey with me for a while you know
that I use a set of index cards and a
method called The Ivy Lee method to keep
myself as organized as I possibly can
and just recently I found another use
for just one index card
and three little words that can make all
the difference in the world when you’re
trying to figure out your future
and how to do things better
I’m going to share the index card the
three words with you
all of that and hopefully it’ll make a
difference in this episode of the vo
Heroes podcast
[Music]
so with the Ivy Lee method you’re
supposed to leave out an index card with
the top three things that you want to
get done the next day
uh on your keyboard so you can’t miss it
in the morning when you first start work
or whenever you start your work
I have recently been
putting an index card that I created for
myself
on my keyboard toward the top where it’s
out of the way of the keys that I’m
using to remind myself of something that
I think is so fundamental and so easy to
forget
that it’s worth reminding myself on a
regular basis every time I look down at
my keyboard
as we move through our crazy whack
performance career that nobody could
have predicted we’d be involved with
nobody could have predicted how it would
would turn out
we acquire new skills
we acquire knowledge
we learn more about what to do more
about what not to do
and
we realize over time that what we were
operating with a year ago two years ago
five ten years ago 20 years ago earlier
in our lives
may or may not make sense today
you may have heard the phrase uh when
talking about the stock market we’ve
talked about it in these podcasts
about how our business works very
similar to the stock market in that
Brokers and investment counselors and
financial gurus will tell you that the
past performance of a stock
has no bearing whatsoever
on its future performance in fact in
some cases investment funds are required
to tell you that either in the fine
print at the bottom of an ad
or by the announcer speaking it past
performance does not uh guarantee future
performance or our success may not be
your success well
I recently found a version of that
that brings it down to just three words
and I dropped it onto a piece of of uh
of an index card on an index card
and this is powerful for me and I want
to share it with you see if you can read
that
history
isn’t
destiny
and this is the card that I have right
there on my I wish I could tilt the
camera down but I’m not going to move my
camera ever
history isn’t destiny
very simple thing very simple thing
but it’s easy to forget
it’s easy
to come up with a set of rules for one
moment in your life
and then try your best to use those
rules forever right
but things change
you get better at something
or something deteriorates
you know I didn’t have to wear glasses
for a long time
I had great eyesight I had 2010 vision
for most of my life
and now you know I’m suffering with the
Lawrence family curse uh you know
but that also plays in the opposite
direction
when you set out
to make yourself better at something to
add to your skills
to reduce the speed bumps in your life
make those uh problems that you have
less
or even go away
so the history that you have
isn’t the destiny that you will enjoy
so the reason I remind myself of this is
I get into a rut I’m like okay that
works okay fine
but then
I come up with something that works
better you know a keyboard combination
as opposed to moving my mouse to a menu
and clicking and then waiting waiting
that period of time or using that period
of time
I try to bring that into everything that
I do as I teach voice over and teach
audiobook narration and teach everything
else that I teach and certainly when I
do my own performance work in terms of
how I handle my script work how I handle
the detective work of of
seeing what I’m gonna do with a
character or what I’m gonna do with a
particular project if it’s something
short like a commercial how I’m gonna
put myself in that position of helping
the listener or the viewer get their job
done what is it about that that gets
better and better and better and I leave
behind my history
in favor of my destiny
history isn’t destiny
you have an amazing future ahead of you
as you acquire more knowledge as you
acquire more experience
as you do less of what doesn’t work and
more of what does you know success
I just wanted to share that with you so
maybe you might want to create a
postcard like that
and maybe you might want to just take a
you know Post-It note or something and
stick it on your monitor or on your
keyboard I don’t know but I want you to
be aware of that and I want you to know
that you have no idea what’s coming down
the pike you have no idea what lovely
things are going to be happening to you
in the future
and how you’ll be able to deal with that
is by remembering that whatever you’ve
experienced does not lock you into
something you have yet to experience
any of this resonate with you if so I
would love to see a comment below this
video please let me know what you think
hit the like button if you like what
you’re hearing uh you can subscribe to
the channel you can hit the notification
Bell you can make that amazing little
ding sound
yeah
and be notified when we have another
episode
please do so
I’m David H Lawrence the 17th I thank
you so much for watching and for
listening feel free to forward this to a
fellow actor or voice talent that you
think might benefit and I will see you
in the next episode of the vo Heroes
podcast
[Music]

(from YouTube)