0060: What Does The Word Agency Mean To You? And How Do You Maximize Your Agency?

Raw transcript:

it’s kind of hard to avoid the latest
new speak that we hear when it comes to
interactivity between
each other in our business in the
business of performing and in the world
in general and one of those words is the
word agency now as performers when we
hear the word
agency we think of one particular thing
and often it’s
how do i get represented by this agency
but there’s one other meaning for this
that i want to share with you in this
episode of the vo heroes podcast and
i want to show you how to maximize the
meaning of that word we’ll do that in
just a moment
[Music]
the word agency
means something very specific to actors
and to voice talent to people like you
and me
uh it means a company
or a
group of people
who represent performers artists actors
voice talent etc in trying to get them
work
now
agents work in agencies
and agents can be all kinds of things to
people that aren’t performers the
muggles out there as my friend michael
kostroff always says
you could have a real estate agent
and you could have a business agent and
you could have in the world of logistics
you could have something called a
forwarding agent or a customs agent but
notice that the common thing with all of
these
definitions and all of these people and
what they do is they perform something
in service of someone else
they help someone buy a house if they’re
a real estate agent they help someone
receive their goods if shipped from over
seeds if they’re if they’re a forwarding
agent
uh there may be licensing agents if
you’re a musician you want to
represent have somebody represent you to
get your work
uh used and you paid for the use of that
work all of these things
are very traditional senses of the word
agent and agency
but in the last i’m going to say i’ve
been seeing it now for about a decade
the word agency has started to be
very commonly used
in terms of ourselves rather than a
separate person
our own personal agency
speaking up for ourselves
doing things for ourselves
that
increase our
expertise in something or our knowledge
of something or our income or our
proficiency
the term agency is used
in social media and by people who
comment on the struggles that some
members of society have
in a way that can be a little confusing
because you think yourself well what
does that mean personal agency what’s
personal agency all about
it’s no different
from all of the other
versions of the word agency except
you’re doing the work on your own behalf
if you have a struggle with
your representation as a gender or a
race or a weight
you know a body type or an age
or a religion or a political stance
exerting and developing and maximizing
your own agency
is
something that you want to work toward
you want to be better at making sure
people understand what you seek and what
you want
and it’s it comes full circle because
for those of you that are not
represented by
a talent agent
or a manager
you are your own representative and in
fact you’re the very
embodiment
of personal agency
and
i
have found that the the
social justice definition of personal
agency fits in perfectly
with all of the people in our business
who are not represented by a big-time
agent or even a small-time agent and
they’re scrounging for work on their own
you are
one of those people that needs to if you
don’t have someone else doing this work
for you needs to go find auditions
needs to represent yourself in a way
that you’re professional
needs to present yourself on sites that
allow you to create profiles in a way
that’s enticing and interesting and
engaging to people who may want to hire
you
and so the term personal agency can be
used in so many different ways other
than
i’ve got to find my own work
which is the way we as performers
sometimes look at it so having said all
that
there are some ways that you can really
maximize your personal agency and i’ve
read probably
two dozen articles from all manner of
people
business advisors mindfulness coaches
psychologists just a ton of different
people
and they all kind of
revolve around the same tenets
so i wanted to kind of boil this down
for you i’ve actually put a link in the
show notes to this episode of the
podcast
to one of those articles that i think is
best at representing the things that can
really up your game
when it comes to maximizing your
personal agency speaking up for yourself
being your own best representative
and i really like
uh number four
which is position yourself as a learner
and number seven which is
uh deliberate
then act
and there’s a reason for that um as i
record this uh podcast uh we’re in the
midst of
uh launching and registering people for
the new acx master class and i find
people sometimes when they want to move
forward in their careers add a new skill
do something new like narrating audio
books or working with audible on acx
they’re hesitant
and they’re hesitant because they’re
afraid of making a mistake
or not getting it right
we specialize in helping you get this
particular thing audiobook narration
right but i’m sort of watching people
vibrate around this notion of personal
agency
and those two elements position yourself
as a learner number four in the seven
and number seven deliberate then act
are really really good for moving
yourself forward because you can you can
gaze at your navel all you want you can
think about things but if you don’t
actually
take action
and either
move in one direction or another as
opposed to just sitting still because
it’s safe
and also making yourself aware of all
the different things that you need to
learn
to get
get moving and move forward in that
representation of yourself
it’s kind of hard to do that so those
two things in particular and there’s
five more in this in this article it’s
from mindful mindful.org
i’m i’m i’m really fascinated by
mindfulness these days and i’m going to
be sharing a lot more with you on this
and how it’s helped me as a performer
gain more work
do better work
be able to relate to my fellow
performers better to be able to manage
scripts and and and execution and
man it’s like an iceberg you know it’s
awesome
um but go check the article out read
through it see how it applies to you
as a performer especially if you’re a
performer
that isn’t currently represented by an
agent isn’t represented by an agency and
you’re representing yourself you’re
executing personal agency i want to help
you by the way if being an audiobook
narrator is something you want to do
please head over to acxmasterclass.com
right now so that you can join us for
this particular session
if you’re watching this video after
march of 2022
likely that our that offer is already
gone but if you’re watching it now it’s
it’s something and if you’ve always
wanted to do audiobooks we’d love to
have you but
the bigger the bigger message is
being your own best representative being
your own best agency even if you have
somebody else representing you i want to
help you with that and i think this
article is a good start all right
first of all thanks for joining if you
think another actor might benefit from
this podcast go up to the address bar
grab the the link and send it their way
we’d love to have them
uh and i also want to take a moment to
thank you i’m david h lawrence the 17th
thank you for watching and for listening
and i will see you in the next episode
of the vo heroes podcast
[Music]

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