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Achieving Work-Life Balance in the Voice Over Industry

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by Erica Rosales

Freelance jobs like voice over often promise the advantage of having a flexible work environments that makes you achieve a balance between your profession and private life. This is why many full-time freelance voice actors claim that being able to work from their home studios works the best for them. This is true to a great extent — as you no longer need to slip out of your yoga pants or pajamas to start recording that 3000-word audiobook voice over. 

However, it’s not always easy to balance life and career even if you are the boss of your own career. In fact, having a job that gives you a complete freedom can sometimes be detrimental to your time. Sure, it gives you a sense of power and control for being able to do your job wherever and whenever you want to. You tend to be consumed by a delusion that you are on top of your tasks both work-related and personal. By being able to multitask, you tend to maximize the flexibility of your schedule and create a thinking that you have a work-life balance because of the power to do personal things even during work hours. 

Little did you know, mixing up your non-work stuff with your workspace actually lead to more work hours being consumed. Then sooner or later, you’ll just perhaps feel like your life is already revolving around your job. So what actually is work-life balance and how do we do it in voice over?

What Is Work-Life Balance?

The work-life balance definition sets out to achieve an ideal balance between a person’s working life and private life. It is a concept in which the maximum happiness of an employee acts as the fuel for productive and fulfilling work, for which both employer and employee are responsible.

How to strike the correct work-life balance in voice over?

Today, work-life balance ranks as one of the most important workplace attributes — second to compensation.

Achieving a healthy work-life balance requires managing our professional and personal life in sustainable ways that keep our energy flowing, our minds and bodies healthy and our whole selves happy and content.

It means giving due attention to all of the things that enrich and fulfill us including work and career, health and fitness, family and relationships, spirituality, community service, hobbies and passions, intellectual stimulation, rest and recreation.

Here are the steps that can help you keep the balance between your life and your career.

Track Your Time

Analyzing your present situation is the beginning step in achieving a balanced life. Keep a time log of everything you do for one week, including work-related and personal activities. This data will serve as an eye-opener, helping you understand how you are using — and where you are losing — your time.

Determine Your Priorities

Read the rest of the article at The Voice Realm…

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The Art of Showing Up: 7 Things Creatives Must Practice to Succeed

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by Joey Madia

The Art of Showing Up 7 Things Creatives Must Practice to Succeed

The most important thing in life is showing up. I am blown away by your ability to show up. (Keanu Reeves, Hard Ball)

Prologue

Primarily being a writer, and one who does a lot of historical research, I spend a lot of time alone. So, when I’m hired as an actor, director, storyteller, or teacher, it gives me an opportunity to test my philosophies of keeping motivated and inspired and doing the same for others.

For three weeks in June I toured as Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara in a form called Modern Chautauqua, which involves about 18 months of intensive research, the writing and performance of a 45-minute monologue, and 20 minutes answering questions from the audience, first as the historical persona and then as the scholar-performer. It also involves conducting related workshops.

During the tour, I was able to test the principles behind Showing Up. As I get older, I want to be out acting, directing, and teaching more than ever before. Which means making the most of opportunities.

I was surprised and energized by the effect of practicing the seven principles behind fully Showing Up shared in this article. Several opportunities have come my way, and the energy of what these principles allowed me to accomplish has yet to diminish.

Being asked to write about it for Stage 32 is proof enough of that.

So here’s what I practiced, based on 30 years of putting myself out there as a Creative.

1. Learn to Say Yes to Life

The Art of Showing Up 7 Things Creatives Must Practice to Succeed

Six years ago I received an email that put this essential aspect of Showing Up foremost in my career. I was offered third lead in a remake of a classic horror film. It meant juggling my editing business, theatre company, and several writing projects while being on location for three weeks, shooting for long hours. Without hesitation—and quite out of character—I said yes. It was a knowing that this would be about more than just doing the film. Turns out, I was right. So pay attention to intuition when making decisions. The juggling wasn’t easy—I fell asleep at the wheel for a split second driving home for a few days after being awake for 29 hours—but the experience opened several doors. My saying yes to the three-week tour as Che had similar sacrifice and success.

Saying Yes to Life means being able to audition anytime, anywhere, and giving it all you’ve got. By audition, I mean acting auditions, pitches, video chats, interest meetings—any time there’s an opportunity to show your stuff and score a gig. As I’ve said elsewhere, it might mean dressing up in full pirate regalia and auditioning in a kitchen in a small town for strangers (I did that—it’s worked out well.) Point is, let no opportunity come and go without giving it 100%.

2. Be Your Most Authentic Self, No Matter the Risk

Authenticity, a concept I learned from Brené Brown, is crucial. In this time of social media trolling, othering, and at times disingenuous practices of PC behavior—which often fly in the face of good, honest art that provokes thoughtful, respectful discussion—it is harder than ever to be Authentic, because the risks are greater and the use of Persona for personal and professional gain is everywhere.

But Authenticity is essential to Showing Up. Start by knowing why you’re there. What are your motivations? We of course need money to eat and for the value it assigns to our work, but if that’s your only reason, it’s a guarantee you’ll be In-Authentic. You’ll say what they want to hear, compromise your work to please, and you won’t be particularly memorable. You’ll be another in a long line…

A core piece of being Authentic is seeing every chance to work—to be in front of an audience, cast, or group of students; to have someone read or see my work; to have someone ask my advice—as a Privilege. A lot is made of established actors believing their current job is their last one. But that’s not all I’m saying. It’s about Fearlessness in being the Real You. Don’t Pretend. Say what’s on your mind—which of course needs to be well thought through and based on the tangible facts and skill sets you’ve accumulated through learning your craft—and do it because you are making the most of this opportunity, because you know it could have gone to someone else.

Practice Don Miguel Ruiz’s “Four Agreements.” The first is: Be Impeccable with Your Word. Don’t gossip, say what you mean, and follow through, and know that words have power. Choose them wisely.

Read the rest of the article at Stage 32…

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How to Thrive as an Unemployed Actor

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by Douglas Taurel

Acting is the only profession in which you will always be in a constant state of unemployment, always,  you will always be looking for work. You book a TV series, a film, a play or a tour, and when that project ends and it will end at some point, you’ll need to find work again. This is the harsh reality of being an actor but you can not only survive in this constant state of unpredictability, you can thrive. 

The key is to having a goal, having something to aim at. During times of unemployment, goals support and protect us. Goals keeps you sharp and they opens doors for you but most importantly, they give you a purpose as an artist.  You need a goal that inspires you to do more, and to improve every single day. Even if it’s only by a small percentage.  Be a better actor today than you were yesterday. Strive to do more today than what you did yesterday. 

Sitting around waiting to be booked on an acting job, or hoping that your agent or manager finds you work, is aimless and hopeless. And is what causes such large amounts of depression in actors.  You feel like you have no control over your artistic life but you do have control. You have so much more control than you think. 

Go to work on a monologue that needs to be sharpened, learn a new monologue, learn twenty monologues or create a project for yourself. Always be improving and creating every single day that you call yourself an actor. It is not only the best strategy, it is the only strategy you have. 

Improving your craft as an actor gives you a strong sense of purpose and direction, it invigorates you. It keeps you moving forward towards something a target, and that action will always open doors for you – and there’s a practical reason for this. 

Read the rest of the article at DouglasTaurel.com…