Listen to the health care bill...

If you've been paying attention to the news lately (and even if you haven't), then you know that the U.S. government want to get involved with health care. President Obama and his supporters want to reform health care as we know it in this country. In an address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama explained how health insurance reform will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance, coverage for those who don’t, and will lower the cost of health care for our families, our businesses, and our government.

From the perspective of a voice actor, this is a really great opportunity for those who have the time and resources to use their craft to better help those who want to understand what the health care bill actually is, but either can't or don't want to read through the entire bill in order to do so (and I can't say that I blame them). Within the voice over community, there have been loads of postings in the various VO boards, and I can't even get into my FaceBook account anymore without half a dozen invites from people who are either putting the bill into spoken word on their own, or are looking for people to help lend their talents and voices for an audio production regarding the health care bill. Regardless of your politics, this is a very cool event within the voice over community.

Best part, is that it's catching on. The Nashua Telegraph recently published an article regarding this movement within the voice over community, and Politico just put up their own article regarding this as well.

These articles, if nothing else, should serve as a reminder for the rest of us within the voice over community that what we do with our talents is much more than bringing words to life. The potential is there to really provide a conduit of information and education through the work we do, and when the opportunity comes our way, it's one which we ought to be very proud of.

I'm not going to get into the politics of this issue (frankly it's a loaded gun of discussion at the dinner table and has been added to the rather eclectic list of things my family doesn't discuss at the dinner table, including the Muppets, carnivals, horses, and John Tesh... you know, the really controversial stuff).

-G

Edit: and now a third article on the subject from the New York Times. A link to the article can be found here.

CISSP and Voice Over? Learning to "own it".

For those who didn't know, I recently took the exam to become a Certified Information System Security Professional. Normally, you want to take a few months to prepare for the exam since you have ten domains of knowledge upon which you are tested, and the adage "mile wide, but inch deep" is very true when it comes to the exam certification.

And true to course, I was given less than 10 calendar days to prepare for the exam due to the nature of my employer (who, unfortunately, does not understand the nature of the certification). That okay though, because at least they were offering me the opportunity and covering the bill.

Since this is a voice over blog, you know that I'm going to find something from one and use towards the other. And you'd be right in stating so. In this case, it has to do with confidence. Both with the CISSP and in your own voiceover career the confidence you have in yourself will often make or break you. Without turning this into a self-help posting, how often do we go into something and simply say "I own this!"?

Probably not as often as we should, and as I scrambled through the 3500 pages of material that I needed to know for the exam, I found myself at wits end about 4 day prior to the exam. Quite simply, there was too much to do and I hadn't been given enough time. Were I allowed to put my job on hold, in addition to my coursework, and all other responsibilities, then I know I could have done it. However, in the state I was in I just couldn't see it.

And then I looked at it from the point of view of a performer. I remembered what I'm so often told by those I train and perform with. Simply put, it's to stop worrying about what might happen, and to go in with guns blazing knowing that regardless of the decision that I owned it as best possible. From that moment on, that's exactly what I did. When I was able to study during the rest of the week, I told myself to own it. When I did the practice exams, I told myself that I owned it. Reviewing the materials one last time before the exam, I'd remind myself to own it. And regardless of the outcome, I knew that I owned the exam. Pass? Fail? It doesn't matter anymore... the important thing is that I got the experience. If I didn't get it this time, then I continue working on it until the next exam and I'd get it then.

Precisely what you need to do in voice over. I'm as guilty as the next of getting into my head and psyching myself out over the audition. I mentally beat myself up on the drive home, or worry about how I did, if I'll hear anything, or if I just bombed. Does that help anyone? No. Instead, you need to go in with the attitude of owning the audition, moving on to the next challenge as soon as you're done. Leave the worrying to someone else, because it's out of your hands now. The only thing you can do is to continue to train, strengthen up your weaknesses once you've identified them, and go after the next audition with the same philosophy of owning it.

Ironically, it took an infosec certification to really learn the message that people have been telling me for years. If you don't own these challenges, they're going to own you, and regardless of how you learn that lesson, you'll never reach the next step of your career without it...

-Happy Easter!

BTW: for those interested, I passed the exam on the first shot.