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Real Bosses with Tom Dheere

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Content provided by Anne Ganguzza. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Anne Ganguzza or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
What would it look like if you could harness the energy of a conference and convert it into effectiveness? What would it feel like to be your own boss in the voiceover industry? Our esteemed guest, Tom Dheere, joins us as we unravel the answers to these thought-provoking questions. We share valuable insights on setting the right objectives, maximizing conference experiences, and the commitment required to become a full-time voice actor. Plus, we examine the liberating perspective of entrepreneurial freedom offered by the voiceover industry.

0:00:01 - Anne

Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss podcast and the real boss series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza and I am so happy to bring to this series Mr Tom Dheere. Thank you so much, tom, for joining me on this.

0:00:15 - Tom

Yay, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited about this. This is going to be great.

0:00:19 - Anne

Oh, tom, first of all, it was so awesome to see you at the One Voice conference.

0:00:25 - Tom

Yes, likewise.

0:00:27 - Anne

I know we just had. You were just a guest on my podcast and, lo and behold, like two times I see you within the span of a month or two, which is really incredible, right?

Sometimes we have to go to conferences to just meet in person so whew, I was exhausting that conference, but super motivating, and I know a lot of people who went to that conference are all revved up and ready to go, motivated, inspired. We took amazing classes and so I think it's a good time to talk about. You know, what do we do with all that amazing energy that we just absorbed in that conference? Because I'm revved up, I'm motivated, ready to go. What can we do to, I guess, keep ourselves or keep the momentum going, tom?

0:01:16 - Tom

That is a fantastic question and I know you've been presented at dozens and dozens of conferences over the past 10 years, and so have I, and we go and we meet wonderful people and we present and we also attend workshops and panels and we learn a lot and we get to commiserate with our peers, voice actors and coaches and other producers and stuff like that. And then there's this glow.

0:01:42 - Anne

There is a glow. It's wonderful glow. There is a glow.

0:01:46 - Tom

And then you go home and then for the vast majority of people that go to these conferences, it's like whew.

0:01:53 - Anne

And then life sets in right. I have laundry to do. Yeah, family, yeah, right Bills and auditions and stuff like that.

0:02:02 - Tom

So it's great. Conferences are great for, obviously for education. They're great for networking, they're great for renewal of purpose, refocus, re-energizing. The trick is how to take all that positive energy and inspiration and revved up-ed-ness and coming, taking it home with you and turning it into effectiveness. Because the positive attitude, while great it can only get you so far, it's not going to get you home. You're going to run out of that momentum and now there's work to be done.

0:02:37 - Anne

Interesting, tom. Before we went to the conference, I think somebody had actually created a note sheet of like here are the I guess the talks that I want to go to, here are my goals, or here's what I got out of it, and I thought it was a really great way for people who like that type of thing and they take a lot of notes to write down your objectives. What are you hoping to get from that? And then what do you hope to do once you get, maybe once you get home, to put those lessons learned in place? And so I think that maybe everything should start even before we go to the conference in terms of writing things down and what is it that you hope to get out of this conference. And I'm a big planner, so I am a big proponent of yeah, you guys should plan out what sessions you want to go to, look at the schedule multiple times and just see how you can get the most out of the money that you've spent on that ticket of yours.

0:03:33 - Tom

Yeah, absolutely, and different people at different points in their voiceover journey go to different conferences for different reasons, if it's. I've never been one to been one to one before, and I just want to. I haven't even produced a demo yet. I just want to see what this universe is like.

0:03:47 - Anne

Great.

0:03:48 - Tom

If it's, this is my 15th conference. I've had all these demos done, I've gotten all this work. What am I going to get out of it this time? Or some people go because they specifically want to meet you, or they want to meet another coach or demo producer to see, I want to get in the same room with this person and see if we click because I may want to work with you as a coach or a demo producer. Um, you know, and some go purely as presenters and you know, and then they, you know, do their stuff and then they get out of there and yeah, which is which is which is cool too.

0:04:19 - Anne

I think there's such a, there's such a momentum to be gained by just joining forces with like-minded people and, just you know, renewing um relationships, and that just keeps you going, because it's so isolating sometimes just what we do and yeah and I will tell you, though, that the other day I was I don't even know what it was that made me think of it, but I I think I was getting ready to, you know, start.

I had a full day of students, and I said, I don't know what made me think about, oh god, what if I had to go to work for somebody?

um, you know, back in my days of corporate and I'm like I I could never do that again. So boss is out there. This is just a little segue. If you, if, if you know that this is what you want to do and you end up pursuing it full time, I don't say rush into it with your, you know, with your eyes closed. But, um and Tom, we can talk lots of strategies about that, but once you make that decision to go full time, I don't do you know anybody who's actually gone back because they've been unhappy being their own boss um, I know lots of people who have gone back to a regular job because they just couldn't book enough right they needed the money.

0:05:24 - Tom

Yeah, exactly, it was purely financially, like I've been trying this and I just, I just can't get enough work to sustain myself and they've come gone back. Um, I can't think of anyone specifically, but I'm sure there are people out there, because there are people who just like to be told what to do, because then they don't have to think about it and there's a level of security in that and I totally that's sympathize with that.

0:05:45 - Anne

I'm not one of those people, I can't. I don't, I don't think I could, I could not go back to taking now, I think, now I can take. I can take instructions from my client. Sure, I can be directed um, and then I want to get paid and be done with it. I think that's really it's. It's an interesting. It's an interesting, it's a different dynamic, because that's a, that's a, that's a business to business thing where you and the clients are on equal footing there's no high. There's no hierarchy.

0:06:10 - Tom

It's it's you and the client trying to make this finished, great finished product, which is, you know, the audio files that you're gonna send to them or their, their source connecting you through. But with what? When it's a, I am in charge of you and. I'm telling you what to do, and this is when you can go to the bathroom and stuff like that it's like ah, I don't know if I could.

0:06:29 - Anne

I don't know, I don't think I could go back to that it makes me think of okay, it's similar to I know I just went off on that on that weird tangent, but that happens sometime, bosses, sorry, um, but it was just a weird like. It just came to me. I was like I could not work for somebody now, so I will do everything in my power to make my business so that I do not have to do that. I think that also was leading into that.

But I think isn't that similar to, let's say, I, I pay my money, I get my ticket, I go to a conference, I take these classes, I'm inspired for a new genre, I'm inspired to work with a new coach, and then we come back and, oops, we're by ourselves, right. So now, yeah, it's very similar to what now, you know, we're gonna be talking about is we've got to take the reins and we've got to do the work and it's, it's now up to us, and we're not necessarily having that coach or that director saying, okay, do this, do this, do this. Now we've got all of this energy and this motivation. How do we cement that and you know, and and start to just really move forward on that?

0:07:27 - Tom

right. The trick is if you want to be the vo boss you need to learn how to be your own boss. Yeah, yeah, you know it's empowering to like be the boss. Yeah, I'm a tough boss. I'll tell you that my boss is a jerk my boss, I would say my boss is a bastard oh, I just said that oh. I had another word in mind, but I didn't use it.

0:07:49 - Anne

I'm not sure if we'll bleep that out, but yeah woo, I'll tell you what. I've never worked for a harder boss, but isn't that true?

0:07:57 - Tom

yeah, yeah, I'm hard on ourselves. I'm pretty real, I'm I'm often pretty relentless and I have to be because I have this bad habit.

0:08:05 - Anne

It's called eating and and having a roof over my head, yes, and not living in a cardboard box, yes, yeah, you know.

0:08:14 - Tom

So yeah, the motivation is like there's no net yeah, you know what I mean. If I don't audition for this, there's a 100 chance that I'm not gonna book it well, yeah, and I think that's what propels me for sure you know what I mean to get work done, I mean right the fact that I need right.

0:08:30 - Anne

I need to be able to pay the mortgage right, and that's the, and that's a.

0:08:33 - Tom

That's a great point, anne, is that different people need to find different motivations. To stay motivated when you are alone in your booth talking to yourself? You know, so that's a big part of you know I talk about effectiveness. There's a difference between talent and effectiveness. There's a lot of talented aspiring voice actors out there with interesting voices but like I have an interesting pen, it doesn't make me an author, you know.

0:09:02 - Anne

I own a wrench. It doesn't make me a plumber, so having talent, voice doesn't make me effective. Yeah absolutely.

0:09:11 - Tom

You know, because no one's going to get discovered, you're not going to get your big break. It doesn't really work that way.

0:09:16 - Anne

It's what you do with that pen that matters. It's what you do with that voice that matters.

0:09:20 - Tom

Exactly and consistently. Yes, absolutely so when you get home from that conference and you've got all that positive attitude. That's great If you can bottle it and put it on a shelf for later.

0:09:30 - Anne

That's great.

0:09:31 - Tom

But when you get home, it's about what can I do to be effective today, tomorrow, next week, month, quarter year, two years, five years? And I'm not necessarily talking about writing a business plan, which is something I do do as the, as the video strategist, but it's about how do I think about myself to stay motivated. How do I think about and understand the voiceover industry? So there's a reality, because that's the other thing and, as you know, people coming into the industry have no idea what the industry is. They just have this odd preconceived notion of what it is. Oh yeah, I talk interesting. I got to just get an agent and then they'll just throw Saxa cash at me.

0:10:10 - Anne

Exactly and I think, yeah, you don't know what you don't know right.

0:10:13 - Tom

You don't know what you don't know.

0:10:15 - Anne

And especially not only that is it a new industry for a lot of people, but it's also the fact that there's a lot of people who are very unhappy in their current job situation and get out of that work for somebody else, but then working for yourself is a whole different animal and that really is, I think, where the double it's.

The double whammy comes in for those people new to the industry, because not only are they trying to acquire the skills to be a good talent, but now they also have to have good business skills as well, and they're not used to working for themselves or having to go out and market themselves and get work and all those hats that they've got to put on.

0:10:58 - Tom

Yeah, I had a maybe 15 years ago here in New York City. I had a 10 minute meet up with an agent I don't remember which one but he said tell me about yourself. And I talked about all the things I do. He's like, wow, you got a lot of hats.

And I'm like, yeah he's like but you only have one head and I'm like, yeah, so you kind of to be an effective voice actor, you need to kind of be the Dr Seuss Bartholomew in 1001 hats and have all those hats stacked up on. Some of them, some of them, you can take on and put on and take off, but a bunch of them you have to have stacked on your head at the same time, because there is no job description for being a voice actor.

I mean, there is, but nobody knows what it is, until you get here and it's like unlocking these doors and you know, moving these hedges aside and going oh, I need to do, I have to do that. You know it's like. It's almost like a maze, which is the logo of the VO strategist. Now that I think about it helping you navigate the voice over the industry, absolutely. So, navigating the maze of what it means to be an effective voice actor, and staying motivated at the same time. Because, yes, invoicing.

0:12:08 - Anne

Staying, staying motivated when you're doing something like accounting.

0:12:12 - Tom

Like for me.

0:12:12 - Anne

I mean, well, I'm not. I mean, there are some people who love accounting, right, so there's accounting for me. How do there you go See for me? I'm like, oh God, actually I will tell you, tom. So for me, staying motivated while I have an S corp, right, and an S corp is creating all of this paperwork for me and for me, I can't, god it's, and it's just like I need to, either just, you know, be educated about, you know, the entire S corp thing, or I outsource, right. So I think if I had to do all that paperwork and try to understand it all and to stay motivated, it would be very, very difficult for that to happen, and it may discourage me from wanting to have a voiceover business because of this paperwork that I continually have to supply to the government, to you know, support this business, but I, you know, for me one of my solutions is to outsource that right.

And make sure that I have somebody that I trust and can go to if I have any questions, that can handle that aspect for me. So if I'll, I know, constantly get mail, mail, snail mail saying you need to provide this information, or you owe us this amount of money, or you need to prepay this or you know whatever that is, and so I literally will just be like, oh my gosh, this is a lot of paperwork. So I will literally scan that in and send that to my accountant, which, by the way, I will say to the to to my dying day, I will say my accountant was my very best investment for this business. I just I can't. I can't do the numbers.

0:13:45 - Tom

Right, well, and that's that's a very important point, and is that if you're getting into the voiceover industry, obviously you need to understand what does that entail on you know soft skills, hard skills, hardware, software, marketing, money and all that stuff, and you need to know, you need to have an understanding of what your S corp is, or what this is, where that is, and then you can decide okay, this is a skill I need to just understand, but I'll outsource it and this is a skill like, for example, using your DAW.

0:14:14 - Anne

You have to know how to use your DAW.

0:14:17 - Tom

You need to know how to audition and you need to know how to record and clean up and save and, you know, deliver audio file. Some stuff is non-negotiable. You know what I mean.

0:14:27 - Anne

But managing your S corp, you know right, that's another thing.

0:14:31 - Tom

Or if you're an audio book narrator or a long form e-learning narrator, do you want to hire an audio, an audio engineer, to clean up your clean up your audio or do you want to do that, Do it yourself? Or do you say do it yourself first to understand how it works and why it works and then outsource it? And I'm sure some of your bosses are thinking I don't have that money. To outsource yes, I don't have the money to outsource.

0:14:54 - Anne

You need to invest your money to make the money. That's what I always start by saying invest the money to make the money, but and maybe not try to put yourself wholeheartedly into the business until you do have money that you can invest, because that would be, from any perspective, any business. You have to have some investment money.

0:15:15 - Tom

I mean it's not just voiceover, just some.

0:15:17 - Anne

for some reason it became this like oh, we just talking to a microphone, how easy is that. I don't need to have any money or be prepared, or maybe I just got to buy a mic.

And that, I think, is where, where in the problem lies, where then you start to have, you know, predators in the industry that will sell that dream and people who will get taken for that dream and without the realization that, yeah, they have to put things in place and make investments to do that. So let's, let's kind of go back to we've gone to a conference and we've gotten motivated, and even it doesn't have to be a physical conference, it could be a virtual, online, you know, workshop or whatnot. I just went to a workshop called Unstoppable you. It was a Tony Robbins thing, which was all about the motivation, all about the motivation.

But yeah, now that you've, now that you're motivated, you've got to do the work and you've got to maybe take a look at the hard like really take a look at the the hard questions and and then make concrete steps to move forward. So it's like I can ask the hard questions. I can maybe, I can maybe get through the answers and they might make me cry, some of them Right, they right and so I can do that, but now I have to actually do the hard part, which is moving forward. So what, what would be the first thing you would recommend? Let's say, somebody that comes back from a conference or, you know, a workshop or whatever, and maybe a meeting with a coach and they're they're inspired, they're motivated. What's the first thing that you would have them do?

0:16:46 - Tom

The first thing that I would have them do is write down in severe detail what they're perfect.

0:16:51 - Anne

Severe detail, not just detail. Severe detail, severe detail.

0:16:55 - Tom

What their perfect voiceover day looks like.

0:16:58 - Anne

Oh, okay, okay. Follow me with just work with me for a second.

0:17:02 - Tom

What time of day are you waking up? What time zone are you in when you wake up? Are you waking up in a house, a cabin, a condo, a space station?

a bunker, a submarine Like? Where are you waking up when it's time to start doing voiceover? Does the limo pick you up? Are you walking downstairs into the basement? Are you getting on a bicycle to go downtown? Are you going into your backyard to your custom built booth? Are you going into the attic? Are you taking a bus or a train? And then, when you get there, what are? What kind of? What kind of bookings are you doing? What genres or subgenres of voiceover? One or more? How much are you getting paid? Obviously, we all want to get paid as much as possible, but what is that actual number that you need to cover all of your voiceover expenses, all of your personal expenses? Manage your debt, save for retirement, save for that college education for your kids, save for that car and have enough to have a little fun.

0:18:01 - Anne

And this is before. You're a working talent, right, this is still a, really, if you're just new to the industry and you want to get into it and you're let's say, you're in the process with a coach and you're making demos.

You want to project what genres? First of all, if you're working with a coach, you should probably have a genre in mind already yes, right, and with a genre specific coach. So you kind of know where you want to go. But putting that down, right, even if you're not actually doing the work as you were mentioning okay, this is the work, I'm going to be doing these auditions, even if you don't have audition opportunities yet and you're still just working. Put down that on the list because you want to make sure that you have the space for it and the time for it. Right, right, right. And then the goal, steps, the steps.

0:18:42 - Tom

Right, exactly. And once you have that perfect day realized, written down in severe detail, you walk that backwards to the day to the moment that you're writing that list. What are you missing between right now and that perfect voiceover day? What money, how much money do you need? What training do you need? What tools do you need? What marketing acumen do you need? All of the things big and small, knowledge, hardware, software, tangible, intangible mindset to get you where you are and figure out what are you missing and what you need to do to fill those gaps. So when you come home from a conference, all motivated, try to figure out what the practical application of all the wonderful information that you just collected is. We go to all these workshops and listen to all these panels and take all these notes and some of the knowledge is immediately actionable and others are, for you know, I took this genre workshop. I'm gonna keep these notes and maybe I'll be ready for it in a year or two.

And so on and so forth. Organize, organize everything, because you need to figure out how actionable and practical everything that you need is to do to get you to that perfect voiceover day and use the glow and energy and momentum of the conference that you just got home from to kind of build that foundation, build that scaffolding, create that structure. So, when you get back into the day to day grind of trying to build or develop or nurture your voiceover business, you have effective systems of thought and effective systems of execution.

0:20:23 - Anne

And let me interject also what I think is important is, of course, yes, you took that workshop on animation or whatever promo, imaging, whatever it is, you know, medical narration, I say because I just did that, love it or corporate.

I think that you always have to keep your eye on the market. I gosh, I feel like sometimes we become so blinded by our own like performance because we're like, oh, I want to get really good at animation or I want to get really good at, you know, whatever commercial or corporate. But I think we always have to keep our eye on the marketplace because if there's not a demand or if the demand is not as big and I'm always telling this to my students about corporate, it's a huge market, is a huge opportunity there Versus animation. Not that there isn't a huge opportunity there, but there's less of an opportunity there than there is in corporate. There's more of an opportunity in e-learning than there is in even I would say, promo, promo, of course. Right, documentary. Everybody that comes to me for narration says I want to do documentaries and I'm like well, how many documentaries do you think there are at any given time? Do you know?

0:21:32 - Tom

what I mean yeah.

0:21:33 - Anne

Compared to the 30.4 million registered companies that have a product or service to sell that need a corporate narrator.

0:21:40 - Tom

And need human resources videos and need orientation videos and need compliance videos Right.

0:21:45 - Anne

And I think that that is something that we really need to take into consideration at all points in our business, because that will affect right when you're talking about here's where I am. Here are the here's my perfect day, here's where I want to be, I want to be animating, I want to be doing animations on television or whatever that is, or I want to have a national commercial spot. That's all well and good. However, I think that you also have to take in account what is the market for that? Is there okay? Are you going to be able? And I used to think erroneously back in the beginning, before I realized what the market was oh, I just need a commercial a day, right? Or you know, oh, wouldn't that be nice.

Oh yeah, tom, we're talking about real talk, right? Real bosses. Well, okay, I don't know anybody that gets a commercial a day, except for people who are maybe on rosters for serious exam or they're doing, and that's usually for lower pay. But if you're thinking like, oh, if I got a national spot, even one a week, right, I mean, unless you're in it, voice for a campaign. I mean, I love how you laugh, that's the perfect way.

0:22:46 - Tom

Well, I laugh because I thought I had to sound like James Earl Jones.

0:22:47 - Anne

Right, I mean yeah, and so like that is. You know you have to understand what's realistic for the, for the industry too, when you're jotting these down. So any education that you can get on that right. Listen to podcasts like Vio Boss. I mean, we've been doing this for six years, right, talking about markets and business. And, tom, you've been doing gosh. How many years have you been doing business consulting?

0:23:10 - Tom

and strategizing Over 10 years.

0:23:12 - Anne

Yeah, over 10 years and specifically in our industry, and so, like guys, I mean, look, I'm not saying of course you should come to us, but I mean we've been doing this for a long time, we've watched the market evolve and so that's why I want to point it out and say that this is so important for us to have in consideration in our, in our step by step process of here's where we are, here's where we want to be. Now, if I want to be, you know, a commercial, you know Vio artist, well, maybe I want to think about another genre as well, to add in, to supplement those days when I don't get the national campaign every day. And I'm not trying to crush your dreams, guys, that's just not, that's just not it. But you know we're. This is a dose of reality, right, tom?

This is our whole series is based on let's talk real yeah.

0:23:57 - Tom

The reality is is that you may be. You may be good at something you don't like, and you may not be good at something you do like.

A lot of people are drawn to the industry because they love cartoons and video games, and a lot of them may not be good at it, but they may find out that they are good at corporate or e-learning, which is a far more to your point, stable form of voiceover income, because, when it comes to effectiveness, the bottom line of effectiveness as a voice actor is you're able to make money. You're able to develop a revenue stream.

0:24:28 - Anne

Develop any revenue stream that you need to make. Yeah, develop any revenue stream.

0:24:32 - Tom

you can in any genre, whether you like it or not, and I always say all genres of voiceover is storytelling. I get my storytelling jollies out of any voiceover genre.

0:24:44 - Anne

I don't care Teaching statistics right or you're narrating corporate responsibility or HR policies. You are absolutely a character and you are acting, and so that is a requirement, that is, I mean, baseline requirement, especially now when we talked about this in our last podcast. It is such a requirement for us to be the actors that we are called to be, I mean, and that includes all genres. So, yes, and that's the reality, that's the real talk.

0:25:14 - Tom

Yes.

0:25:15 - Anne

The real talk is you've got to invest in yourself, in developing those skills and getting good coaching, and not just taking acting classes. I know everybody would say take an acting class, and I think that's wonderful too, but you've also got to take acting classes as they pertain to voiceover as well.

0:25:32 - Tom

Yes, there's a crossover. I mean, I always say improv classes are extremely important because it gives you the ability to make strong decisions quickly while you're narrating your copy. But to an end, compliment stuff like that, and there's like there are people who do improv for voiceover and acting specifically for voiceover. It's a very specific skill.

0:25:54 - Anne

There's very specific muscles that you need to flex, Absolutely, absolutely To be to do voiceover as opposed to on camera or as opposed to theater. I'm all about teaching the acting for narration and, by the way, tom, I miss you. I don't see you. Did you turn your camera off by any chance?

0:26:09 - Tom

No, I'm still here.

0:26:11 - Anne

Oh, I don't see you how interesting. That's that's. Do you see yourself?

0:26:16 - Tom

I do.

0:26:17 - Anne

Oh, okay. Well, I'm just going to assume.

0:26:19 - Tom

Okay.

0:26:20 - Anne

I'm going to assume that it just kind of blipped off. But you know, hey guys, technology Riverside, hopefully we'll have your, we'll have your video anyways.

0:26:30 - Tom

Okay.

0:26:30 - Anne

Absolutely, so, okay, so, so what a great conversation. So now you're back. Okay, so that's interesting. So now we've taken our, we've come back from the conference, we're motivated, we're, we've written down our, our perfect voiceover day, right and so, and then we've worked backwards to the steps. And so what would be next after that, tom, how do do we need to? We probably need to take time to evaluate whether we've accomplished those steps right, absolutely.

Once we've written them down and we've and we've developed our to-do list. Now we've got to go back, maybe in a week or so or in a you know at the end of the day and say did I accomplish my tasks?

0:27:07 - Tom

Yes, self-evaluation and self-reflection is one of the most important skill sets to be an effective voice actor. Because you don't have. Unless you're part of my mentorship program or you're mentoring with Ann, you are working in a vacuum. You need to develop the ability to metacognate, which is the ability to stand outside of thank you, the ability to stand outside of yourself. Look at yourself objectively and say did I do what I assigned to my assigned for myself? Did I do it? Well, if I didn't do it, why didn't I do it? Was there a logistical problem? Was a financial problem? Was there a motivational problem? You know and find out why, why you do what you do, how you tick, and there's a time to be kind to yourself and there's a kind, there's a time to be tough on yourself. You know.

0:27:56 - Anne

And so taking I think I've always tough on myself, but you're right, yeah.

0:27:59 - Tom

You have to be able to. You have to be able to do both, because we're all human. We all have different energy levels and emotional states that fluctuate constantly throughout the day, week, month, year, decade, and we need to be accommodating for that. Oh, mercury's in retrograde today, so I'm not going to get my invoicing done, or what were you?

0:28:18 - Anne

know oh, technology sucks, technology sucks. You know what I mean?

0:28:21 - Tom

Oh, great retrograde, yeah, you know but if you find yourself making excuses for yourself about why you're not doing things, then you are not being effective.

0:28:28 - Anne

Because I have an, I have an action for it. That's a whole another podcast right there.

0:28:32 - Tom

Yeah, I have my action plan right here and I don't check off every single box. I get about 80% of my action plan stuff done every month, dating back to 2006. And sometimes it's-.

0:28:42 - Anne

Do you have records from back then? Do you do you have a-.

0:28:45 - Tom

I have a binder right here with every single one of these. So January 2006-. I love it Was my first printed one and I've done 12 a year since 2006 and it's in this binder right over here.

0:28:54 - Anne

It does not surprise me that you love numbers too. I love numbers, right, yeah, see, and so that I feel goes along with.

Now I'm not so much, although I will. I will share my book is out there, but I have my to-do list that I love to cross things off on and I have my planner where I like to write my goals down. I'm not always as good as I propose to be, but, yeah, I think that's super important. But, wow, what a great conversation. I want to talk to you more, in more detail, about a lot of these steps because I think they're super important in our series. So, tom, thank you so so much for joining me for our first, our first in a series of real bosses.

0:29:35 - Tom

Yeah.

0:29:36 - Anne

So, guys, if you, I have a simple mission for you, but one that has big impact 100 voices, one hour, $10,000. Four times a year. Do you want to know what I'm talking about? Visit 100voiceswhocareorg to find out more and to join us. And big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. We love IPDTL. We love connecting with bosses like Tom and myself. Find out more at IPDTLcom. Bosses, have an amazing week and be real bosses. We'll see you next week. Bye, bye.

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What would it look like if you could harness the energy of a conference and convert it into effectiveness? What would it feel like to be your own boss in the voiceover industry? Our esteemed guest, Tom Dheere, joins us as we unravel the answers to these thought-provoking questions. We share valuable insights on setting the right objectives, maximizing conference experiences, and the commitment required to become a full-time voice actor. Plus, we examine the liberating perspective of entrepreneurial freedom offered by the voiceover industry.

0:00:01 - Anne

Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss podcast and the real boss series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza and I am so happy to bring to this series Mr Tom Dheere. Thank you so much, tom, for joining me on this.

0:00:15 - Tom

Yay, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited about this. This is going to be great.

0:00:19 - Anne

Oh, tom, first of all, it was so awesome to see you at the One Voice conference.

0:00:25 - Tom

Yes, likewise.

0:00:27 - Anne

I know we just had. You were just a guest on my podcast and, lo and behold, like two times I see you within the span of a month or two, which is really incredible, right?

Sometimes we have to go to conferences to just meet in person so whew, I was exhausting that conference, but super motivating, and I know a lot of people who went to that conference are all revved up and ready to go, motivated, inspired. We took amazing classes and so I think it's a good time to talk about. You know, what do we do with all that amazing energy that we just absorbed in that conference? Because I'm revved up, I'm motivated, ready to go. What can we do to, I guess, keep ourselves or keep the momentum going, tom?

0:01:16 - Tom

That is a fantastic question and I know you've been presented at dozens and dozens of conferences over the past 10 years, and so have I, and we go and we meet wonderful people and we present and we also attend workshops and panels and we learn a lot and we get to commiserate with our peers, voice actors and coaches and other producers and stuff like that. And then there's this glow.

0:01:42 - Anne

There is a glow. It's wonderful glow. There is a glow.

0:01:46 - Tom

And then you go home and then for the vast majority of people that go to these conferences, it's like whew.

0:01:53 - Anne

And then life sets in right. I have laundry to do. Yeah, family, yeah, right Bills and auditions and stuff like that.

0:02:02 - Tom

So it's great. Conferences are great for, obviously for education. They're great for networking, they're great for renewal of purpose, refocus, re-energizing. The trick is how to take all that positive energy and inspiration and revved up-ed-ness and coming, taking it home with you and turning it into effectiveness. Because the positive attitude, while great it can only get you so far, it's not going to get you home. You're going to run out of that momentum and now there's work to be done.

0:02:37 - Anne

Interesting, tom. Before we went to the conference, I think somebody had actually created a note sheet of like here are the I guess the talks that I want to go to, here are my goals, or here's what I got out of it, and I thought it was a really great way for people who like that type of thing and they take a lot of notes to write down your objectives. What are you hoping to get from that? And then what do you hope to do once you get, maybe once you get home, to put those lessons learned in place? And so I think that maybe everything should start even before we go to the conference in terms of writing things down and what is it that you hope to get out of this conference. And I'm a big planner, so I am a big proponent of yeah, you guys should plan out what sessions you want to go to, look at the schedule multiple times and just see how you can get the most out of the money that you've spent on that ticket of yours.

0:03:33 - Tom

Yeah, absolutely, and different people at different points in their voiceover journey go to different conferences for different reasons, if it's. I've never been one to been one to one before, and I just want to. I haven't even produced a demo yet. I just want to see what this universe is like.

0:03:47 - Anne

Great.

0:03:48 - Tom

If it's, this is my 15th conference. I've had all these demos done, I've gotten all this work. What am I going to get out of it this time? Or some people go because they specifically want to meet you, or they want to meet another coach or demo producer to see, I want to get in the same room with this person and see if we click because I may want to work with you as a coach or a demo producer. Um, you know, and some go purely as presenters and you know, and then they, you know, do their stuff and then they get out of there and yeah, which is which is which is cool too.

0:04:19 - Anne

I think there's such a, there's such a momentum to be gained by just joining forces with like-minded people and, just you know, renewing um relationships, and that just keeps you going, because it's so isolating sometimes just what we do and yeah and I will tell you, though, that the other day I was I don't even know what it was that made me think of it, but I I think I was getting ready to, you know, start.

I had a full day of students, and I said, I don't know what made me think about, oh god, what if I had to go to work for somebody?

um, you know, back in my days of corporate and I'm like I I could never do that again. So boss is out there. This is just a little segue. If you, if, if you know that this is what you want to do and you end up pursuing it full time, I don't say rush into it with your, you know, with your eyes closed. But, um and Tom, we can talk lots of strategies about that, but once you make that decision to go full time, I don't do you know anybody who's actually gone back because they've been unhappy being their own boss um, I know lots of people who have gone back to a regular job because they just couldn't book enough right they needed the money.

0:05:24 - Tom

Yeah, exactly, it was purely financially, like I've been trying this and I just, I just can't get enough work to sustain myself and they've come gone back. Um, I can't think of anyone specifically, but I'm sure there are people out there, because there are people who just like to be told what to do, because then they don't have to think about it and there's a level of security in that and I totally that's sympathize with that.

0:05:45 - Anne

I'm not one of those people, I can't. I don't, I don't think I could, I could not go back to taking now, I think, now I can take. I can take instructions from my client. Sure, I can be directed um, and then I want to get paid and be done with it. I think that's really it's. It's an interesting. It's an interesting, it's a different dynamic, because that's a, that's a, that's a business to business thing where you and the clients are on equal footing there's no high. There's no hierarchy.

0:06:10 - Tom

It's it's you and the client trying to make this finished, great finished product, which is, you know, the audio files that you're gonna send to them or their, their source connecting you through. But with what? When it's a, I am in charge of you and. I'm telling you what to do, and this is when you can go to the bathroom and stuff like that it's like ah, I don't know if I could.

0:06:29 - Anne

I don't know, I don't think I could go back to that it makes me think of okay, it's similar to I know I just went off on that on that weird tangent, but that happens sometime, bosses, sorry, um, but it was just a weird like. It just came to me. I was like I could not work for somebody now, so I will do everything in my power to make my business so that I do not have to do that. I think that also was leading into that.

But I think isn't that similar to, let's say, I, I pay my money, I get my ticket, I go to a conference, I take these classes, I'm inspired for a new genre, I'm inspired to work with a new coach, and then we come back and, oops, we're by ourselves, right. So now, yeah, it's very similar to what now, you know, we're gonna be talking about is we've got to take the reins and we've got to do the work and it's, it's now up to us, and we're not necessarily having that coach or that director saying, okay, do this, do this, do this. Now we've got all of this energy and this motivation. How do we cement that and you know, and and start to just really move forward on that?

0:07:27 - Tom

right. The trick is if you want to be the vo boss you need to learn how to be your own boss. Yeah, yeah, you know it's empowering to like be the boss. Yeah, I'm a tough boss. I'll tell you that my boss is a jerk my boss, I would say my boss is a bastard oh, I just said that oh. I had another word in mind, but I didn't use it.

0:07:49 - Anne

I'm not sure if we'll bleep that out, but yeah woo, I'll tell you what. I've never worked for a harder boss, but isn't that true?

0:07:57 - Tom

yeah, yeah, I'm hard on ourselves. I'm pretty real, I'm I'm often pretty relentless and I have to be because I have this bad habit.

0:08:05 - Anne

It's called eating and and having a roof over my head, yes, and not living in a cardboard box, yes, yeah, you know.

0:08:14 - Tom

So yeah, the motivation is like there's no net yeah, you know what I mean. If I don't audition for this, there's a 100 chance that I'm not gonna book it well, yeah, and I think that's what propels me for sure you know what I mean to get work done, I mean right the fact that I need right.

0:08:30 - Anne

I need to be able to pay the mortgage right, and that's the, and that's a.

0:08:33 - Tom

That's a great point, anne, is that different people need to find different motivations. To stay motivated when you are alone in your booth talking to yourself? You know, so that's a big part of you know I talk about effectiveness. There's a difference between talent and effectiveness. There's a lot of talented aspiring voice actors out there with interesting voices but like I have an interesting pen, it doesn't make me an author, you know.

0:09:02 - Anne

I own a wrench. It doesn't make me a plumber, so having talent, voice doesn't make me effective. Yeah absolutely.

0:09:11 - Tom

You know, because no one's going to get discovered, you're not going to get your big break. It doesn't really work that way.

0:09:16 - Anne

It's what you do with that pen that matters. It's what you do with that voice that matters.

0:09:20 - Tom

Exactly and consistently. Yes, absolutely so when you get home from that conference and you've got all that positive attitude. That's great If you can bottle it and put it on a shelf for later.

0:09:30 - Anne

That's great.

0:09:31 - Tom

But when you get home, it's about what can I do to be effective today, tomorrow, next week, month, quarter year, two years, five years? And I'm not necessarily talking about writing a business plan, which is something I do do as the, as the video strategist, but it's about how do I think about myself to stay motivated. How do I think about and understand the voiceover industry? So there's a reality, because that's the other thing and, as you know, people coming into the industry have no idea what the industry is. They just have this odd preconceived notion of what it is. Oh yeah, I talk interesting. I got to just get an agent and then they'll just throw Saxa cash at me.

0:10:10 - Anne

Exactly and I think, yeah, you don't know what you don't know right.

0:10:13 - Tom

You don't know what you don't know.

0:10:15 - Anne

And especially not only that is it a new industry for a lot of people, but it's also the fact that there's a lot of people who are very unhappy in their current job situation and get out of that work for somebody else, but then working for yourself is a whole different animal and that really is, I think, where the double it's.

The double whammy comes in for those people new to the industry, because not only are they trying to acquire the skills to be a good talent, but now they also have to have good business skills as well, and they're not used to working for themselves or having to go out and market themselves and get work and all those hats that they've got to put on.

0:10:58 - Tom

Yeah, I had a maybe 15 years ago here in New York City. I had a 10 minute meet up with an agent I don't remember which one but he said tell me about yourself. And I talked about all the things I do. He's like, wow, you got a lot of hats.

And I'm like, yeah he's like but you only have one head and I'm like, yeah, so you kind of to be an effective voice actor, you need to kind of be the Dr Seuss Bartholomew in 1001 hats and have all those hats stacked up on. Some of them, some of them, you can take on and put on and take off, but a bunch of them you have to have stacked on your head at the same time, because there is no job description for being a voice actor.

I mean, there is, but nobody knows what it is, until you get here and it's like unlocking these doors and you know, moving these hedges aside and going oh, I need to do, I have to do that. You know it's like. It's almost like a maze, which is the logo of the VO strategist. Now that I think about it helping you navigate the voice over the industry, absolutely. So, navigating the maze of what it means to be an effective voice actor, and staying motivated at the same time. Because, yes, invoicing.

0:12:08 - Anne

Staying, staying motivated when you're doing something like accounting.

0:12:12 - Tom

Like for me.

0:12:12 - Anne

I mean, well, I'm not. I mean, there are some people who love accounting, right, so there's accounting for me. How do there you go See for me? I'm like, oh God, actually I will tell you, tom. So for me, staying motivated while I have an S corp, right, and an S corp is creating all of this paperwork for me and for me, I can't, god it's, and it's just like I need to, either just, you know, be educated about, you know, the entire S corp thing, or I outsource, right. So I think if I had to do all that paperwork and try to understand it all and to stay motivated, it would be very, very difficult for that to happen, and it may discourage me from wanting to have a voiceover business because of this paperwork that I continually have to supply to the government, to you know, support this business, but I, you know, for me one of my solutions is to outsource that right.

And make sure that I have somebody that I trust and can go to if I have any questions, that can handle that aspect for me. So if I'll, I know, constantly get mail, mail, snail mail saying you need to provide this information, or you owe us this amount of money, or you need to prepay this or you know whatever that is, and so I literally will just be like, oh my gosh, this is a lot of paperwork. So I will literally scan that in and send that to my accountant, which, by the way, I will say to the to to my dying day, I will say my accountant was my very best investment for this business. I just I can't. I can't do the numbers.

0:13:45 - Tom

Right, well, and that's that's a very important point, and is that if you're getting into the voiceover industry, obviously you need to understand what does that entail on you know soft skills, hard skills, hardware, software, marketing, money and all that stuff, and you need to know, you need to have an understanding of what your S corp is, or what this is, where that is, and then you can decide okay, this is a skill I need to just understand, but I'll outsource it and this is a skill like, for example, using your DAW.

0:14:14 - Anne

You have to know how to use your DAW.

0:14:17 - Tom

You need to know how to audition and you need to know how to record and clean up and save and, you know, deliver audio file. Some stuff is non-negotiable. You know what I mean.

0:14:27 - Anne

But managing your S corp, you know right, that's another thing.

0:14:31 - Tom

Or if you're an audio book narrator or a long form e-learning narrator, do you want to hire an audio, an audio engineer, to clean up your clean up your audio or do you want to do that, Do it yourself? Or do you say do it yourself first to understand how it works and why it works and then outsource it? And I'm sure some of your bosses are thinking I don't have that money. To outsource yes, I don't have the money to outsource.

0:14:54 - Anne

You need to invest your money to make the money. That's what I always start by saying invest the money to make the money, but and maybe not try to put yourself wholeheartedly into the business until you do have money that you can invest, because that would be, from any perspective, any business. You have to have some investment money.

0:15:15 - Tom

I mean it's not just voiceover, just some.

0:15:17 - Anne

for some reason it became this like oh, we just talking to a microphone, how easy is that. I don't need to have any money or be prepared, or maybe I just got to buy a mic.

And that, I think, is where, where in the problem lies, where then you start to have, you know, predators in the industry that will sell that dream and people who will get taken for that dream and without the realization that, yeah, they have to put things in place and make investments to do that. So let's, let's kind of go back to we've gone to a conference and we've gotten motivated, and even it doesn't have to be a physical conference, it could be a virtual, online, you know, workshop or whatnot. I just went to a workshop called Unstoppable you. It was a Tony Robbins thing, which was all about the motivation, all about the motivation.

But yeah, now that you've, now that you're motivated, you've got to do the work and you've got to maybe take a look at the hard like really take a look at the the hard questions and and then make concrete steps to move forward. So it's like I can ask the hard questions. I can maybe, I can maybe get through the answers and they might make me cry, some of them Right, they right and so I can do that, but now I have to actually do the hard part, which is moving forward. So what, what would be the first thing you would recommend? Let's say, somebody that comes back from a conference or, you know, a workshop or whatever, and maybe a meeting with a coach and they're they're inspired, they're motivated. What's the first thing that you would have them do?

0:16:46 - Tom

The first thing that I would have them do is write down in severe detail what they're perfect.

0:16:51 - Anne

Severe detail, not just detail. Severe detail, severe detail.

0:16:55 - Tom

What their perfect voiceover day looks like.

0:16:58 - Anne

Oh, okay, okay. Follow me with just work with me for a second.

0:17:02 - Tom

What time of day are you waking up? What time zone are you in when you wake up? Are you waking up in a house, a cabin, a condo, a space station?

a bunker, a submarine Like? Where are you waking up when it's time to start doing voiceover? Does the limo pick you up? Are you walking downstairs into the basement? Are you getting on a bicycle to go downtown? Are you going into your backyard to your custom built booth? Are you going into the attic? Are you taking a bus or a train? And then, when you get there, what are? What kind of? What kind of bookings are you doing? What genres or subgenres of voiceover? One or more? How much are you getting paid? Obviously, we all want to get paid as much as possible, but what is that actual number that you need to cover all of your voiceover expenses, all of your personal expenses? Manage your debt, save for retirement, save for that college education for your kids, save for that car and have enough to have a little fun.

0:18:01 - Anne

And this is before. You're a working talent, right, this is still a, really, if you're just new to the industry and you want to get into it and you're let's say, you're in the process with a coach and you're making demos.

You want to project what genres? First of all, if you're working with a coach, you should probably have a genre in mind already yes, right, and with a genre specific coach. So you kind of know where you want to go. But putting that down, right, even if you're not actually doing the work as you were mentioning okay, this is the work, I'm going to be doing these auditions, even if you don't have audition opportunities yet and you're still just working. Put down that on the list because you want to make sure that you have the space for it and the time for it. Right, right, right. And then the goal, steps, the steps.

0:18:42 - Tom

Right, exactly. And once you have that perfect day realized, written down in severe detail, you walk that backwards to the day to the moment that you're writing that list. What are you missing between right now and that perfect voiceover day? What money, how much money do you need? What training do you need? What tools do you need? What marketing acumen do you need? All of the things big and small, knowledge, hardware, software, tangible, intangible mindset to get you where you are and figure out what are you missing and what you need to do to fill those gaps. So when you come home from a conference, all motivated, try to figure out what the practical application of all the wonderful information that you just collected is. We go to all these workshops and listen to all these panels and take all these notes and some of the knowledge is immediately actionable and others are, for you know, I took this genre workshop. I'm gonna keep these notes and maybe I'll be ready for it in a year or two.

And so on and so forth. Organize, organize everything, because you need to figure out how actionable and practical everything that you need is to do to get you to that perfect voiceover day and use the glow and energy and momentum of the conference that you just got home from to kind of build that foundation, build that scaffolding, create that structure. So, when you get back into the day to day grind of trying to build or develop or nurture your voiceover business, you have effective systems of thought and effective systems of execution.

0:20:23 - Anne

And let me interject also what I think is important is, of course, yes, you took that workshop on animation or whatever promo, imaging, whatever it is, you know, medical narration, I say because I just did that, love it or corporate.

I think that you always have to keep your eye on the market. I gosh, I feel like sometimes we become so blinded by our own like performance because we're like, oh, I want to get really good at animation or I want to get really good at, you know, whatever commercial or corporate. But I think we always have to keep our eye on the marketplace because if there's not a demand or if the demand is not as big and I'm always telling this to my students about corporate, it's a huge market, is a huge opportunity there Versus animation. Not that there isn't a huge opportunity there, but there's less of an opportunity there than there is in corporate. There's more of an opportunity in e-learning than there is in even I would say, promo, promo, of course. Right, documentary. Everybody that comes to me for narration says I want to do documentaries and I'm like well, how many documentaries do you think there are at any given time? Do you know?

0:21:32 - Tom

what I mean yeah.

0:21:33 - Anne

Compared to the 30.4 million registered companies that have a product or service to sell that need a corporate narrator.

0:21:40 - Tom

And need human resources videos and need orientation videos and need compliance videos Right.

0:21:45 - Anne

And I think that that is something that we really need to take into consideration at all points in our business, because that will affect right when you're talking about here's where I am. Here are the here's my perfect day, here's where I want to be, I want to be animating, I want to be doing animations on television or whatever that is, or I want to have a national commercial spot. That's all well and good. However, I think that you also have to take in account what is the market for that? Is there okay? Are you going to be able? And I used to think erroneously back in the beginning, before I realized what the market was oh, I just need a commercial a day, right? Or you know, oh, wouldn't that be nice.

Oh yeah, tom, we're talking about real talk, right? Real bosses. Well, okay, I don't know anybody that gets a commercial a day, except for people who are maybe on rosters for serious exam or they're doing, and that's usually for lower pay. But if you're thinking like, oh, if I got a national spot, even one a week, right, I mean, unless you're in it, voice for a campaign. I mean, I love how you laugh, that's the perfect way.

0:22:46 - Tom

Well, I laugh because I thought I had to sound like James Earl Jones.

0:22:47 - Anne

Right, I mean yeah, and so like that is. You know you have to understand what's realistic for the, for the industry too, when you're jotting these down. So any education that you can get on that right. Listen to podcasts like Vio Boss. I mean, we've been doing this for six years, right, talking about markets and business. And, tom, you've been doing gosh. How many years have you been doing business consulting?

0:23:10 - Tom

and strategizing Over 10 years.

0:23:12 - Anne

Yeah, over 10 years and specifically in our industry, and so, like guys, I mean, look, I'm not saying of course you should come to us, but I mean we've been doing this for a long time, we've watched the market evolve and so that's why I want to point it out and say that this is so important for us to have in consideration in our, in our step by step process of here's where we are, here's where we want to be. Now, if I want to be, you know, a commercial, you know Vio artist, well, maybe I want to think about another genre as well, to add in, to supplement those days when I don't get the national campaign every day. And I'm not trying to crush your dreams, guys, that's just not, that's just not it. But you know we're. This is a dose of reality, right, tom?

This is our whole series is based on let's talk real yeah.

0:23:57 - Tom

The reality is is that you may be. You may be good at something you don't like, and you may not be good at something you do like.

A lot of people are drawn to the industry because they love cartoons and video games, and a lot of them may not be good at it, but they may find out that they are good at corporate or e-learning, which is a far more to your point, stable form of voiceover income, because, when it comes to effectiveness, the bottom line of effectiveness as a voice actor is you're able to make money. You're able to develop a revenue stream.

0:24:28 - Anne

Develop any revenue stream that you need to make. Yeah, develop any revenue stream.

0:24:32 - Tom

you can in any genre, whether you like it or not, and I always say all genres of voiceover is storytelling. I get my storytelling jollies out of any voiceover genre.

0:24:44 - Anne

I don't care Teaching statistics right or you're narrating corporate responsibility or HR policies. You are absolutely a character and you are acting, and so that is a requirement, that is, I mean, baseline requirement, especially now when we talked about this in our last podcast. It is such a requirement for us to be the actors that we are called to be, I mean, and that includes all genres. So, yes, and that's the reality, that's the real talk.

0:25:14 - Tom

Yes.

0:25:15 - Anne

The real talk is you've got to invest in yourself, in developing those skills and getting good coaching, and not just taking acting classes. I know everybody would say take an acting class, and I think that's wonderful too, but you've also got to take acting classes as they pertain to voiceover as well.

0:25:32 - Tom

Yes, there's a crossover. I mean, I always say improv classes are extremely important because it gives you the ability to make strong decisions quickly while you're narrating your copy. But to an end, compliment stuff like that, and there's like there are people who do improv for voiceover and acting specifically for voiceover. It's a very specific skill.

0:25:54 - Anne

There's very specific muscles that you need to flex, Absolutely, absolutely To be to do voiceover as opposed to on camera or as opposed to theater. I'm all about teaching the acting for narration and, by the way, tom, I miss you. I don't see you. Did you turn your camera off by any chance?

0:26:09 - Tom

No, I'm still here.

0:26:11 - Anne

Oh, I don't see you how interesting. That's that's. Do you see yourself?

0:26:16 - Tom

I do.

0:26:17 - Anne

Oh, okay. Well, I'm just going to assume.

0:26:19 - Tom

Okay.

0:26:20 - Anne

I'm going to assume that it just kind of blipped off. But you know, hey guys, technology Riverside, hopefully we'll have your, we'll have your video anyways.

0:26:30 - Tom

Okay.

0:26:30 - Anne

Absolutely, so, okay, so, so what a great conversation. So now you're back. Okay, so that's interesting. So now we've taken our, we've come back from the conference, we're motivated, we're, we've written down our, our perfect voiceover day, right and so, and then we've worked backwards to the steps. And so what would be next after that, tom, how do do we need to? We probably need to take time to evaluate whether we've accomplished those steps right, absolutely.

Once we've written them down and we've and we've developed our to-do list. Now we've got to go back, maybe in a week or so or in a you know at the end of the day and say did I accomplish my tasks?

0:27:07 - Tom

Yes, self-evaluation and self-reflection is one of the most important skill sets to be an effective voice actor. Because you don't have. Unless you're part of my mentorship program or you're mentoring with Ann, you are working in a vacuum. You need to develop the ability to metacognate, which is the ability to stand outside of thank you, the ability to stand outside of yourself. Look at yourself objectively and say did I do what I assigned to my assigned for myself? Did I do it? Well, if I didn't do it, why didn't I do it? Was there a logistical problem? Was a financial problem? Was there a motivational problem? You know and find out why, why you do what you do, how you tick, and there's a time to be kind to yourself and there's a kind, there's a time to be tough on yourself. You know.

0:27:56 - Anne

And so taking I think I've always tough on myself, but you're right, yeah.

0:27:59 - Tom

You have to be able to. You have to be able to do both, because we're all human. We all have different energy levels and emotional states that fluctuate constantly throughout the day, week, month, year, decade, and we need to be accommodating for that. Oh, mercury's in retrograde today, so I'm not going to get my invoicing done, or what were you?

0:28:18 - Anne

know oh, technology sucks, technology sucks. You know what I mean?

0:28:21 - Tom

Oh, great retrograde, yeah, you know but if you find yourself making excuses for yourself about why you're not doing things, then you are not being effective.

0:28:28 - Anne

Because I have an, I have an action for it. That's a whole another podcast right there.

0:28:32 - Tom

Yeah, I have my action plan right here and I don't check off every single box. I get about 80% of my action plan stuff done every month, dating back to 2006. And sometimes it's-.

0:28:42 - Anne

Do you have records from back then? Do you do you have a-.

0:28:45 - Tom

I have a binder right here with every single one of these. So January 2006-. I love it Was my first printed one and I've done 12 a year since 2006 and it's in this binder right over here.

0:28:54 - Anne

It does not surprise me that you love numbers too. I love numbers, right, yeah, see, and so that I feel goes along with.

Now I'm not so much, although I will. I will share my book is out there, but I have my to-do list that I love to cross things off on and I have my planner where I like to write my goals down. I'm not always as good as I propose to be, but, yeah, I think that's super important. But, wow, what a great conversation. I want to talk to you more, in more detail, about a lot of these steps because I think they're super important in our series. So, tom, thank you so so much for joining me for our first, our first in a series of real bosses.

0:29:35 - Tom

Yeah.

0:29:36 - Anne

So, guys, if you, I have a simple mission for you, but one that has big impact 100 voices, one hour, $10,000. Four times a year. Do you want to know what I'm talking about? Visit 100voiceswhocareorg to find out more and to join us. And big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. We love IPDTL. We love connecting with bosses like Tom and myself. Find out more at IPDTLcom. Bosses, have an amazing week and be real bosses. We'll see you next week. Bye, bye.

Transcribed by https://podium.page

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