18: Me artist, me create, money yes but later

stolenvoice tv vlog – 7 minute read

My voiceover journey started 275 days ago

It was the first full week after my return from my research trip to Madagascar, which means I was able to enter my routine again.

This is the standard routine I’m applying to every Monday to Saturday (if nothing else is planned or scheduled) - Sunday is my off-day:

Here’s what Frank, Hank, Jimmy and myself have to say about these past 7 days.

1/4 Worker: Frank

Completed

Worked on (but incomplete)

Didn’t work on

None

Struggling

Finding the right approach to script 4 of my commercial demo reel has been a big challenge. I’m still not sure what feeling I want to convey with the script and second I’m not sure what style of delivery I want to use. I’ll invest more time into it, Although I prefer to get it done quickly, I know that voiceover (acting) takes its time in order to grow to something awesome.

I observed that voiceover requires much more energy sometimes than I would think. I saw that when I had voice-recorded this one AVR (with 480 words) I felt pretty tired, my voice and body. Maybe it’s because I’ve only voice-recorded so far the short punchy scripts (around 100 words). So, that’s been an interesting observation.

The other permanent struggle is: I want to be very good (excellent) at voiceover but I also want to continue learning how to make great animations and illustrations so that I can use my voiceover skills and combine them with future illustration and animation skills, all geared towards the goal of creating AVVs for bootstrapped Indie companies.

I want to doubt less what I’m doing and just do and see what results it brings. As an over-thinker by nature this has been my permanent struggle for years (and decades). Doing voiceover/acting as my career now I have a good incentive to tame that beast.

Voiceover weaknesses

New discoveries this week:

Weakness I discovered before:

Weakness I worked on this week:

Weakness I fixed this week:

Done next time

2/4 CEO: Hank

How did business go?

I identified that creation of voiceover assets (recordings, videos, illustrations, marketing) is more important than making immediate money in this first business year. The money-making stressed me negatively, and there was actually no reason to be stressed because my day job provides all the money that I need to pay all the expenses plus some money to save and invest. So, although I’m running a business (not a charity) I’m not aiming anymore for the 6k revenue goal this year but for creating assets and awareness of my voiceover doing. That’s it. If people associate voiceover and empowering Indie makers with me, this is a good step taken! In 2019, I’m sure I’ll be more money-oriented then but I’ll see.

Review of worker Frank’s performance:

Monday was a productivity disaster (a score of 3 out of 10) because the time at the doctor took 7,5 hours incl. the drive and I had no energy left to continue.

3/4 Head of Sales: Jimmy

How did sales go?

4/4 Last words of the observer: Alex (me)

What did you (as the gray eminence) get out of this week? What was remarkable?

I rediscovered my artistic mindset, which is awesome because I relaxed a lot mentally and all of a sudden new ideas came - the magic of relaxation, I’m telling you! So, I’m no longer „owned“ by the obsessive money-maker mindset, I hope. I was so obsessed with the money-making mindset that I felt like rushing things and focus on selling stuff as soon as I can. What I neglected was that importance of creation.

Sure, I was creating and I took my time, especially with regard to my commercial demo reel. But my inner voice never seemed to stop telling me „Alex, what about your revenue goal of 6k this year?“ While making money matters and is an incentive I more and more felt that it crippled my creativity and left me becoming impatient, uncalm and unrelaxed. With the beginning rediscovery of my artist mindset I’m putting my focus back on what matters initially: the creation. No matter the time it takes to create (and learn new stuff to create even more), I’m taking that time. If that means that a conflict with the tax officials (or some kind of penalty payment) because I’m not making money from more than one source/client (currently my non-voiceover freelance day job is paying all the bills), that’s ok. I’m taking that risk.

Right now, all I want is spending time with creating stuff in the realm of voiceover, animated voiced videos (AVVs), and agile voice recordings (AVRs).

I think having started reading the first pages of „Perennial Seller“ by Ryan Holiday helped me regain that conviction about „creation first, money after“.

One of those ideas was the initiation of a project on ethical salesmanship for which I bought the domain salesmanship.io (because as a voiceover I’m primarily a salesman and an actor after).

I also came up with two new voiceover project concepts (a „raw“ show on Monday, a „fun“ show on Friday) - launch date is still uncertain but I have a good feeling about them.

Also, getting up early is awesome, standing while working as well. I just felt more tired because I was standing so much and because I did a 40-minute walk each morning (incl. up-hill) and not an easy flat 20-minute walk like before.

Getting up early and brain-dumping also allowed me to pre-produce many more stolenvoiceIGTV episodes than before. Today, episode 74 is due and I’ve pre-produce until episode 84. Awesome!

Links I mentioned in the video

You can join my free email course „Story Creation Masterclass“ now and pre-order my book PARADISE soon.

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