Karen@KarenCommins.com

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

Observations

3 Thoughts to Help You Get Past That Mistake

Every job promotion I earned through my long career at the IRS was a competitive action. Today’s story is about a job I didn’t get due to my own mistakes and how those mistakes help me in my voice-over career today.

Once upon a time…

I started working at the IRS as a teenager. Daddy worked there and encouraged me to apply for a part-time job on the evening shift after school. It was a data entry job in which your output was measured against that of your peers.

As a fast typist, the work was easy for me, plus I made more money and had a more structured schedule than my friends who worked in restaurants. I never thought my job there would evolve into a career, but I eagerly applied for every position that had potential for more money.

Given the procedures involved, the high number of applicants, and paper blizzard of job applications, jobs typically weren’t filled for 3-6 months after the announcement. I would apply for a job and then forget it (kind of like doing an audition today).

One evening, my manager called me to her desk and told me that I had a job interview. I think she ended this exciting news flash with something like, “Oh, and it’s 5 minutes from now, so you better start walking.”

I worked in a 1-story building spanning several acres. All of the tax returns for several states were processed in that building, so you can imagine its size. I didn’t know where the interview room was and, after several wrong turns on various hallways, practically had to run to get there.

Even though 3 decades have passed since that day, I still remember the interviewer’s face when she saw me.

There I was, fashionably dressed in my lovely tank top, overalls, colorful toe socks and flip flops, out of breath and probably a bit sweaty as I burst into the room.

She looked me up and down and most assuredly thought, “Um, no.”

She asked me a few questions, and my answers revealed my complete lack of knowledge about her organization. I didn’t even know which job I was being interviewed for! I’m sure she thought that if her other top candidates were as prepared as me, she’d prefer to leave the job vacant.

Someone else’s job “interview” story

I thought about this incident recently when I received an email from someone who bemoaned a mistake in an audition. That person kindly gave me permission to reprint their words here:

I am on ACX.  I made the mistake of submitting an audition from home with horrendous lack of quality and only put in the comment, “please let me know if there are issues.”  Ha . That must have been like comedy for them.  I did not get any comments.  So I have been making all the mistakes that teach me what to do next.  Still looking to figure out how I recover from such embarrassing mistakes.

Man smacks his head after making a mistake

 
I learned 3 things from my bad interview experience that may help you get past your own mistakes:

1.  You have to prepare for what you want.

Louis Pasteur said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” In my case, preparation would have included dressing the part and being familiar with the organizations where I had applied.

However, a big part of your preparation involves learning what NOT to do. Like showing up for job interview dressed like a hobo and submitting an audition with horrible sound quality, we all have to learn some things the hard way!

Being in a learning curve is a scary place to be. The best article I’ve written about being in a learning curve is 12 lessons from Dancing With The Stars. If you read that article and absorb the lessons, you’ll find it easier to give yourself permission to learn and grow from your experiences.

2.  You’ve got to bring your A game.

My friend Dave Courvoisier writes an excellent blog about voice-over, equipment, and social media topics. He recently wrote an (Embarrassingly) True Story and the subsequent Feedback Follow-up in which he described a producer’s reactions to 400 auditions for a pirate voice.

I encourage you to read these illuminating articles as they offer a producer’s exact comments about the auditions he heard. In short, he felt most people didn’t make an effort to impress him or do good work, with half sending “terrible recordings” and others sending “laid-back and lazy” auditions.

The good news is — to quote George Eliot and a title of one of my audiobooks — “It’s Never Too Late To Be What You Might Have Been”.

Every day is an opportunity to grow and improve. As you learn more and improve, your A game is going to change.

You may have lost one chance to make a good impression, but you haven’t lost ALL of them. You have to shake off the negative thoughts and hold the attitude every day that you are working to the best of your ability. Your actions will follow your thoughts, so you might as well think thoughts of progress and victory!

And remember, people on top of the mountain didn’t just fall there.

3. Things happen for a reason.

Sometimes you figure out the reason, and sometimes you never do because it wasn’t about you. If I could go back to that blown interview, I wouldn’t change a thing. I learned something valuable that day.

I can look back at the closed doors in my life and see how they led to something better. I’m reminded of another IRS interview story.

In 2008, I had an interview with the multilingual office. I really, REALLY wanted that job. It would have been a promotion, and the work was something I thought I’d be very interested in doing. For some reason unknown to me, they were delayed in making a decision after the interview.

Meanwhile, my best friend Mike asked me to work on a temporary promotion for 4 months in his office in Applications Development. When I said yes to that opportunity, my life changed in ways I couldn’t imagine:

  • I wasn’t selected for the job I thought I really wanted. It turns out I never missed it.
  • I loved working with Mike again! I was his assistant manager, and I felt pride in contributing in a meaningful way to the organization.
  • Although I had been desperate for years to get out of the IRS and into voice-over full-time, I actually ACCEPTED my life for the first time. Acceptance of your life is a key to moving forward.
  • My original manager in Network Operations was incredibly generous. Since I loved the job with Mike so much, she let me continue working in Mike’s office for a year after the temporary promotion ended.
  • Tax Exempt and Government Entities (TE/GE) is an IRS business unit that deals with taxes for those groups. TE/GE was one of our main clients in Applications Development, so I learned a lot about their organization.
  • In 2009, I had an interview for a project manager position in TE/GE Business Systems Planning. They didn’t select me for the job.
  • Instead, TE/GE actually offered a communications job to me! It was my dream position at the IRS!
  • In 2011, the IRS offered early retirements to a very small number of employees, mostly in areas of communications and training. Guess what? I was one of them! If I had stayed in Information Technology, whether with Mike in Applications Development or my original job in Network Operations, I would still be working at the IRS, with no end in sight.

My life would have turned out very differently if I had gotten that job as a teenager. I love my life and wouldn’t want to change it!

When you know that things happen for a reason, you place less emphasis on any one thing that happens. This knowledge takes the stress out of any perceived mistakes of the moment.

Don’t dwell on those “mistakes”! As I discovered through my many IRS interview experiences, what we think are mistakes are often the catalysts we need to take our lives higher.

Image: iStockPhoto/PeskyMonkey
 

Has the competition got you down?

To compare is to despair.

I saw this quote in Bonnie Gillespie’s recent column about competition and was thinking about it this morning after I found myself feeling that I could do so oh so much more to further my voiceover career.

Some voiceover colleagues seem to be on every social media site and practically living their lives online. Some people write multiple blogs. Others are producing podcasts and videos at a dizzying pace.

I have been a competitive person all of my life, first in school with grades, and then in the work place for projects and recognition. When I look at the wide array of activities in which some voice talent engage, it’s easy to think I need to be just as productive and do the same things in order to stay competitive.

However, my corollary to Bonnie’s statement is:  To compete is to deplete.

Years ago, when I worked as a computer network administrator, the organization considered one of my coworkers to be the ultimate authority on server configurations. No matter what this man did, how rudely he treated others, or how his system changes might negatively impact the users, the organization always praised and rewarded him.

I didn’t understand at the time that competing with him simply by trying to copy his actions was not the path to success.

For instance, he avidly devoured Microsoft Technet articles, discussion boards, and every computer magazine he could find. He read on the job and every night at home.

I felt compelled to read the same stuff in my evenings. I felt extremely competitive with him and wanted to stay at his level. He criticized the rest of us when we didn’t know about a technical topic.

I hated spending my spare time that way. What’s more, these competitive actions added to my feelings of being overly stressed and under appreciated in my organization. It was a competition that I could never win and one I really didn’t want to enter.

I realized later that he read that material because computer networks were his passion. While I was extremely adept at my job, it was never my passion. I have never regretted leaving information technology positions for my true love of voiceover and communications.

All of the recent attention on Steve Jobs has made me feel a bit like I am not realizing my true potential. It’s easy to think that I haven’t done anything to change the world.

However, that’s not true. I have changed the world just by being in it. No one sees things the way I do or does things exactly as I do.

I have changed the world with the hundreds of recordings I’ve created for clients and in public service. I know that people have watched videos and e-learning projects where I was the one telling them the information they needed to know. I know people have enjoyed listening to me narrate short stories and audiobooks. Sometimes, I’m even privileged to receive their kind words of praise about my work.

I have changed the world every time I helped someone physically, emotionally, and financially.

I have changed the world every time I thought and spoke positive, affirming words to and about myself and others. In fact, I’ve often thought of myself as an advocate for people who could not or would not speak for themselves.

My impact on the world may not be on the grand scale of Steve Jobs. My output in voiceover-related activities may not be as numerous or frequent as some of my peers.

But, you know what? That’s OKAY. I am living a joyous, fulfilled life.

If you ever feel inadequate and think you need to compete with others as a result, remember these wise words from Steve Jobs:

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.
Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice.
And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
Everything else is secondary.

 

Exercise Your Creativity to be a Better Voice Talent

Creativity is not something that you wait for.
Creativity is something that waits for you.

— Neale Donald Walsch

A few years ago, Drew gave me a Valentine’s present of joint membership at a local pottery studio. While we weren’t envisioning a re-do of the famous scene from the movie Ghost, we had been interested in learning how to create some crockery. Instead, I learned something more valuable through the experience:

When I exercise my creativity in a new or different way, I’m more creative in other areas.

Each time I came home from the pottery studio, I might perform a voiceover audition with more inspired choices, play my harp more fluidly, or design a scrapbook page with lots of layers and textures. Any of these things make me feel even more pleased and give me the desire to do more.

I discovered this theory holds true when I attempt to draw in my journal. Even writing this blog, which itself is an artistic endeavor, causes me to feel more innovative when I finish each entry.

No matter how you express yourself, each way that you can be creative is scooping more good stuff into your life from the same bountiful well. Why use a teaspoon when you can use a jug?

In the last week, I’ve done a couple of things in marketing my voiceover business that allowed me to express my creativity in new ways. First, I created the book trailer video for an audiobook, which I included and discussed in my previous entry “Reasons to Create Your Own Stuff”. Many voice talent have written to me saying that they felt inspired by the ideas and marketing info that I presented, so I encourage you to read that entry if you haven’t already.

The other thing I did was enter the Voices.com photo contest on their Facebook page. They wanted pictures of voice talent in their studios with the Voices.com web site displayed on some sort of screen. While winning the prize would be wonderful, I entered because it was a direct call to action to be creative. After all, the judging criteria is the “most creative, coolest picture”.

I wanted to do something with recursion. In computer programming, recursion occurs when the program calls itself repeatedly. I also wanted the picture to be as much about me as Voices.com, making it good marketing material for both of us.

It only took a few minutes to come up with an idea that met both of those objectives.

Atlanta voice talent Karen Commins can’t get enough of Voices.com!

 
I have been most gratified by and grateful for the overwhelming positive response I have received in sharing these dips into my creativity well. I’m thrilled to have inspired others, but I also benefit since creativity feeds upon itself and manifests in my voiceover business. More importantly, I live an even happier and rewarding life!

What are you doing to feed your creative spirit? I’d love to get your comments on the blog!
 

Voice talent will *love* “The King’s Speech”

Screen shot from Teri Clark Linden’s Facebook status update 12/29/10

 
After seeing fellow voice talent Teri Clark Linden’s Facebook status last week, I was intrigued about the new movie “The King’s Speech”. Regular readers of my blog know that I often find hidden parallels to voiceover work in my life situations, as well as in books and movies. This is one instance where the similarity is obvious to anyone who views the movie, and, like Teri, I cannot recommend too highly that voice talent and actors go see this fantastic film.

Without giving away too much of the plot, King George VI (played brilliantly by Colin Firth, who should win an Oscar) is a quiet man who never wanted to be king. He was forced to take the throne after his brother King Edward VIII abdicated the crown in 1936 in favor of marriage to the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson.

People usually say the fear of public speaking is at the top of their lists of fears and stress-inducing events. In addition to the normal nervous sensation felt by everyone in front of a microphone, King George VI has a significant obstacle to overcome:  a stammer developed in childhood and exacerbated throughout his life.

Enter Lionel Logue (played impeccably by Geoffrey Rush), an actor and speech therapist who works with the King to help him become the kind of public speaker necessary to lead the British people through the travails of World War II. Aside from the historical relevance, much of the delight in the movie is watching a King and a commoner learn to trust each other and find the oneness that binds all of us together.

An underlying theme that was revealed in the film is that, while Lionel Logue had his own dreams as an actor, his greatest glory was achieved due to his service to others. Indeed, to quote Ralph Waldo Trine from his 1896 book What All The World’s A-Seeking, or, The Vital Law of True Life, True Greatness, Power, and Happiness, it is through service to others that we find ourselves:

The idea has prevailed in the past, and this idea has dominated the world, that self is the great concern,–that if one would find success, greatness, happiness, he must give all attention to self, and to self alone. 

This has been the great mistake, this the fatal error, this the direct opposite of the right, the true as set forth in the great immutable law that–we find our own lives in losing them in the service of others, in longer form–the more of our lives we give to others, the fuller and the richer, the greater and the grander, the more beautiful and the more happy our own lives become. 

It is as that great and sweet soul who when with us lived at Concord said,–that generous giving or losing of your life which saves it. This is an expression of one of the greatest truths, of one of the greatest principles of practical ethics the world has thus far seen. In a single word, it is service,–not self but the other self. 

We shall soon see, however, that our love, our service, our helpfulness to others, invariably comes back to us, intensified sometimes a hundred or a thousand or a thousand thousand fold, and this by a great, immutable law.

We also usually don’t know the impact that we are having on others when we generously share our gifts and talents with them. After seeing the movie, I did a little on-line research and discovered that Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) wrote a letter praising Logue’s tremendous assistance to her husband:

I think that I know perhaps better than anyone just how much you helped the King, not only with his speech, but, through that, his whole life, and outlook on life

Just as the King’s speech affected his subjects, every voice talent has the ability to influence someone whenever we take the microphone. You’ll note that some of Logue’s coaching to the King are the same techniques that we continue to use in our field.

Even if you aren’t a voice talent or actor, the King’s courage, determination, and persistence in fighting his battle and Logue’s ever-optimistic attitude and problem-solving skills are traits worthy of emulation. Go see this movie!

The intelligence of water crystals

Today is Blog Action Day. On 15 October each year, bloggers from more than 100 countries come together and blog about a single important issue, and this year’s topic is clean water.

Living where I do, I don’t even have to think about clean water. It’s something I often take for granted, especially while constantly sipping from a large bottle of water during my voiceover sessions. Through this blog article, I doubt that I could even cause a ripple of action that could cause improvement to the 70% of the earth that is covered in water. However, I want to raise your consciousness about the power of water to reflect the words you speak and enhance your life.

(I admit that the rest of this post may sound like a bunch of New Age woo-woo, but I hope you’ll keep reading!)

If you’re a long-time reader, you know that I believe firmly that nothing is more powerful on this planet than the words that you think and speak. Wars have been fought over words. Love is expressed through words. The power of Blog Action Day comes from the fact that words from around the globe are written, read, and discussed about a single, unifying topic.

Recently, I saw fascinating research about water from Japanese researcher Dr. Masaru Emoto. He discovered that crystals formed in frozen water look different based on the specific thought directed at the water. According to some of his literature:

I always stress the energy is vibrations, and vibrations are life. Words are vibrations. Words, therefore, are life … The sounds of words are nothing less than a divine gift from nature. Water crystals are illustrating this divine gift in their design.

Water is a medium that receives and understands even the subtlest vibrations. Water captures vibrations naturally. Even when these vibrations are characters, or letters representing language, water shows us the energy they contain in the forms of crystals. Water is attempting to communicate something to us. Negative emotions prevent the water from crystallizing. Positive emotions allow it to develop to beautiful hexagonal shapes.

Water makes up 70 percent of our bodies, and there is little doubt to me that the information in the water goes a long way in the formation of our health, as well as our attitude toward the world and the attitude of the world around us.

Dr. Emoto explains on his site how the photographs are made. I respect his position in not giving permission to reprint his pictures on other sites, so you’ll have to look at them on his site or do a search to find them elsewhere. The frozen crystals either have perfect symmetry and immense beauty or are misshapen blobs, depending on the words associated with each one.

For instance, a picture representing LOVE AND THANKS is awe-inspiring perfection. A picture made for the word WAR is quite startling because it kind of looks like an explosion from an atomic bomb.

The pictures for tap water in various cities are quite illuminating. Even though you think your drinking water is clean, the water crystals tell another story. Based on the pictures of the crystals, we should all move to Vancouver for the cleanest water!

I have a deck of Dr. Emoto’s Water Crystal Oracle cards. On one side of the card is the picture, and the word appears on the other side. In the past, I have kept a card under my water glass to focus attention on some aspect in my life that I wanted to improve or heal. In writing this post, I’ve decided to use the RESONANCE, HARMONY, TRUTH, and PROSPERITY cards in my voiceover booth. Since water mirrors the vibrations of our words, I want the words that I speak as a voice talent to be in service of those 4 things.

As I said at the beginning of this essay, I don’t have to think about clean water for myself. Thank you for joining me and others around the world in using the power of our words today about in promoting clean water for everyone. This one blog post may not cause a ripple of action, but together, we are a force of nature!
 

1 “Oh s***” can wipe out 1000 “Attaboys!”

The title of this article is a saying I heard early in my IRS career. Sorry if it offends you, but it really gets to the heart of stellar customer service. No matter how many great and wonderful things you do for your clients, the thing they will remember most — and tell the most people about — is the thing that got screwed up.

As Drew and I continue to repair and renovate our house, I’m finding no shortage of contractor stories to share with you that illustrate this principle. By observing other business operators, we can determine how to better service our clients in our voice-over businesses….and hopefully avoid some of those “Oh s****” moments.

Today, I actually have 2 contractor stories. First, I have an example of fantastic customer service from start to finish.

We decided to install some recessed lighting in Drew’s man cave. Drew called his friend Tommy Dunaway, an electrician who owns a business named Tommy’s Lighting and Electric. Tommy came out to discuss options and give us an estimate. When he came back to install the lights, he exceeded our expectations because:

1) He arrived exactly on time, which is a rarity for service provider at one’s home. Punctuality is key in voiceover as well. When I started my voiceover business, I assumed that all voiceover talent were punctual. Over the years, I’ve been surprised to read about people who didn’t show up or were late to sessions, didn’t return phone calls, etc.

2) He suggested features we hadn’t considered, like a dimmer for the recessed lights and a remote control for the ceiling fan. I do the same thing with my clients. For instance, if I was hired to narrate a marketing video for a trade show, I’ll also let the client know that they may want to use the same voice on their phone system, e-learning modules, and web site to enhance and solidify their brand. It may seem like a self-serving piece of advice, but it’s really about helping my clients achieve consistency in all of their communications.

3) He finished the job in LESS time than he estimated, so our bill was less than expected. He told me he always builds in enough time in the estimate to troubleshoot any problems — a tactic that voice talent would do well to emulate.

4) He cleaned up after the job was finished. (Remember this point because I’m coming back to it in the next story!)

Tommy told me that his business is mostly through repeat business and referrals. In my voiceover business, I always want to make it easy for my clients to refer me. With his terrific attention to detail and exemplary customer service, it’s truly a pleasure to refer Tommy to other people.

My second story is about my new roof. We learned about Everdry Roofing because someone there follows Drew on Twitter, which just goes to show you the growing importance of social networking in attracting clients.

I thought Everdry was going to be a second success story of stellar customer service. After all, they showed up when promised, explained shingle options, worked with our insurance company on our claim, and did a great job of cleaning up the nails and other debris from the yard.

They were providing exceptional customer service — that is, until the “Oh s***” moment.

In the picture below, your eyes are not drawn to my new roof, with its lovely architectural shingles and new ridge vent. No, instead you see the massive steel container stretching over half of my driveway. In fact, Everdry’s sign in my yard points directly to it.

The “Oh s***” moment from the roof installation has lasted all weekend.

 
The roofers were here Thursday and part of Friday. I wasn’t at all happy about the container staying overnight on Thursday since it blocks the garage. The project manager assured me at 6pm Thursday that the container would be removed Friday. Today is Sunday, and the container is still here. I haven’t heard from Everdry about their plans to remove it.

If Drew and I had 2 cars like every other household in Atlanta, one of those cars would be trapped in the garage or parked on the street all weekend. As it is, we have to cautiously back out over our grass to clear the side of the container.

To make matters worse, the smell of 23-year-old shingles removed from the roof and the other materials in the container is akin to the putrid stench of animals killed in the road. Every time I walk out of my house, that nasty smell hits me in the face. We’re still having 90-degree days, so you can just imagine how the smell grows as the day progresses.

As a voiceover talent, I always think of how to provide the best level of service to exceed my clients’ expectations. I certainly don’t want them to incur any inconvenience as a result of my actions!

For instance, it may seem like a small thing, but the manner in which you name and transmit your recordings to your agents and clients can be either an “Oh s***” or an “Attagirl!” moment:

  • If they have given you a file naming convention, use it.
  • If not, be very descriptive with your file names so that the purpose or script for each file is immediately evident.
  • If you have to revise a file, add a revision number to the file name so that you don’t inadvertently write over an existing file. Sometimes, the client may decide the original file was best after all or wants to make some other change to it.
  • Compress multiple files into a zip file so that the client only has to download one file.

By being organized and forward-thinking, you can rack up the “Attaboys!” and “Attagirls!” in providing stellar service to your voiceover clients. If you have other examples of stellar service, please leave a comment on the blog!