When I hear the same thing in quick succession from 2 or more people who aren't related to each other and have no vested interest in the comments, I feel the Universe is giving me a sign to pay attention! 

Such was the case this week with the classic motivational book As A Man Thinketh by James Allen, originally published in 1902. I don't remember, but I think this work was referenced in The Secret. Since I am vitally interested in the power of our thoughts and words to create our reality, I recently downloaded the free audiobook of this work available from LearnOutLoud.com. 

I began listening to it on 13 July. Ten minutes after I started listening, I decided I had heard enough. The audiobook narrator included at least 3 stumbled words, several lipsmacks and an uninteresting method of delivery. With the availability of low-cost and free audio editing software, I am incredulous that someone would choose to leave the stumbles and extraneous noises in an audiobook, even one offered for free. An audiobook is a thing of permanence. I would like to think that people would seek out my audiobooks 100 years from now, just as I was seeking out Allen's book. 

I was showing my new business cards to a friend of mine this afternoon. She said she had a book that she wanted me to see. She and I have had many great discussions about the extreme power of our thoughts, and the book was on that subject. Which book do you think she recommended? Yep, that's right -- As A Man Thinketh by James Allen. Although I had abandoned the free audiobook, the Universe was telling me to give the book another try! I told my friend that I would get the book tonight. 

However, I wasn't the only person who made a special trip to the book store. The store was crowded with people waiting for midnight, when the last Harry Potter book goes on sale. Someone who has been living under a rock or totally new to the country might think that tonight was Halloween, given the number of young people dressed in costume at the mall. Of course, they were flocking to the book store. They were not looking for a title associated with the Law of Attraction to help them live their lives to the best potential. No, all of those young people and their parents were at the book store to buy the final installment about the boy who lived! 

I am not still at the store, waiting to get my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I will, however, buy the audiobook version consisting of 17 CDs sometime over the weekend. (I doubt that I will be wearing a costume when I buy it, though!) I encourage anyone interested in performing audiobooks to listen to Jim Dale's masterful narration of any book in this series. You can download the previous 6 books and thousands of other audiobooks on iTunes. I would imagine that this final book will be loaded on ITunes in the near future. 

Also note the high level of production quality in one of these books. The series is so popular that the audiobook is published simultaneously with the hardback edition. Jim Dale didn't even have the opportunity to read the entire book before entering the recording studio. He read the book in segments of 100 pages. For a fascinating article about Jim Dale and his role as narrator of the Harry Potter series, you will want to read this feature story published 17 July in the New York Times.

Success leaves tracks,

Earlier this week, as often occurs, I received more e-mails from people wishing to break into voice-over. I endeavor to respond personally to everyone who writes to me, but I rarely get an acknowledgement. I don't know whether the information I provided was helpful. I don't know if they received my reply since I send it from a different e-mail address than is shown on my web site. Sometimes I think people can't be bothered to say thank you to people who help them along the way. I'm honest and sometimes blunt; I tell people what they need to know, which may not be what they wanted to hear.

One of the e-mails this week was from a person who wrote lines typical of so many messages that I receive:

my entire life I've been told that I should do something with my voice....I can also emulate just about any language, dialect, or style in a very short amount of time. I'm getting more and more curious about doing voice over work.

The person wondered if I would be interested in working with him. While I'm flattered when people ask me this question, I don't teach or hire others to work with me. I'm a voice talent who is actvely marketing myself. Occasionally, I need to recommend a fellow voice artist for a role to work with me or as a contact for a job that I need to pass on. However, I have a short list of talent in that category.

At this time, I do not mentor anyone

Voice-over books on my bookshelf

A Voice Actor's Business Address Won't Be on Easy Street

No such thing as a free lunch or demo critique

I have been traveling recently and have been unable to update my blog for several weeks. One of my trips was to New York to attend the Audio Publishers Association conference and BookExpo. Since audiobooks and narrations are the main focus of my voice-over work, going to New York was mission-critical! I really enjoyed seeing many colleagues again, as well as meeting new audio and print publishers with whom I might develop a working relationship. I already am planning to attend the same events next year in Los Angeles.

It's a law of nature that things happen in threes. That law was proven again on

Wednesday 30 May as I prepared to leave for New York.

I was talking with a friend today. This friend Don has advanced degrees in multiple disciplines, yet he continues to attend grad school to earn more degrees. Barbara Sher, author of the life-changing book I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was, would say my friend is a scanner because he has varied interests and doesn't settle on one thing for too long. I also would say that Don doesn't want to commit to one thing. I'm convinced that he attends grad school so that he can postpone the inevitable time when he must finally make a choice of how he wants his life to proceed.

Today's conversation got around to my voice-over business. As I talked about recent successes and my plans for the future, Don said, as he has said more than once over the years, "maybe I should look into doing voice-overs." I tell anyone who asks me that they should explore any serious interest in voice-over work, sheep herding, Italian cooking or whatever. You don't want to get to the end of your life and wonder "how would my life have been if I had done that?".

As I have done in previous conversations, I recommended that Don start by reading books on my recommended list of voice-over books and taking some classes.

He asked how I would feel if he took a voice-over class and hit it big. Don is not someone in the incredible ** 81% ** of the Gen Y crowd (18-25 year-olds) who seems to expect fame and wealth as their birthright. Quite simply, Don is yet another person who thinks that making money in voice-over is an easy thing that can be done by anyone. Since he had a few spare hours in his schedule, Don was ready to sign up for the fortune and glory awaiting him as a voice-over actor.

I don't think he will actually follow through with any action. After all, he is the same person who could never be bothered to even listen to my demos.

Our discussion today reminded me how Don acted when I created my first demo. When you decide to go after your goals, your friends and family will change their attitudes about you. In many cases, that change won't be a positive one.

I've been working and traveling so much lately that I have neglected to update my blog. Happy anniversary to me! I've been writing blog entries for a year and hope that you have found some useful tidbits in them to help you live the life of your dreams, especially your dreams of a thriving voice-over career.

I recently bought the DVD and book of the best-selling work The Secret. I do believe in the Law of Attraction and attempt to live my life according to its principles. I have read many books on the topic and find something meaningful in each one. Since some of my writing on this blog relates to ideas and processes described in The Secret, I decided to add a category for The Secret to make those types of posts more readily identifiable.

My knowledge and application of the Law of Attraction are sort of like learning to use your microphone and editing program. At first, you don't know how to do it. Once you get comfortable with the principles, you practice and continue to learn. Even when you're competent or even at authority level, you still want to learn and apply more so that you will always improve.

I was on a cruise recently and had an epiphany. Drew and I were seated around some loud, obnoxious people. We looked at each other and said, as we have said in many similar past circumstances, "We must be magnets for this type of behavior." I realized at that moment that we were indeed MAGNETS! By constantly saying and reinforcing the idea that we would be seated next to rude, noisy people, it's like raising our hands to the Universe and saying "bring 'em on!" I now say that I am a magnet for peace and quiet, with respectful people around me. 🙂

Hurricane-ravaged Grenada was one of the islands we visited. While the country has rebuilt much destroyed in hurricanes of recent years, nature's damage was still very evident. Roofs were missing from the 3 churches that we saw. Some building still looked ramshackle and uninhabitable. Looking around and seeing the people scrambling for every dollar made me once again feel extreme gratitude for the bountiful blessings in my life.

However, my spriritual side was not the only part of me that had a boost in knowledge during the trip. I also noticed something that could apply to my voice-over career. Drew and I were about to cross a street in a narrow intersection at the top of the steep hill near the old fort. He started to walk, but I stopped him. A car was zooming up the hill, and the driver wasn't going to stop.

A few weeks ago, Drew told me that he found himself critiquing the voice-over actors on local radio commercials. He said he could recognize voice talent who need more training because they haven't learned how to sound conversational in their reads. Among other things, he astutely detected that amateurs invariably let their voices trail off at the ends of sentences.

That same day, I called a major entertainment venue here in Atlanta to learn information about an upcoming event. I was rather shocked to hear a voice message in which the events and ticket prices were read in a choppy, uneven manner by someone with an accent. While some local commercials are produced by people with limited budgets, this complex has revenues in the millions each year. Its operations department unquestionably could afford to hire professional voice talent but has not.

In both cases, a professional voice-over artist like me could be tempted to offer her services to these businesses to fix their problems. However, both the people producing the commercials and those at the entertainment venue don't think that they have a problem. My efforts therefore would fall in the category of unsolicited advice and most likely anger the people that I most wanted to impress.

I learned this lesson the hard way. As I was beginning my voice-over career, I wrote an e-mail to a local car dealer who runs a lot of radio ads. With my infinite wisdom, I explained that the dealer's ads about Jenny in the office making a Bundt cake for all of the salesmen was offensive because it presented a very sexist and condescending attitude toward women. Mind you, I sent this message in the late 90s or early in this decade. The ad WAS sexist, but as a new voice talent who had no connection to this advertiser, it wasn't my place to point out that fact. Naturally, I happily identified myself as a voice-over talent and offered to assist the dealer with future commercials.

I have auditioned for that dealer's spots on numerous occasions but have never booked one. I have listened to my auditions against the ads that ran on the air. My vocal qualities and copy interpretation are eerily similar in many cases. Since I'm a positive person, I believe that maybe the producers knew the talent selected for the ads or perhaps never heard my auditions. I have to be honest, though, and acknowledge that an equally likely scenario is that my unsolicited advice was considered criticism and destroyed my chances of booking work with that advertiser.