Do you learn something new every week? Surrounding yourself with successful people, especially those in your chosen creative field is essential. Whether it is through casual conversation in Zoom groups, targeted mentoring or coaching sessions or personal one on ones with colleagues. You should always be trying to move forward and never get stagnant.
For nearly six years, I have applied this advice to voiceover. Not as consistently as I would like, I am far from perfect. But every time I reset myself and look to learn something new, especially with new coaches, I find something that takes me to another level. What’s stranger is that most of it is common sense. It’s just that when you are taking the time to learn, I feel something in your brain opens up and a small lightbulb turns on.
Last week was a prime example. Listening to the universe and paying attention to signals is something I have been paying close attention to recently. In my monthly mastermind group, I mentioned I felt I needed some help with my transition to full time voiceover. I got some great advice from the group and from one person in particular. I decided to reach out after the group and follow up with a one-to-one call. Within that call, this person gave me some great advice and then recommended a coach that he had heard good things about. I knew of this person, but I hadn’t realized he was offering coaching and in truth, was not within the genre that I was targeting.
Taking this as a signal, I reached out to this coach and set up a session. There was an opening in two weeks from the day I reached out to him. Everything was booked. Then on the Monday before the session he reached out to say that he may have to move the session as he had booked a big commercial gig. This took me by surprise. I was a little arrogant and thought it was a bit shit that he was trying to move things around. But I completely understood, I would have done the same thing. Then on the day before he moved things a little again. Mmmm. OK, I get it. But I was still a bit pissed. I was actually thinking of cancelling.
Let the universe show you the way. At this point I decided that this was all happening for a reason. I had booked a session with this coach after a glowing recommendation, and I was going to stick with it. And I am so glad that I did. From the moment that the session started, I really clicked with this person. He was interested in my story and wanted to work out how he could help me get to where I wanted to be. He listened intently and gave some great advice. We had some things in common and the hour went past very quickly.
There was some great specific advice on motivation. And one piece of advice in particular. It was something very simple that I should have thought about already. I come from a club DJ’ing background. Music has been an important part of my life since I can remember. Like, really important. Most of the life changing events I have had in my life always seem to have a soundtrack. A specific song that takes me right back to that time. Some give me goosebumps, some make me cry. But they all make me feel. So, what was the coach’s advice?................Have a theme song.
Yep, as simple as that. But it makes so much sense to me. And, as soon as he said it, I knew exactly which song it would be.
The Cult, She sells Sanctuary. Now I am not the type of person that really pays attention to lyrics. Sorry to all the song writers out there. I just like a good bloody tune. Something that makes me feel. Like, really makes me feel. In truth, I have absolutely no idea what the hell the song is about. None. Nada. It just makes me feel good. It makes me smile. It motivates me. What the bloody hell does “she sells sanctuary” actually mean? That’s actually quite an interesting question. Maybe I should pay more attention to the lyrics!
Play your theme song before you start your work. This could mean before you start auditioning, marketing, whatever it is. It’s a signal to get you in the right frame of mind. Something that sets you up for what you are about to do. I am a firm believer that even if something adds as little as 1% to your performance then it is worth doing. All those 1% have a cumulative effect. The way I see it, if someone else is putting in more work than me, then how can I complain if they surpass me? And what harm can having a theme song do? It is 3 ½ minutes of joy. We are creatives for goodness sake.
So, I have now created a playlist on Spotify. I wanted to take it one step further. My playlist contains various songs that just get me in the mood to get shit done. I know that one song would eventually bore me over and over again. I wanted some variety. Here it is (it’s a work in progress):
Eminem, Lose yourself (a very close second to the Cult)
Faithless, Insomnia (Monster Mix)
I will let you know in a future blog if it helped me towards my goals.
I would love to hear what your Theme Song would be. Let me know in the comments. And just know, this blog took a little longer than normal as I had to stop and play “air drums” while listening to my playlist!