We spend a lot of time here making sure you get the best learning tools and the most up to date information possible, and we’re proud of that. But there’s another dimension to the VO industry that we want to help you with as well. It doesn’t get talked about much out there but we feel it’s essential to your overall well-being, What I’m talking about, is your emotional or psychological relationship to your voice over career and the industry as a whole.
I’ve had people come to me and say that they wanted to get into voiceover so that they could leave their boring job, or, get this, pay off their mortgage. When I informed them that neither of those things was going to happen by becoming a voiceover artist they were crest fallen. No, you don’t get into voiceover because it’s somehow going to answer all your problems. It certainly isn’t a magical cure-all. As a matter of fact, it comes with its own set of challenges and I want to talk to you about one of those now.
People say that if you’re in the voiceover biz then you are in the auditioning biz and if you’re in the auditioning biz then you are in the rejection biz. Everyone says that if you want to get into this industry you have to be good at handling rejection. But, on a fundamental level, I don’t agree with this assumption: that when I don’t get a gig I’ve been rejected by someone. Now it’s true, just as it is in baseball, that most of us in the business, even those of us lucky enough to be working regularly, strike out most of the time. In other words, we are told “no” more than we are told “yes.” But I don’t see this and more importantly I don’t feel this as rejection. This is where your emotional health and well-being comes in. If you take every NO that comes your way as a personal rejection you’re going to tie yourself into knots and make yourself sick. So, if your someone who can’t take no for an answer, do yourself a favor and get out of this business now. Your very sanity is at stake, and you don’t want to mess with that.
David Rosenthal Headshot
Look, this is a business. It’s a big business with sometimes many people involved in the decision making process. They most likely have a lot of good voices to choose from for every project that they shop out. The way I look at it, and this is the truth: as long as I’m in the top ten of everyone they’re considering for the project, I’ve done my job. Now it’s out of my hands. And when they choose someone else it’s not because they’re telling me I’m no good. They aren’t coming up to me and saying, “We don’t want you.” That would be rejection. They are simply making a choice that is rightfully theirs to make. I know that as long as I’m in the top ten, my time will come…and it has for going on 25 years now.
You don’t always have to be the best in order to make money in this business; you just have to be one of the best. Knowing that you are not being rejected if you don’t get a job let’s you focus on what you do really well: having a great audition, And that audition will no longer be just another possible occasion for rejection. It’ll be what it’s supposed to be: fun. And fun is good for your mental health and your emotional well-being. And when you’re mentally and emotionally healthy, you tend to book more jobs. Get it? Good.
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