Hey there!
Time to hand out a permission slip.
I got an email from a viewer who wondered aloud how I keep my spirits up. She said, “Every time I watch on of your videos, your joy is infectious. How do you do that?”
I’d never really thought about it. I guess I just figured everyone has something that sparks joy.
Boy, was I wrong.
Hope this helps!
David
All Episodes
Five Ways To Have An Excellent Coffee Date With Me
Five Ways To Have A Crappy Coffee Date With Me
Taking Advantage Of The Wisdom Of The Tribe
How To Be A World Class Complainer
The False Nobility Of The Struggle
Watch Out – The Rules Are Going To Change
Coaching vs Consulting vs Facilitating
The Perils of Live Performance And Why Jeremy Kappell Should Not Have Been Fired
Let’s Welcome To The Stage…Failure!
Don’t Confuse Price With Value
The Two Things Most Talent Try to Accomplish Way Too Soon
10,000 Hours To Become Good At Something? Not Really.
The Trick Charlie Munger Uses To Make Better Decisions
Everyone’s A Customer, Not Just Your Customers
“What do you mean, you’re a ‘process guy’?”
Pay Attention To Your Storytelling, Not Removing Your Breaths
How To Conquer FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)
The Problem In Every Commercial Script
The Job In Every Commercial Script
The Secret In Every Commercial Script
Voice Over Is REALLY Hard. Until It Isn’t.
Helping Make Resolutions Stick
ACX Jobs: They’re ALL SAG-AFTRA-Friendly
Non-Union? You Can Still Open An AFTRA H&R Account. What?
Who Says You Need To “Feel Like It?”
Your Day Job Might Just Be Worth Keeping For A Bit Longer
Want To Learn Something Really Well? Teach It To Others
Don’t Confuse What Works With What You Like
The Lost Keys And The Microphone In My Elevator
My Insane Backup System Plus Two Helpful Tips
What Open Loops Are And Why They Work So Well
Two More Things For Which You Can Use Open Loops
Three Things Not To Say Or Do…When Trying To Learn Something New
Front Burner and Back Burner Project Management
How To Properly List The Accents and Dialects You Perform
My SAG-AFTRA Presentation On VO Demos (Part 1)
My SAG-AFTRA Presentation On VO Demos (Part 2)
A Simple, One-Word Decision-Making Question To Ask Yourself
How You Can Use The MVP Model As A Performer
The Robocall Equivalent Of Unsubscribe
Making Your Links Irresistible
HTTPS Is Not Just For Banks – It’s For You
The Threat That Made Me Create a New Page For LAME
The Resource You Must Guard Most Carefully
How New Media Is Using The Oldest Ad Model Ever
Killing Customers With Kindness
I Found Out What She Was Podcasting About
How I Answered Voices.com’s Inquiry
Turning Mountains Into Molehills
Motivation: Your Three Big Needs In A Cool Little Package
Go Ahead. Multitask. But Try It Like This.
The Prodigy Game Doesn’t Deserve This Treatment
What Fair Markets Are, And Why Voices.com Isn’t One
Trevor’s Three A’s From Apple On Killing Customers With Kindness
Getting Ready vs. Getting Started
You’ll Never Believe Who Got Rejected By Harvard
There Is No Failure, Only Feedback
Who Is Your Most Dangerous Adversary?
73 Videos In, My First Hater Appears
If You’re The Smartest Person In The Room, Do This ASAP
Your Glasses And Crucial Laptop Positioning Info
One More Insanely Over-engineered Piece Of Gear: My UPS
The Crazy Backward Way IKEA Prices Their Stuff
Voices.com Complained To YouTube That I Violated Their Privacy
For Your Health: Not Perfect. Just Better.
Mr. Wonderful Is Actually More Wonderful Than I Thought
Let’s Finally Close The Digital Literacy Gender Gap
The Guaranteed Way To Completely Avoid Criticism
The Two Things People Judge About You Within Seconds
Are You Committed? Or Just…Interested?
Audible Retail Samples: Why They Suck And Why It Doesn’t Really Matter
How To Voice Copy That’s Set In Italics
Dyslexia, And The Palindromic Poem. The Wha?
Increase Your Chances Of Being Seen And Heard On Facebook
Jamie Has Some Thoughts About Fiverr
Is Simply Discouraging Distracted Driving Enough?
“Young People Are Just Smarter.”
The Real Purpose Of The “Can You Hear Me?” Phone Scam
An AMA Preview: The Word “Ethnic” – A Slur, Or An Essential Adjective?
10 Rules of Profitable Self Discipline from Napoleon Hill
AMA (Ask Me Anything): Here Are The Answers (Part 1)
AMA (Ask Me Anything): Here Are The Answers (Part 2)
AMA (Ask Me Anything): Here Are The Answers (Part 3)
AMA (Ask Me Anything): Here Are The Answers (Part 4)
AMA Answers Part 5 Plus A Medical Warning
Last AMA Answers (#6): Gear, Services and Success
A 7-Word Reminder: “Don’t correct people when it matters little.”
Do You Have A Plan? And Is It The Right One?
What’s Your Next Big Move? Are You Ready?
Build Your Future On Your Own Platform, Not Someone Else’s
I’m Leaving Facebook: Why Groups and FB Live No Longer Spark Joy
Time To Accept That I’ve Failed At Something – Happily
Crowdfunding Without The Internet: Pulitzer And The Statue Of Liberty
The Amazing Power Of Recognition And Badging
Might We Have A Possible Cause For Alzheimer’s?
Why Podcasting And Radio Are Out Of Whack
Value Enthusiasm, But Value Persistence More
Ten Ways To Make Money With Podcasts Besides Ads
One Quick Question To Find Out How Important Something Actually Is
The Workflow For Producing These Videos (So Far) Part 1
Why Not Wade? And…Why Not You?
Audiobook Narrators: How Paymasters Work, And The One I Recommend
Why Gen Z And Millennials’ Love For Audiobooks Is Crucial
American Idol: It’s All About Story, Not Just Singing
Less Beating Yourself Up, More Talking Yourself Up
Resist Oversharing. Instead, Start A Dialogue.
Vocal Care: It’s All About What Works For You
3 Biases You Should Be Aware Of
3 More Biases You Should Also Be Aware Of
Wow. People Really Grokked Biases. Let’s Tackle Fallacies.
Three More Fallacies You Need To Watch For
Two Last Big Creativity-Crippling Fallacies
A New Lead Source For Performers: Voice Assistants And Smart Speakers
A Great Way To Handle Trolls and Haters
Quantity Does Not Usually Equal Quality
Is Facebook Truly A Monopoly? No More Than Microsoft Was.
Fear Of The Unknown, Or The Day Before My Surgery
A Strange Aspect To Performing That Should Be Cause For Protest, But Isn’t
Want To Grow? Don’t Go It Alone.
How Am I Doing? I’m Gobsmacked. That’s How Am I Doing.
Why I Give My Agents 10% Of Everything
Not Just Explainer Videos, But Video That Explain Things Spectacularly
Mental Floss To The Rescue: Skills You Can Pick Up On YouTube
What’s Better Than Willpower? Grit.
Regarding Apple’s App Store: Be Careful What You Wish For, Pepper
Of COURSE You Wonder What Porter’s Five Forces Are. Who Doesn’t?
Don’t Waste Your Time: Talk Shows Aren’t Meant To Be Fair
Sooner Or Later, I’m Really Going To Tick You Off
Just Because You Can Do Something Doesn’t Mean You Should
Wait, What? Audacity Records In The Background?!
Enjoy Your First Booking. Pay Close Attention To The Next Three.
Pattern Interruption And The Musicality Of Voice Over
Do You Still Have A Landline? Is It POTS? Wait, What’s POTS?
Increase Your VO Accuracy, And You’ll Increase Your VO Profits
Age Range Isn’t Really A Valid Metric For VO
How To Stop Jealousy From Killing Your Progress
Even The Bible (And Game Of Thrones) Has One-Star Reviews
How Much Is Enough To Make Per Hour?
With Royalty Share Plus, ACX Makes Hybrid Stipends Official
Wait, Vices Can Be Good For Your Health?
What A Lovely Thing To Discover: Praise From CourVO
I Figured Out What I Provide: The Onboarding Performers Don’t Get
You Don’t Need Permission To Care Or Contribute
It’s Not Just You. It’s The Superstars, Too.
Do You Sometimes Think Irrationally? Maybe. Here’s How To Stop It.
The Struggle Of Announcer-y Versus Non-Announcer-y Voice Over
How My VAs Support Me And My Team
The Often “Most Difficult” Concept I Teach
Please Unsubscribe From This List. But Don’t Do This One Destructive, Lazy Thing.
Don’t Mistake The Joy Of Knowing For The Joy Of Doing
Why Giving Yourself Some Simple Homework Can Be Life-Changing
One Weird Trick I Do That Makes My Note-Taking Superhuman
The Worst Thing About The Biggest Money-Making Entertainment Category
What Can We Grab From A Schedule This Strict?
Get Better At Executing Today’s Plan By Starting Last Night
How To Create Useful, Organized Audition File Names
Where To Find Related PDFs For Audiobooks on Audible
I’m Halfway Finished. What Have You Valued Most? What Can I Do Better?
Our Digital Attention Span Is Incredibly Brief
“Serves You Right!” She Actually Has No Idea How Right.
Create A Safe Environment For Self-Improvement
Why I Use One Single Channel For Crucial Communication
The Even Cheaper AT-2020 USB Plus Microphone?
Fred Willard (and Billy West) On Quickly Creating Authentic VO Characters
Leo Makes Your Searching Spectacular
On Asking For Things Performers Can’t Do
How To Battle The Urge of “Efficiency”
One More Best-Of-Breed Way To Brilliantly Complain
Changing Audacity’s Sampling Rate To 48,000 Hz
10 Words Of Encouragement When You’re Stuck
Seek/Give Mentorship That’s Appropriate To The Journey
Two Cases Where You Might Not Want To Simply “Follow Your Passion”
Having Fun With Headphone Volume
Please Stop Rushing To Perform
Something To Consider: Everyone’s Internal Menu
One Crazy Key To Creativity: Pure, Unadulterated Boredom
The Most Commonly Consumed Media Is…!
What’s Dangerous For Us To Care About
Please, Clever Copywriters…Stop Using This Term
Wait, Wait…What? They Actually Listened?!
Why You Should Take The Same Classes Twice
How Your Character’s Menu Informs Your Performance Choices
What Shouldn’t Be Your Metric For VO Success
Someone Awesome Who’s Also Rising To A 365-Day Challenge
Union Or Not, Start With Union Rates
O. M. G. Look What Matt Zurbo Did!
So Where Will That Huge Facebook Fine End Up?
Avoid That One Obvious “That Worked” Sound We Make
Why Union Members Can Audition For Non-Union Work
200 Auditions. 1 Booking. A Ghost. Really?
I Can’t Do One Thing I’m Asked To Do Every Single Day
One Of Your Secret Weapons: Agility
Do Networking Events Make You Anxious? Let’s Fix That.
Project X Is Just About Ready. I’m A Bit Giddy.
The Difference Between Mansplaining and Advice?
Too Late, Melissa. You Already Are.
Help Me Solve A Lovely Mystery!
Raw YouTube Captioning
Hey there, it’s David H Lawrence the 17th, and I did a video recently on a couple of ways. Why?
reasons why following your passion
And the money will follow might not be.
the best approach to things and I got an email afterwards that
Kind of took me by surprise.
if you were wrote and she said
every time I watch one of your videos
Your joy is infectious.
How do you do that?
She went on to ask about how I keep my spirits up and how hard it is for her to do that.
And I I got to be honest with you. I just thought that
Everybody has something that makes them happy. I mean I knew there were.
plenty of people who were
You know kind of aimless in life and kind of wandered around trying to figure out what to do.
I kind of feel like my tribe. I feel like the people that I
touch the people that I try to educate and counsel and mentor
performers
Tend to have something that is very very motivating the idea of being a performer.
Is something that you know, not everybody can do not everybody wants to do.
If they do want to do it not everybody has the ability to do it. It’s not an easy thing what we’ve chosen to do.
but there are times when
I sit back and I go.
I just do this because I like it. I just do this for the sheer Joy of it.
The other day, and I’m going to get really technical. Please forgive me.
These are the kinds of things that the Geeks geek out on the other day.
I found out how to
Make sure that when I offer a PDF.
on
the website
that people actually can download the PDF that they are assured that they will download the PDF as opposed to clicking on
the link for the PDF and having it open up in a separate window in the browser and then having it download and for
For for you know how to choose and things that you want to refer to offline. Maybe things you want to print out.
I want those PDFs to be instantly downloaded to save people.
the time and trouble of
how to get open up in a new window and then going and finding the download button or the printer button or whatever and it
was just a joyous moment when I’m like oh oh, oh
Wait a minute. I can alter my. HD access file and I can make sure the PDFs actually download.
and
You know to me if there was no immediate.
Monetary gain from that it was simply the joy of learning something the joy of seeing something unfold. It happens to me a
lot and it happens to me with the really weird.
crazy odd outlier stuff
and so I want a kind of hand you a permission slip
If there are things in your life.
That you get a lot of joy out of that you love doing and they’re not.
I kind of mainstream things like sports or Hobbies or you know, that just weird stuff that gives you a little tiny bit of
joy.
Go with that.
Don’t feel like you’re crazy or you’re different just like for the sheer Joy of it is a more than apt reason to do
something.
Not everything needs to be.
Analyzed with the idea of it being productive or non-productive are highly productive.
If you get joy out of it the benefits from that are immense.
To your well-being and your your self-esteem and just your personality in general.
These videos have become a joy for me that.
I did not expect.
When I first started this back in January, I thought this is going to be a mountain to climb.
and in some ways
it has been I mean in some ways it’s been
A tough slog but very few ways. I mean
for the most part, you know, the Dirty Little Secret is I like doing
You’re fun.
getting easier and easier and easier for me and now
down the road
The reason that I did them which was to make doing these videos.
Easier and faster and make me more agile at creating content.
That gives me a great deal of joy.
It gives me a sense of satisfaction a sense of accomplishment.
so when you are
Sitting there and taking inventory of the things that bring you Joy.
No matter what it is. Maybe you’re a Marie. Kondo, you know?
Person and you get a great deal of joy out of folding your underwear so that it stands up straight in your drawer good for
you.
Shear Joy
Enjoy what gives you Joy? I’d love to know.
What is the crazy weird?
odd thing that gives you Joy
maybe that you didn’t expect to give you Joy or
that you
Get on with you. If you’re a bit embarrassed about it, you know, I guess it’d be hard to comment on it. But if you if you
find something that that that resonates with this and you go oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I really like doing that it gives me joy.
I said another video that doing repetitive tasks.
I’m learning ways to make repetitive tasks.
Effective and efficient gives me joy. It brings me Shear Joy.
What what what what makes you happy what gives you sheer Joy?
Just for the joy of it. Let me know in the comments below especially if your on BO2 gogo.com.
That’s where the conversation is saying and moderated and I actually hang out.
Wyndham it’s the Project X 2 all that’s going to change soon. But for the meantime pop over to BO2 gogo.com and let me
know what you think.
I’d love to I’d love to hear from you.
if you’d like to sign up for my newsletter and find out these videos when they’re released and some other things that
I share on a regular basis to try and help make your performance career. Fantastic. Please sign up for my newsletter. If
you like to see the latest video I’ve done.
Go ahead and click on that frame there and YouTube will play for you.
I’m David H Lawrence the 17th. I thank you so much for watching.
And I will talk to you tomorrow.
.
No matter what I’ve done professionally, I always seem to end up teaching–somehow, in whatever circumstances, to whatever audience. My joy is what I call “the lightbulb moment”: that instant when someone really grasps the implication of something they’re learning. I even enjoy the experience myself, when a concept “clicks” and I can see how it fits with other pieces of my being. Joy.
I love introducing people to Dungeons and Dragons by running a session for them. I was at a birthday party this past Friday and I had a conversation about D&D with an acquaintance of mine and she starting asking me all kinds of questions about it. I got excited and asked her if she’d want to try it, and she said yes. I’m coordinating one of my many one-shot adventures so she can learn to play. I love it! Thanks for the video David.
You mentioned repetitive tasks and I have to admit that I kinda love editing my own VO – it becomes an enjoyable challenge to see how quickly I can get everything done without sacrificing quality. Joy!
There are so many little geeky things every day that I get a small kick out of. Stuff like random numbers lining up into patterns. I actually take pictures of my speedometer/trip odometer/clock/MPG readout when the numbers align in funny ways. And then, in the driving realm again, there’s a game I play while commuting to my job, where I try to get the highest-possible MPG on a trip. I recently got 40.8 MPG on a 45.5-mile trip, in my 6-cyl Honda Accord Sedan. Does this have any practical application to my job? Provide me with any income? No! But it still tickles my funny bone. So there you go.