The Reality of a Chronic Condition
I’ve blogged about migraines before. This was yesterday. A migraine day. On days like this I sleep a lot and do the work that I can horizontally. With my dogs on top of me. As a full-time, working voice actor, on my good days, when my head is perfectly clear, I often let the thought creep into my mind: maybe I’ll never get another migraine. On a clear day, meaning a headache free day, I feel amazing. I am happy. I have no pain. I can record and work with clients and I am myself. But for me, migraines have been chronic since I had my twins almost 18 years ago. So, what does this mean as a working mom and a small business owner who wants to serve my clients well on good days and on bad ones? It means that I have to make choices that will not cause more migraines, and when I have them I have to be realistic about what I can reasonably do on a given day to accommodate my voice over clients.
No Live Sessions
As a working pro voice actor, I love doing live sessions, but will not do them on migraine days. Why? Migraine medication is strong. On a clear day, I am responsive. I can listen to client feedback and deliver. I also mimic well. On a migraine day, I struggle. Every thing I do all day long is a struggle. I am proud of what I accomplish on those days, but I do not feel a need to put my struggle under a microscope. The few times I have made exceptions for clients I have regretted it every time. They have not been my best sessions. If you are a migraine sufferer too, I suggest only self- directing on those days.
Hydrating and Eating Healthy
On clear days and migraine days, the choices I make about what I put in my body for food and drink make a profound difference in my well-being. On a clear day, I always try to drink half my body weight in ounces of water. I need to stay hydrated so that I can do my voice over work. My hope is that by hydrating I will also prevent headaches from coming on. On migraine days, I hydrate to help get through the headache. I will confess that I typically also need a ginger ale to help combat the nausea, but beyond that I drink a lot of water to help make the headache pass.
Making healthy food choices is essential to migraine survival. In general I am gluten and dairy free and try to avoid foods hat cause inflammation. According to Healthline, “Gluten may trigger migraines in people who don’t have celiac disease but instead have a sensitivity to gluten. Gluten sensitivity isn’t well-understood yet.” I have to avoid a lot of foods, like bananas and those that contain milk products, particularly fresh dairy. For me, there is a difference between having a small bit of melted cheddar cheese and fresh mozzarella. According to Harvard University’s journal Article, “Could a Hidden Allergy Be Causing Your Migraines?” the article explains that “Foods high in fat can also trigger headaches [4], but, to many migraine sufferers, supposedly healthy foods such as wheat (gluten), dairy and bananas, are also problems. However, there is currently no accepted consensus among scientists on how so many innocuous foods could induce migraines.” So, for me, I have found that my headaches are more easily managed when I eat small, frequent meals without my typical triggers. On headache days, I tend to want to eat more carbs, which must be a comfort food for me.
Remembering my Limitations/Keeping Goals in Focus
I will confess that I do make choices knowing that the wrong one could lead to a Migraine. I leave fun events early, like industry wide BBQs. I often turn down dinner invitations that I really want to say yes to, even at conferences, because I know that late nights will certainly lead to a migraine. Essentially, my limitations have to stay in the forefront of my mind, otherwise I will have more migraines come my way than I can handle, and that, frankly, would no be good for my voice over business. I also have to limit my work day. For example, this week I got a new demo back. I was so excited to start marketing it that I worked for hours after dinner, well past my bed time. Guess what? I had a horrendous migraine and lost most of the next day. I pushed beyond my limitations and it was not smart.
I think about it this way: I try to set myself up for success. I regularly keep my small business goals in focus, and in order to stay on track for those goals, migraine maintenance is part of my strategy. If I lose site of my health and wellness strategy, it is inextricably linked to my business goals. I was reading a new book about food and nutrition yesterday and it sparked I kind of light bulb moment for me, but it relates to this, too. First, there was a survey about my physical health. Then there was a survey about my mental health. Lastly, there was a survey about my financial health. The book went on to explain how the three are linked, and when any of them is not in balance the others too are out of balance.
For me, as a working mom, I need to my business to run well for so many reasons, but that is another blog. If I cannot keep migraine maintenance in check, then none of my voice over goals will be within reach.
In the past year, we lost Ruth Bader Ginsberg, feminist icon. Her story is nothing short of amazing. For any working mom, Justice Ginsberg is the quintessential role model in many ways. When institutions like Harvard tried to place road blocks before her, she simply pivoted and found another way by moving to Columbia. When Ginsburg could not get hired by the large New York City law firms because they simply did not hire women at the time she was working, she forged he own path in the public domain, a path the was paved with so much success it led her to the United States Supreme Court where for decades she was the voice of liberal change. Justice Ginsberg’s example serves as a role model for so many working women in so many fields. Her determination was limitless. She continually found a path toward success. Achievement knew no limitations. Her focus on her end goals is a model for us all. To succeed as a professional female voice over actor, the same fierce determination is vital to build something from nothing. We are constantly thrown curve balls and challenges, and it is the ability of those of us to look beyond these challenges and maintain focus that separates successful voice actors who persevere in an extremely competitive field from those who dabble for a time.
Voiceover life is often described as feast or famine. Sometimes I say my months come in like a lamb and go out like a lion. It takes real determination to push through these ups and downs. You have to be dedicated to the long road, and understand that a voice over career can much more accurately be compared to a marathon than a sprint. When the voice over gods shine down on you, it is the best feeling in the world. But we all go through times when the work just is not abundant, and we have to continue to submit auditions and work on our craft with the confidence that in an hour or in a day the tide can turn and the work will start pouring in.
In life, there are plenty of people with talent who abandon their goals. Why? They simply lack the determination to reach them. If you haven’t heard this yet, I will say it again here, in voice over it is not about the voice. A good voice will only get you so far. A voice over career, which is really what you want, is about fierce determination to succeed. It’s about knowing how to build industry connections and running your small business. It’s about maintaining your skills. And it’s about solid marking with a focus on your goals. If you want to succeed in voice over, you need to be committed to working hard!
When I started in voice over years ago, I remember thinking that when I had an agent I will have “made it.” I remember Screwing Up is Part of Success”one of my coaches telling me that she worked for five years before she had her first agent, so that I could align my expectations. At that point, I did not even know about managers. I was lucky, I was able to get on quite a few agents rosters pretty early in my voiceover career. As a working professional, I would hear a lot of chatter on social media about various agents and managers and how to get signed, as if somehow getting on the roster would lead to the ultimate success.
I signed with this manager specifically for the Radio Imaging part of my business in January 2019. Within the first week, I sent him 5 leads of stations who wanted to sign me and wanted to negotiate retainers. The email above was a call I got a week later. Of these leads, my manager destroyed every single one of them. I was not on the calls. I had empowered him to speak on my behalf. The email above “I was told that our station was not big enough for your services.” is a glimpse of how these prospects were treated in my name. Was this the road to the big agencies? No. Worse, when he tried to renegotiate the stations I had, I lost them. There were other odd quirks about the manager. He wanted any auditions to be professionally mastered, which was an added expense. He also sent Sound and Fury auditions, but I get those from other agents, so now I was paying him to get auditions I was already getting. It was terrible. I realized early on and I was stuck. I basically had to stop soliciting all Radio Imaging business or it would be tied to him. Years of hard work and planning came to a screeching halt. Be careful who you pick to represent you.
They sent me the script and asked for my rate. They needed a RUSH turn around, but I was not charging them an extra fee for that. Since they were a repeat client and I was available I didn’t want to nickel and dime them. Anyway, I made a mistake almost right away. The voice over job I did for them was for an explainer video with usage limited only to their website. I assumed, again, I assumed that this was the same. I assumed this because the top of the script was labeled in bold font “VIDEO SCRIPT.” I initially quoted the job based on the last, recent voiceover work I did for them and the assumption that it was a video.
On the call, it was great to catch up with the client. As a full-time, professional female voice over actor, building client relationships means a lot to me, and phone calls like this always provide an opportunity not only to better understand my client’s unique and specific needs, but also to get to know them. How better to build a relationship than to actually speak?
Now, these questions should have been asked in my initial reply email when they were casting me. I should have asked them before I threw any numbers into the air. And as a long established professional voice talent, I should have know better.
I will never be in such a hurry, even when I tell myself it’s for the client, that I skip major parts of the information gathering process. The point of having years of experience in the industry is not only to serve the clients well and to provide an outstanding level of service, but is also for precisely these scenarios, when years in the industry should teach us to take a breath, pause, and look at what we are dealing with. I realize that if I could make this basic mistake, anyone can. So do yourself a favor, ask questions. Enjoy the dialogue and back and forth. Don’t be afraid to hop on the phone and clarify a few details. I realize the clients in this scenario could just as easily have been inflexible about the budget, and that would have led to a very different blog today.
For me, my journey started in the mid-1990s. I was a student at Columbia University in New York City. I was studying political science. My younger sister Julie also went to school at Columbia, and we went out to eat off campus often. If you know anything about New York, you know that lots of waiters and waitresses are also actors who have to pay the bills. Well my sister and I have always sounded young, but when we were young we really sounded young. We also had a habit of speaking in unison and saying the same thing at the same time. It became a pattern that we would got to places like Ocean Grill or Isabella’s and every single time our server would comment on our voices. It wouldn’t just happen there, it would happen at Bergdorf’s or wherever we shopped. It even happened in taxi cabs. Often the follow up to asking if we are twins, and we are not, is that we should be in voice over.
I remember the day clearly. It was winter during my sophomore year and I went to the famous Drama Book Shop in Times Square to research how to become a voice over actor. One of the perks of being a student in NYC is that all of this was right at my fingertips. I was able to learn so much just be talking to the people who worked at the book shop, and I left with some books and a copy of Variety in hand. What I quickly discovered was that while I was in the right city to pursue voice over, at that time everything happened in person. I would have to take my tape cassettes around, show up in person for auditions, and actually go to studios for gigs. Being a student at Columbia and doing VO seemed mutually exclusive at that moment. My studies were intense and they were my primary concern, so voice over was put on the back burner.
My chat with Marie gave me the impetus to get started in voice over. I began researching coaches, writing a business plan, and researching how to build a studio. In the coming months, I started to lay the foundations for my VO business. I began working with Anne Ganguzza, my first coach. I started planning for my VO website, and I started having my studio built. I also had tech training to learn how to record and edit. I also began taking advanced acting and improv classes at Papermill Playhouse, our local theater. Over the years I have worked with many coaches, many of the best in the industry. I continue to push and hone my skills, update my demos, attend conferences, and build. A voice over career does not happen over night. I am so thankful for the work that I have had, and I have big dreams for what is to come!
It’s 2021. We’re still in a pandemic. We need what we need quickly. Laura gets it and she wants you to have perfect audio without a fuss at the click of your mouse. Let Laura know how she can help you!
