When it’s time to quit…
So the last few weeks have been pretty hard for me as it’s been one of those periods where I’ve had more no’s than yes’s, it happens to us all and they can be the most testing times of a Voice actors career. We all put so much into our auditions and our marketing efforts and a little piece of us goes in to everything we do because if there’s one thing you can say about voice actors it’s that the professional ones are extremely passionate about what they do.
In these times it’s very easy to have thoughts like “Oh, what’s the point”, “I’m no good at this”, “I’m doing everything right, why aren’t I booking” and although it might not feel like it, these are the most important parts of your career. They represent “corners”, a time when you can’t see what’s ahead and could just stop, turn around and go back the way you came, they are your test, a test of how much you want the career at the end of the road you put yourself upon and a test of your knowledge, skill, patience and staying power.
One voice actor I greatly admire is Maurice LaMarche and he was recently kind enough to share a poem penned by his Father on Facebook, within it there is a line which really spoke out to me…
“Success is failure turned inside out”
I love that phrase because to me it’s saying you need to fail before you can succeed and in my experience that’s absolutely true because not long after I’d received all those No’s I launched my new website and within days I had two LA agents contact me to see if I was interested in representation, I was booked for 4 separate corporate videos on the same day and to top it all I got an audition for possibly the biggest video game franchise in existence. Now, just imagine if I hadn’t carried on round that corner……
Here’s the poem in full, enjoy!
When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you are trudging seems all uphill;
When the funds are low, and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh;
When care is pressing you down a bit –
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns;
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won, had he struck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow;
You may well succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the Victor’s cup!
And he learned too late, when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.
And you never can tell how close you are
You may be near, when it seems afar.
So stick to the fight when you are hardest hit,
It is when things seem worst you must not quit.
Guy LaMarche