Why worry is a waste of time…

How much do you think we know about the world we live in? 10%? 5%? I bet the answer is probably somewhere closer to 0.01% and yet when something negative happens we can all too often only see what’s in front of our face and forget the other 99.99% of things happening in the world.

To that end I’m going to share the story of how I landed my current UK agent, Excellent Talent (who I might add are both Excellent in name and nature!) to show an example of the fact that we never really know how things will play out and that when faced with a seemingly negative outcome, you can never know if it will actually turn in to a huge positive.

I attended an Acting for Animation networking event hosted by the VoiceOver Network organisation in the UK, I’ve attended a few of these evenings in the past and it consists of a panel discussion with some leading industry figures followed by a few hours of networking.

I was on the hunt for a big UK agent and quite often the VoiceOver Network event draws in representatives from the big agencies and sure enough there was one there that night. I plucked up the courage and wandered over to the agent and started the best pitch I could do. I talked about LA, the clients I’d worked with, the in-roads I’d made and my plans for the future. Thankfully the agent was really impressed and actually quizzed me on why I needed an agent, she asked that I forward her all my demos in a few weeks as the agency was currently moving offices.

Great! I thought, I’d hit it off with the agent, they were interested and wanted to hear my stuff, time well spent. So two weeks went by and of course I diligently sent in all of my material along with my CV and some more information about me.

That’s when the negative reared its head, the agent I had spent the evening talking to (we’ll call her Agent A) was actually leaving the agency and they weren’t going to be taking any more people on to the books.

Obviously I was gutted, I had spent time and money getting to the networking event, spent time with the agent to create the opportunity and all of it seemed to be for nought and I thought I was back to square one. Little did I know in a month or so it was all going to play out very differently and yet more threads were going to weave their way in to the story!

A few weeks later I was invited out to dinner by Nancy Wolfson (my coach from LA, check her out here – http://braintracksaudio.com/). She was over in the UK to attend the VoX Voiceover conference and was taking some of her UK students out to dinner (the lovely lady that she is). At that dinner I met another VO artist (Amelia Tyler, she’s amazing check her out here – http://www.ameliatyler.com/) who was with an agency I had had my sights set on almost from the beginning of my career. The dinner was lovely and Amelia and I got on well, I saw her again at VoX and after that I asked her if she’d mind referring me in to Excellent Talent. She was happy to oblige and sent in the referral, now here’s where that negative I was so bummed about a few months before comes back. The agency Agent A had moved to? You guessed it, none other than Excellent Talent! So when my referral from Amelia came in, the agent I’d spoken to a few months back added her recommendation to the referral as well and as they say, the rest is history!

A relatively simple story but with a powerful message, when something seemingly negative happens try not to view it as the final page in that story because you never know what’s going to happen in the next chapter!

No Comments

  1. Marc Schwartz on June 24, 2015 at 12:42 pm

    Great blog Jay! Just goes to show that making a good impression is always beneficial, even if you don’t see immediate results. Great win on impressing Excellent Talent … TWICE! 😉

  2. Rachael on June 24, 2015 at 2:48 pm

    Hi Jay

    This is a fantastic blog and a great story. It’s all about building relationships, networking and sometimes you have to be patient too. I am so pleased that The VoiceOver Network was a part of this wonderful story. Excellent Talent are lucky to have you. x

  3. Tara on June 24, 2015 at 4:07 pm

    I love this story, Jay!! You’re so right, you never know what’s around the corner…there’s always a chapter 2!
    Congrats on joining Excellent Talent. Looking forward to your next blog x

  4. Ian Fults on June 24, 2015 at 4:45 pm

    Thanks for the details on this Jay!

    Yep, this is how things fly sometimes, you can’t see the big picture until all the pieces come together and because you have the will to get back up and keep plugging away, you are getting noticed for what you can bring to the Excellent Talent Team!

    High Five bro! 😀

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