with Pamela Muldoon
VO BOSS Anne Ganguzza and special guest co-host Pamela Muldoon discuss what it means to be a PassionPreneur. We do voice over because we love it! Following your passion presents unique challenges and benefits. The Bosses discuss time management, having multiple passions, and how to make the most of doing what you love!
Takeaways
Quick Concepts from Today’s Episode:
We play different roles in different industries we play in!
You can be multiple passionate-preneur, and you don’t have to apologize for it or explain yourself.
You do not have to be full time to be considered a professional.
There is sometimes an unspoken/unwritten judgment if you’re not full time.
Pamela says: “I work within a trifecta of passions: my ultimate goal is to do what I want, where I want, when I want. Period.”
Type A’s don’t just want to do something, they want to do it well.
Pamela says: “I want to follow through. We all know life happens and that’s why we have good friends in business, but at the end of the day, I’m going to do what I can to make this happen because I promised I would.”
Pamela says: “I have dreams and I have goals that go beyond where I’m at today. At the same time, I’ve specifically chosen where I can naturally fit well but also the genres that allow me a little more flexibility.”
How you structure and manage your week to fulfill your passions is important.
Voiceover is a sexy industry to be a part of!
The definition of success is based on your definition, not someone else’s.
We’re all given the same 24 hours. You can’t manage a clock, but you can manage what you do inside of the 24 hours.
You might need time to disengage between my multiple passions, and even schedule it in your calendar!
We can always plan 80% but remember that life happens the other 20% of the time!
Give yourself permission to create the lifestyle you’re entitled to. Move past mistakes and learn from them, even if it means taking a break to readjust.
We need to quit being so hard on ourselves if we aren’t a certain “something”.
Anne says: “There are times I wonder if people think I can’t make up my mind about my career!”
Anne says: “I have a lot of passions that I pour myself into, and it’s okay because they all bring me joy!”
Give yourself permission to follow multiple passions.
You can have multiple passions, and still be a voice talent!
The passions we pursue can sometimes allow us to branch out and discover new ones.
Give yourself permission to allocate the time for each passion and don’t feel bad about it. It’s respectable, feasible, and admirable to excel in any genre that you love
Anne says: “I love telephony and corporate narration – how geeky weird is that? I’m not ashamed! My name is Anne Ganguzza and I love corporate narration, telephony, and eLearning!”
You should measure success by your definition alone, not someone else’s perception of it.
When you are driven by your calendar, it’s important to allow yourself some flexibility. Not giving yourself time to go to the bathroom is not a good thing!
Know yourself and know your schedule!
Know who you are, and what you excel at.
If it stops being joyful, you might want to reconsider it.
Referenced in this Episode
Direct links to things we brought up ++
Special thanks to Doris Conley for the beautiful photo for our graphic this week! Doris is a woman following her passion! To see more photos, check out Doris’s Facebook page, and email Doris at dorisaconley@gmail.com to purchase prints!
Check out Pamela Muldoon’s Website
Recorded on ipDTL
Awesome editing by Carl Bahner
Transcript
>> It’s time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry’s top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS. Now let’s welcome your host Anne Ganguzza.
Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I’m your host, Anne Ganguzza, along with my special guest cohost, the content marketing maven, Pamela Muldoon. Hey Pamela.
Pamela: [laughs] Hello, Anne. I’m a maven. Wow.
Anne: Yeah, well, actually besides content marketing maven, you’re like a maven of a lot of things, which leads me to [laughs] the point here. I really feel like you and I are coul sisters because we both I think have multiple passions which we put all of our beings into. [laughs] And it really is a thing. Because I’ve got VO Peeps, I’ve got VO BOSS, I’ve got Anne Ganguzza Voice Productions, I do a lot of things. And sometimes I wonder if people look at that and say hmm. You know, you, like you’re like full-time content marketer, successful, and you’re also doing VO. Let’s talk a little bit about you and your passions and how you manage it all.
Pamela: Yeah. What I’m learning, and I think this is a great topic, because I don’t think we’re alone, Anne. I think there’s one or two persons out there listening right now that’s dealing with a similar situation. What I mean by that is we have love for a lot of different not only roles – I don’t even like to call them jobs, because I don’t feel like I’m working when I’m in that passion mode. Right? I don’t even like to call them jobs. Different roles we play and different industries we play in. We learn from each of them, and here I am in the fifth decade of my life, and I think I’ve finally come to some embracement that I’m a multiple passionate-preneur basically.
Anne: Multiple passionate-preneur. I like that.
Pamela: Yes. And it’s okay, that I don’t have to apologize for it, and I don’t have to explain myself. I still do, but I don’t have to. [laughs]
Anne: I like that you’ve given yourself permission. I think that’s so important because there are times when I’m like, I wonder if people are looking at me and saying, why can’t she make up her mind, she does so many things. How can she be effective at all of them? I do sometimes worry about that, but I have a lot of passions that I pour myself into. And I think that it’s okay to do that, because it brings me joy – right, I’m all about bringing joy. And you, Pam, live your life and your work life with joy in things that you are completely passionate about, you allow yourself to do, and I think that it’s great that our BOSS listeners out there give them permission. I think it’s great to give yourself permission to love multiple things, and have multiple passions, and still you can be a voice talent.
Pamela: Yes, and you can be successfully professional. And I just want to touch on that a little bit because I’m going to make what I think is somewhat of a profound statement, Anne. You do not have to be full-time to be professional. [laughs] We know this. I think we all know this on some level, but there is sometimes an unspoken or unwritten judgment on oh, you’re not full-time, so therefore IE you’re not a professional voiceover. Now I understand I think where that is coming from is oh, you don’t make all of your revenue in one basket. Right? You know, at the end of the day, I’ve been behind a mic in some way, shape or form for three decades, and I put my money into my studio just the way you do, Anne, right, just the way a lot of our counterparts do. I invest in my websites, yes, more than one. [laughs]
Anne: Yep, got you there.
Pamela: I’m just like you, sister. And I invest in my equipment, and I go to conferences, and I pay for all those things. I just happen to do it from a different intent, and I now work within what I call this trifecta of passions. I have three main passions in my life. My ultimate goal is to do what I want, when I want, where I want, period. And what I do to get there involves the trifecta of voiceover talent, content marketing expert – so right now I work with a company, I work for an agency but I also plan on doing more on my own in the coming years – and then I’m also, became a certified Pilates instructor last year. [laughs]
Anne: Wow. How often do you do that, Pam?
Pamela: I teach every Friday afternoon and Sunday morning. And I wanted to do something like that for about 15 years and I finally followed through on that life goal about two years ago. It took me a year and a half, about 500 hours of work you got to put in to become a certified instructor, but I’m now officially an instructor, so now I have three ways. And I work out of my home just like every voice talent. Everything I do, my whole intent is I have my trifecta that’s going to take me to the next phase of my life. Does that make sense?
Anne: Wow. So do you find that you, in terms of time management, do you have enough time for all of them? I think that’s what I struggle with. Sometimes I end up working a little more than I think I should. There might be another issue wrapped up into that called workaholic.
Pamela: I phase, tend to fall into these categories, but you’re right. I think the hardest struggle because I’m a type A as well. You’re a typical, old-school type A, where I don’t just want to do it, I want to do it well.
Anne: And I want to be the best at it, yeah.
Pamela: Yeah, so –
Anne: Completely merciless on myself.
Pamela: But at the same token, I’ve had to really be honest with what my goal expectations truly are versus what I think I need to do. And what I mean by that is I put my voiceover career, for example, I do consider myself a professional voice talent. And so everything I pursue falls within that realm. At the same token, I specifically design how I approach my voiceover business, how I market myself, how I engage, whether it’s agency, production house, etc. so that I can fulfill the obligations I have in front of me, but not overextend myself. Does that make sense? So it’s a little bit of a balance just to make sure that I’m staying within those professional parameters and not overdoing it.
Anne: Yeah, I think it’s the whole time management thing, right? I think one of the things that works probably both for you and I is the genres of voiceover that we pursue, allow us to have a bigger window of time in which to do other things. I certainly could not do promos because the time demand are much greater for that. And so what I love is that I can do the genres that don’t require the immediacy of fulfillment. And I can teach, I can post my workouts, I can pursue VO BOSS and record episodes. As a matter of fact, we had to wield a little time from your schedule in order to fit this in. So I totally appreciate that you did that.
Pamela: Absolutely. I mean, this is important to me, because it also falls into that passion-preneur piece, right. What I also really want to fulfill obligations. That’s part of that responsibility of being professional, right, to be able to follow through. We all know life happens, and that’s why we have good friends, good friends in business who can be somewhat flexible sometimes, but at the same token, at the end of the day, I said I really want to, I’m going to do what I can to make this happen because I promised I would, and that’s important. And that’s just an important business, right, business ethic. I just want to touch on that genre element, especially if you’re a BOSS listening and you’re newer to the voiceover industry and you have stars in your eyes, which we all do at some point, right? And we should still keep those stars, don’t get me wrong. I have dreams and I have goals that go beyond where I’m at today. At the same time, I have specifically chosen not only where I naturally can fit well, certain genres, but also the genres that allow me a little more flexibility and self-directed versus being directed when possible, so the e-learning, the corporate narration, the projects where I’m in more control of how the time can be used, versus being kind of at a beck and call situation for sure. I think that’s an important piece, Anne. I don’t want to gloss over that because how you structure and manage your week to fulfill all of your passions, you can’t have one without the other.
Anne: Oh yeah, I have a schedule. And I like how you said, you’re giving permission to allocate the time for each passion and not feeling bad about that. You know, those starting out in the industry that might have stars in their eyes thinking, I want to get that national commercial, or I want to be that animation character or whatever it is, it’s entirely feasible, and respectable, and professional, and admirable to excel in any genre that you love. I mean, I love telephony. How geeky weird is that?
Pamela: It’s kind of geeky weird.
Anne: It’s okay.
Pamela: That’s okay.
Anne: I love corporate narration. I mean I just, like, and I’m not ashamed. My name is Anne Ganguzza, and I love corporate narration and telephony and e-learning.
Pamela: [laughs] And I’m right there with you. The only, and we have all probably experienced this as professional voice talent when we’re talking to what I call laypeople, people outside of our industry who learn you’re a voice talent, and they’re like oh, have I ever heard you on anything? [laughs]
Anne: Yes.
Pamela: I’ll say well, were you a sales rep for Audi? [laughs]
Anne: There you go.
Pamela: [laughs] Because I did this set of modules that was pretty awesome.
Anne: We trained you how to sell that car.
[both laugh]
Anne: You might have heard me when you called your dentist’s office. That’s possible.
Pamela: That’s right. [laughs] And that’s okay. You know what, it’s still a pretty sexy industry to be a part of because the world outside still looks at what we do in a pretty special way. We just happen to fulfill the needs that allow us to have great relationships with clients, but we get to do it in the way that it makes sense for us. What I also refer to, Anne, is the definition of success based on my definition, not on somebody else’s.
Anne: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that that really goes hand in hand when you’re pursuing multiple passions, is that you have to define your success by your success alone, and not somebody else’s perception of it, or somebody on Facebook making comments about “I just booked another, I booked – oh, I can’t talk about it.” Normally I can’t talk about it because I’ve done an internal training that is confidential to the company. It’s not because I’ve landed a new game [laughs] or you know, been a character, but that’s okay. I think I want to go back to the importance of, if you’re a passion –
Pamela: Multiple passion-preneur.
Anne: Multiple passion-preneur, time management is I think critical in order for that to be successful, and so that you’re not constantly beating yourself up and/or stretching yourself too thin. For me it works out great that I have certain days that I can do certain things. I mean, for the last few years, I have certain days where I coach, Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and then Wednesday, Thursday are times to record VO BOSS, work on VO Peeps or to do other things that, obviously I have to do voiceover work too, which fits in nicely in between all of that. I do have hours in between that I leave for myself to be able to do that and because of the genres I work in, I don’t need to have it typically yesterday. But I will tell you, in between my last meeting and just now, which was 30 minutes, I had to do pickups for a client which I just did [laughs] before we got on the line. I’m able to juggle it pretty successfully, but I do live by my calendar. Pam, I don’t know if that’s as critical for you but –
Pamela: Ohh yes.
Anne: That’s why today, you were like, can we change the time, and I went, oh my goodness, Pam, no.
Pamela: I know, like it’s easy for me to give up my firstborn, thank you very much. Like no. I totally respect that, so of course I came back with hold tight. Let me see if I can make some adjustments on my end and call in some favors.
Anne: I think that’s too a very important point to bring up when you’re driven by your time, calendar as much as probably I and you, Pam, are, it’s important to allow yourself flexibility. I’ve actually scheduled myself where I don’t even have time to go to the bathroom, and that’s just not a good thing.
Pamela: I do want to touch on a little bit about, this is something I’ve learned a little bit about myself, and I actually call it personal management versus time management because I can only manage myself inside a time. Right? And what I mean by that is we’re all given the same 24 hours. I can’t manage a clock, but I can manage what I do inside of my time. And one of the things I’ve learned over the, especially as I became more of a multiple passionate-preneur, is that I also need kind of time to disengage from one to the other if at all possible. So if I know that I’m going to – like our call today, I give myself at least 15 minutes, and I’ve put it on my calendar, the separation of this and that to kind of give myself a chance to take my bio break, grab my water, and then I come in, and I can shut the door and say now I’m on for this particular part of my day. As opposed to trying to shove everything right up against each other, and then everything gets off by 10 or 15 minutes, and you’re feeling just rushed and horribly stressed by the end of your day, and then you’re not having fun. The joy is not in the work then. I’m fortunate in that my company’s virtual, right, so even as a full-time employee, with this marketing agency, I get to work out of my home, and my office is, literally I’m a foot away from my studio. Right there.
Anne: I think that is an optimal situation.
Pamela: It totally is, Anne. Because you mentioned how we do genres specifically designed to or , kind of our lifestyle, right? At the same time, that doesn’t mean that we don’t get requests for auditions or, to your point, can you do these quick pickups, or you know, there is that 80-20 rule. 80% goes smooth, but 20% we’ve got the life happens. What’s great is I can look at my calendar, and I can adjust, and I can shoot that email say back and say, you know what, I can get this to you by noon today because I know that I can just take 15, 20 minutes from whatever I was doing, pop into my studio, do it. They don’t have to know all the details. All they want is their end product. I’m able to do that. So I’m fortunate to have it all right here in my office. Yeah.
Anne: And again, know yourself, know your schedule, keep testing things out. This morning I was so excited because, you know, a lot of times my agent will send me auditions late at night, and they’ll be due the next morning. And so I was very excited today, and I was like, okay, I got up early, I’m going to go knock this audition out. I’m going to send it to her. Well literally, I sent it to her, I was so happy because I was like two hours before the deadline, and she sent me back an email. She goes, Anne, this was due yesterday at 11:00. I was like, oh my goodness. And I literally was like whoa, okay, that’s just one additional item on Anne’s list, because she’s ready to move, like tomorrow is our walk-through, that probably was just, it tipped the scales, where I didn’t allow enough time for, you know, Anne to reset and get her calendar straight, because I never did that before. So that’s okay. You know, I apologized. Life happens, and she was actually quite fine with it and was laughing. It was a good audition. I was like bummer.
Pamela: Isn’t that the way it always goes, like your best work is never heard?
Anne: Oh goodness.
Pamela: But I think a part of that that’s important is also where we give ourselves permission to really create the lifestyle we’re entitled to is to also not dwell. Like you could be beating yourself up all day. And then not only can kind of move past it, you can kind of learn from it.
Anne: Absolutely.
Pamela: I need to take a break. I need to put the skids on here and I need readjust. Right? So these are all, they seem simple little nuances, but they’re happening, I would say for you and myself, because we have so much going on, all the time, like we have to give ourselves a little break here and there.
Anne: And I think anybody just getting in to this, I have so many students that are constantly saying, I can’t wait until I can give up my job and do this full time. Well you know, maybe you don’t have to beat yourself up over that. Maybe, I’m going to say that says more about the job that you currently have than it does about, right, your desire or passion to be in voiceover full-time. I think that if you can work at a job successfully part-time, full-time, and do voiceover, you’re still a professional. It’s okay. We’ve given you permission. But if you were to have to rework that, where if you had to get another full-time job, for whatever reason, right, financial reasons, it’s okay. Because you can still be a professional voice talent and pursue your passions. It does not have to be 24 hours a day.
Pamela: No. We need to quit being so hard on ourselves, right, like that if we aren’t a certain something, we aren’t good enough. I don’t believe that. I believe that even though I may not put in 80 hours a week like some of my counterparts, but I also know where my particular voice and style is best suited. That helps me feel like I’m good enough, right, because I’m, over time have learned that about myself.
Anne: That’s I think a super important point for people to not beat themselves up. Know who you are, know where your genres are, what suits you and what you can excel at. And if it stops being joyful, then reconsider.
Pamela: And to get there, even as someone who’s never been 100% full-time, I’ve had my foot in front of the mic [laughs] for many, many years, one of the ways I worked on that myself over the last 10 years was to reach out to coaches who worked in different genres and just get a couple of sessions under my belt with them, so I felt I was getting good feedback from a qualified expert, but then I could also decide, my coaches listening probably go yeah, she does do this. I’ll actually sometimes use my coaching hour to not read a script at all, but just to ask them questions about the industry, that particular genre, what they like about it, what they don’t, what are some things I don’t know that I should know, how do I, is this something in my lifestyle that’s workable or makes sense, and if not, it helps me create my limits, right? And I’ll pay for that time, pay for that person’s experience and expertise to just spend an hour asking them questions so that I can feel more confident in how I’m pursuing my career. Hat tip to like Tom Pinto and Randy Thomas who have [laughs] been two of those people. We’ve never actually read a script on some of our sessions, but we had great conversations about the industry. Yeah.
Anne: That happens sometimes with my students as well. They’ll be like look, can we just take this session to talk? I’ve got questions and I need, you know, I need guidance and direction. I think that’s amazing. So BOSSes, you can be a multiple passionate-preneur and be successful. Remember to bring joy to whatever you do, and Pam, what a great discussion. Big shout-out to our sponsor ipDTL that allows us to talk like this so frequently and to bring this podcast to all you BOSSes out there. Find out more at ipdtl.com. Thanks so much. Guys, have a great week and we’ll see you next week. Bye.
>> Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your host, Anne Ganguzza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at voboss.com and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies, and new ways to rock your business like a BOSS. Redistribution with permission. Coast-to-coast connectivity via ipDTL.
[outtake]
Anne: Can we just do a podcast right now on the multiple passions?
Pamela: Sure.
Anne: Can I start? Let’s just do it, because I think we’ve got a lot of good things to say.
Pamela: Okay.
Anne: Because I’m going to say, I feel like you and I are like soul sisters in a lot of ways, because of it. Because we have so many passions. So that’s cool. Let’s just do it, and then we’ll continue with borrowed persona. Okay.
Pamela: That other crap.
Anne: So let me just start again. That other crap. Let’s talk about our passions. [New Jersey accent] Let’s talk about our passions.
Pamela: I love it.
Anne: All right.