The path to greatness

Last year a fascinating article appeared in Fortune Magazine entitled What it takes to be great. To sum up the article’s findings: we don’t possess natural talent, rather the way to become great is through hard work and practise. This is now very well documented, although not necessarily a popular finding since many people would like to think that if they could only find their talent, they would be great and fame and fortune would easily follow. The latter mindset leads to discouragement and heartbreak, causing individuals to waste their time wondering and dreaming rather than investing the time and work that is required to achieve success.

Where do the drive and motivation come from that lead some people to put in the amount of work that it takes to be great? Why are some people such hard workers, while others who may be more brilliant than those busy bees just can’t get motivated to put in the time? The article poses these questions, but does not provide answers since they remain a mystery. Probably an examination of the lives of great achievers would reveal early life circumstances that suggest parallel motivating factors such as extreme poverty, deprivation or other hardship; chance encounters with inspiring individuals who became mentors, or other experiences that sparked a particular interest. Motivation is one thing, since that comes from external factors; persistence and drive to pursue a certain endeavor are another. These will probably eventually be shown to be yet another of the brain’s many biochemical and neurological wonders. I have some ideas about that too.

One of the reasons this has been on my mind is that I just finished reading Lion of Hollywood – the Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer by Scott Eyman. Although other treatments of Mayer's life have presented the man in a rather unfavorable light, Eyman’s biography is much more sympathetic and rightly returns Mayer to his place in history as one of the great executives of the 20th century. Mayer created a motion picture studio that was a symbol of quality and opulence, and one that was considered by many of Hollywood's stars to be the place to work. When he was forced out of MGM by a younger exec in 1951, the place began a steep decline, so much so that Mayer was actually asked to return several years later. He was, however, unable to do so due to declining health.

Mayer’s motivators undoubtedly stemmed from his early years of poverty as a child growing up in Saint John, New Brunswick, where his family had moved from Russia. His father was a junk dealer and the children were put to work at an early age. Mayer’s primary memory of his childhood was of being very hungry. He was nevertheless full of energy and worked very hard (much harder than his rather indolent father). A local tin dealer, John Wilson, befriended the boy and one of the things Mayer always remembered was Wilson’s advice: “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on”. Never, ever give up. Mayer eventually moved to the U.S. and became interested in motion picture distribution, which is where most of the early movie moguls got their start, and this led to a desire to create the movies that were shown in the theatres. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was formed in 1924. Louis B. Mayer had traveled a very long way from the streets of Saint John to his white leather office in MGM’s Thalberg Building.

It’s clear from reading Eyman’s book that Mayer had tremendous energy, which I’m convinced is another hugely significant factor in an individual’s ability to be great, although it doesn’t explain everything. Charles Darwin, for example, put in long years of toil on the research that led to the publication of his On the Origin of Species in 1859, despite debilitating illness which prevented him working more than a few hours a day, and there are many other examples which I won’t detail here because this essay is already too long! But I'm sure that the more energy you have, the harder you can work. Probably the knowledge that Alfred Russel Wallace was hard at work on the same subject drove Darwin harder.

How does all of this relate to the business and practise of voice over? For those of us already in the business, the motivation is presumably already there. Setting goals provides the infrastructure to keep us on that path to greatness. These goals should include the business side of voice over as well as the use of the voice itself – for the latter, listening to other demos and broadcast commercials and narration, and choosing specific aspects of our own voice-over skills that need improvement and working on them. It helps to write the goals down in the form of daily routines, since it is daily work, not occasional, that will lead to improvement. And not least important is taking care of ourselves, physically, mentally, and spiritually, to keep energy levels high and stress levels low.

That’s my rudimentary theory on greatness and success, a blend of what I've read and what I've made up, with very little of a practical nature (after all, you have other things to do besides sit here and read my ramblings!). I would love to hear your thoughts. Also, your comments on what you do to manage energy and stress would be very welcome and of great interest.

Do No Harm.

This is a credo that people entrusted with our health and well-being are taught from the moment they set foot in medical school, and of course for most of us (I hope), it’s how we live our lives. Shouldn’t this apply also to the products and services we buy?

My friend and fellow voice over talent Kara Edwards wrote recently of her experience buying a telephone for her studio. The phone was hermetically sealed in the thick plastic packaging that we all know and hate, and thus took an inordinately long time to open. When it was finally in place she discovered it was of such poor quality as to be unusable. Kara drew compelling analogies between this type of customer service and voice over services, and how quickly we would lose business if we made our offerings as difficult to get to (cluttered websites, poor quality audio) as did the company that made her telephone.

I thought of Kara’s essay this morning while I was wrestling with the packaging around a Gillette “Venus” razor. It didn’t take terribly long to open it with the help of a pair of scissors, and the gash to my finger from the sharp edge of the cut plastic was the work of an instant. Stopping the blood and mopping it up took longer. My motivation for buying this product was somewhat different from Kara’s. I needed the item AND I had already tried it and knew I liked it. So even though I saw it was in the hated plastic bubble, I was willing to put up with it in order to get at the item I wanted. Thing is, I actually bought this item about 3 years ago to put in my travel bag, since I already had one of these razors at home and this would be one less thing to remember to pack. Somehow I hadn’t gotten around to putting it in the travel bag and the reason I finally opened it was that I had gone to the store to buy blade replacements and was so appalled at the price (well over $8 for 4 of them) that I decided to use what I had in that unopened package. O innocence! Thou art vanished on a summer breeze! Vanished actually with the cries of pain and oaths uttered in this unnatural struggle with modern packaging.

Procter & Gamble is committing a variety of sins with this product:

Inaccessibility. They are, as Kara pointed out in the case of her phone, making it difficult for the customer to access the product, just as if I told a voiceover client, I can’t email this file to you but I’ll put it on a CD and mail it and you’ll have it in 4 days.

Hazardousness. The product packaging had the potential to harm the customer, which it fulfilled in this case, leaving me with a cut that continues to inconvenience as I now can’t type with that finger (warning: graphic images ahead).

Environmental irresponsibility. The packaging is made of plastic, which doesn’t decompose, and is furthermore a petroleum product made from foreign oil - I don’t think I need to rehearse the arguments against that here.

Mind games. Inside the packaging the razor is lying in state in a hard plastic coffin-like object, which has no discernible purpose, except perhaps to create the illusion of enhanced value. Funeral directors would like us to believe that our love for the deceased is measured by the amount of money we spend on a coffin, and a simple pine box reflects less love than a polished, satin-lined mahogany number. P&G may be trying to play a similar mind game here. I for one would be delighted to pay for a cellophane sleeve for my razor, with a notch in one side so I could easily tear it open (a real notch, not just a black line that says “tear here” when in fact you will need scissors to get it open).

Good and accessible products, service and packaging are what every customer wants and deserves. Every salesperson and company executive and marketing director is also somebody’s customer. Why are there so many disconnects out there? Why are people like Kara and me and so many of my voice over colleagues so aware of the basic rules of customer service while retail stores are so full of products that scream, “we don’t care about you”? Most likely it’s this: there is nobody between us voice talent and our customers (except possibly a talent agent, but there frequently isn’t these days). If we provide poor service, there is very little reason for the customer to avoid telling us about it. They will request or demand a replacement (a better recording), and if we can’t deliver a satisfactory product the client can withhold payment and they certainly won’t engage us again. Our poor service would immediately translate into loss of income. Not so with a large company like Procter & Gamble, with so many levels of administration; there are just too many potential ears that will be turned deafly from customer complaints. And how many customers take the time to make the complaints? From a very early age I’ve been writing letters to companies and politicians when I’m concerned or displeased (and also when pleased), but how many people do it?

So, gentle reader, if you are a business owner such as a professional voice talent, you know what customer service means. You are probably also rightly outraged when you don’t get the kind of customer service and product quality that you are accustomed to providing. Do something about it. Write a letter. Vote with your wallet. It’s easier for us now than ever before because most companies have a web presence and a "Contact Us" link with a form for communicating with customer service. I’m not quite sure how you approach the Chinese companies who are putting melamine in pet food or antifreeze in cough syrup as a cheap substitute for sweetener, but I think that's one for our legislators. Write to them. Make it a habit. Oh, and don’t forget to write when you’re satisfied too. Everybody likes that.

Make the world a better place. You have the power.