If you’re a workaholic…you might want to start working on that! Voice actors are no stranger to the 24/7 work week. There’s good and bad sides of working around the clock and nobody knows better than the workaholic ying and yang, Gabby and Anne. They cover the pros and cons, what their work lives look like and give you helpful strategies to get the most out of your work week (which is hopefully only 5 days long).
Takeaways
Quick Concepts from Today’s Episode:
There has to be something besides work to keep things fresh and creative.
Take a vacation and just STOP
Constant work is constant stress
When you set work hours and take weekends off, you become more productive
SLEEP IS IMPORTANT
Make sure the hours you are working is filled with stuff that you love
Not too long ago, the majority of businesses were closed on Sundays
Is working around the clock creating guilt, hurting relationships or burning you out? Make a change!
Self-care is the best thing a boss can do
Referenced in this Episode
Direct links to things we brought up ++
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Transcript
Today’s voiceover talent is more than just a pretty voice. Today’s voiceover talent has to be a boss, a VO BOSS. Set yourself up with business owner strategies and success with your host Anne Ganguzza, along with some of the strongest voices in our industry. Rock your business like a boss, A VO BOSS.
Gabby: Hey, everybody. Before we start today’s episode of VO BOSS, we want to introduce you to some of the amazing products, and services, and things that we’re doing at VO BOSS so that you can Boss up, because isn’t that what it’s all about, Anne, right?
Anne: It is, it’s absolutely what it’s about. And we have some great things. Super excited to share with you guys. Take a look at them on voboss.com.
Gabby: This is how you can live your best boss life.
Anne: We have a fantastic new product for you guys called the Boss Blast. Now the Boss Blast allows us to send a marketing campaign specifically to a target market audience.
Gabby: It’s amazing, and Anne and I have both done it. We’ve tested it on ourselves of course.
Anne: Of course.
Gabby: Because we would never fill you something that we couldn’t get behind or that we didn’t know had merit and efficacy, and this thing is amazing. Custom list. We have up to 90,000 available opted in contacts around the globe that are basically willing and ready to receive emails from you, and with the BOSS Blast, we can customize it based on industry, or geography, or a slew of other fun categories.
Anne: So it’s not like you have to worry about being thought of as spam because these people have already opted in to this list. This is a great way for you guys to get more clients.
Gabby: Just go to voboss.com, go to the shop tab, and click on Boss Blasts so you can get your boss on.
Anne: OK, now, let’s get on with today’s episode. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I’m your host, Anne Ganguzza, along with my wonderful cohost, Gabby Nistico. Hey, Gabby.
Gabby: Hello.
Anne: How are you Gabby, today?
Gabby: I’m good. I’m a little short on time though.
Anne: Oh no.
Gabby: But big shock, right? We’re kind of slaves to the clock, aren’t we?
Anne: That’s the truth. I will tell you, I am exhausted because I ended up working pretty late last night. You know, I think we should talk about this. Are you a slave to the clock? Are you a slave to your email kind of like I am? And are you working around the clock?
Gabby: Yeah, I feel like, you know, a lot of people in voiceover are doing this. We do, we become workaholics. We work round-the-clock, work seven days a week. I always ask the question of why, and then you know, today I think we are gonna talk a little bit about the good, the bad, and the guilty of working round-the-clock.
Anne: I will tell you, Gabby, that I’m guilty of a lot of work.
Gabby: mm-hmm.
Anne: [LAUGHTER]
Anne: Working probably the seven days, that would be the first thing that I can, I can attest to. It is just in terms of — I feel like for myself when I’m trying to work my business up to another level that I need to have kind of an extra push. And my extra push just kind of stayed there. And so that pattern of working seven days a week — I mean, I’ve gotten much better lately. I’ve tried to make it six days a week — was, oh, was tough on me, really tough on me.
Gabby: By far you are the workaholic of, of our little family here, right?
Anne: Little bit, little bit.
Gabby: Everybody on our staff at VO BOSS knows this, jokes about it, occasionally gets you in trouble, which I always find humorous.
Anne: uh-oh. uh-oh.
[LAUGHTER]
Gabby: Because you will text us or email like at all hours of the day and night, right?
Anne: I know.
Gabby: You and I are on different coasts.
Anne: Yep.
Gabby: So you know, it will be 3:00 in the morning, and I’ll get a text from you. And it is really funny because — OK, I kind of laugh it off. Honey, you are a workaholic. So I think all of our staff and everybody here on the team has learned to know this is just Anne’s process. And when an idea pops into her head or she thinks of something, she just has to just dump the thing out of her brain.
Anne: It is a brain dump, yes.
Gabby: And it doesn’t mean that you expect us to be there, be available or anything like that.
Anne: oh no, not at all. Because if I don’t write it down, oh my gosh.
Gabby: Your lovely and incredibly talented assistant Diana has said to me on multiple occasions, if I worked as many hours as Anne, I’d be a multimillionaire.
Anne: No.
Gabby: And we all find that fascinating. I mean, my question to you, honestly, Anne, is when do you sleep, when? Seriously.
Anne: I actually do sleep, but I do work an awful lot.
How do I, how do I — [LAUGHTER]
Why, why do I work? A lot of it is like sheer determination and drive. But that’s not to say that other people that don’t do that don’t have determination and drive. It’s just for me the way I process things, I believe.
Gabby: mmm.
Anne: And it has come and bit me in the butt a couple of times. Healthwise I would say, you know, it’s not always the best thing to be working round-the-clock. I mean, there has to be, uhh, there definitely has to be something besides work to keep yourself fresh and creative. And I really try to beat myself over the head over that so that I can just stop, smell the roses, go do something fun, because I need to have that refresh. And as a matter of fact, I was just thinking about that the other day. I need a vacation where I just have to stop.
Gabby: And don’t work.
Anne: I have to stop. Yeah. And not work. And not work at all. Completely cut myself off. I could be, and I think this might be the case for a lot of people out there, I could be slightly addicted to technology.
Gabby: [LAUGHTER]
Anne: There, I said it.
Gabby: You think?
Anne: There, I said it.
Gabby: [LAUGHTER]
Anne: But it’s real, it’s a real issue, guys.
Gabby: I’ll say this to your credit though. For as much as you work, for as hard as you work, I feel that you do find a balance, and you live life, and you live life joyously.
Anne: Thank you.
Gabby: And you know, you have this wonderful husband, and you guys are always throwing parties and you like –
Anne: That I do.
Gabby: — and always like you live, you live life, and you enjoy it, even though it is a very packed schedule. Like it works for you.
Anne: I think I have always said “work hard, play hard,” and you know, I mean, so that’s kind of the way I am personality-wise.
Gabby: To me, I think that is — think that’s the good. I think it really is. It’s the good side of working round-the-clock, and if it works for you, it works for you. You know, let’s talk about the bad.
Anne: Yes.
Gabby: OK, so I know this firsthand. When I was first starting in this industry, I worked round-the-clock. I worked all kinds of crazy hours. I worked weekends. I never said no to a client. I never turned down anything. I didn’t even have true vacations. I would go on vacation with friends or family, and I was constantly working. I was a slave to my email the entire trip.
Anne: Yup, mm-hmm.
Gabby: I was always stressed out, and it’s a very sad kind of existence because you realize you’re always on edge, right? You’re always feeling like your — you’re going to miss out on something.
Anne: Yup, that’s true. FOMO.
Gabby: Yeah, but it’s, it’s a bad FOMO. It’s not like the fear of missing out on something fun.
Anne: it’s a stressful one.
Gabby: Yeah, Like it is so stressful. So before I got married, you know, my husband was really funny. He kind of like laid down the law. And he was like, we’re not doing this anymore. You are going to have a quit time. You are going to have hours, like I have to know that when I have time with my wife, I have time with my wife, not my wife and the entire voiceover industry.
Anne: Yeah, yeah. No, that makes a whole lot of sense.
Gabby: I had to learn to adjust because what I was doing, it was not healthy. It was not good for my soul. It wasn’t good for my heart. It wasn’t good for my brain. And here’s the ironic part, I make more money now.
Anne: Yeah.
Gabby: Setting limits and deciding not to work round-the-clock, not to work weekends, to take vacations, my bottom line is better because when I am working, I’m way, way more productive.
Anne: More productive. Yep. Fresher.
Gabby: And better. So much better.
Anne: Oh, absolutely. There is so much good to be said about that. And like you said, there has got to be a balance. And there are times when I kind of, when I’m kind of a little bit off-balance because I am focusing a little bit too much on the work side, but I, I think as we mentioned before, “work hard, play hard,” I always make sure to play hard. And so that’s where I think maybe my refresher comes. But the all hours of the night, well, you know, that could be for any known reason again. That brain dump for me, that’s the way I have to do it.
Gabby: Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
Anne: How do I say, age specific conditions have made me be up at weird hours of the morning.
Gabby: [LAUGHTER]
Anne: So, you know. And sometimes –
Gabby: Women, women of a certain age.
Anne: Women, women of a certain [LAUGHTER]
Mature woman of a certain age.
[LAUGHTER]
Right?
Gabby: Yeah! But see the converse like things like medications, medical problems, you know, I know, I — if I don’t get solid sleep, and I mean good sleep, I mean right like really good sleep, if that’s not a consistent part of my life, I’m an insufferable bitch.
Anne: [LAUGHTER]
Gabby: Horrible, horrible person to be around, and my workday suffers for that, you know, because who wants to be around that person? Who wants to be around someone who’s so drained like that? Right, we’ve all heard of like energy vampires, you know?
Anne: Oh yeah.
Gabby: And they drain other people. Well, if you’re working yourself round-the-clock like that, you might be that energy vampire for people around you. You just might be sucking them dry and don’t even realize it.
Anne: Well, I, I think too, really, it really comes from knowing truly who you are and how you operate best, because what I do, I’m passionate about. And so a lot of times, that brings me joy. And so a lot of times that’s not stressful. So there’s got to be, I think, a place where you know yourself when you’re doing things that are bringing you joy.
Now, now, I am not going to be joyful when I am doing accounting for example.
Gabby: [LAUGHTER]
Anne: So I’m not going to do accounting. But the hours that I do work, I’m filling it with things that make me happy. And that I think is a lot. That counts for a lot of less stress in my life, even though I do work more hours.
Gabby: Sure.
Anne: So I think for all of you guys out there, if I had to give a tip, make sure that the hours that you are working are filled with stuff that you love. And you know, and if you have stuff that you don’t love, try to find, try to turn that around and find joy in another aspect of it, you know? That’s how I do it.
Gabby: Prime example, right?
Anne: Mm-hmm.
Gabby: Everybody looks at me and goes, “oh my gosh, the podcast. What you’re doing with VO BOSS, what you’re doing with Anne, it’s so much time, it’s so much energy, it’s so much effort,” and I go, “no. It’s really not.”
Anne: Yeah, it really isn’t.
Gabby: And people go, “well, how can you say that?” I go, “how can I say that? I love it. I love working with her. I love what we’re doing. I love the product we’re putting out.”
Anne: I love every aspect of it.
Gabby: That’s not work.
Anne: Absolutely.
Gabby: That’s not work. That feeds my soul, people. It does something good.
Anne: That brings joy. That brings — that is boss joy, #bossjoy right there.
Gabby: Anne, what do you think about the people who go — and I’m going to quote Eric Sheppard now, right, I love Eric, but it’s important to be said. “There is no vacation in voiceover.”
Anne: [LAUGHTER]
Gabby: You know, there’s a lot of people say that, right? You don’t get to take a vacation in this business. What do you say to that?
Anne: We craft our businesses. And so that can also include vacation.
[LAUGHTER]
And you know, for me, it’s like, what is it that — like we just said, what is it that’s bringing me joy? If there’s, you know, if there’s a client that needs me on a weekend, I have to weigh that balance of, OK, how much joy am I going to get from that gig, right?
Gabby: [LAUGHTER]
Anne: And Making that money?
Gabby: How much joy is that money gonna bring me?
[LAUGHTER]
Anne: You know, I’ll tell you what, sometimes that money does bring me quite a bit of joy. And then I make the decision yes. But there are times that there’s no amount of money in the world that will bring me joy. I love to go to the beach on the weekends, and so that’s a thing. That’s like a tradition. That one day that I was taking is that day that I go to the beach. And it would require a whole lot of money to get me to stay home and work.
[LAUGHTER]
Gabby: Can I, can I tell you on a side note, I can’t wait til I come see you in June so we can go to the beach together? Oh my God, we are so going to be beach bums.
Anne: We are. We are for sure.
Gabby: Really funny thing, so living in the South, right, we have this amazing fast food chain that people are obsessed with, Chick-fil-A. They make an amazing chicken sandwich.
Anne: We have that here too.
Gabby: And yeah, like Chick-fil-A is like a religion here.
Anne: [LAUGHTER]
Gabby: Interestingly enough, Chick-fil-A has one very — a quirk, if you will, that people don’t like.
Anne: They are not open.
Gabby: Chick-fil-A is not open on Sunday.
Anne: Sundays, yup.
Gabby: They, they have made a moral for them — I think for them it’s a religious choice –
Anne: It is.
Gabby: To not be open on Sunday, which is fine. And people complain about it, and they bitch about it, and nobody likes it, but damned if Monday morning they aren’t lined up to get it. So we can do that.
Anne: Yeah.
Gabby: We can set those limitations. People will adapt, if they want your product, if they want what you do.
Anne: I came from northern New Jersey, from a county that, that actually had blue laws.
And the blue laws were there was no retail open on Sunday.
Gabby: Yeah.
Anne: So you just dealt with it. And so you rearranged your life if you needed to buy something at the mall.
Gabby: It’s funny.
Anne: Monday through Saturday.
Gabby: But I think that’s the irony of it. When we grew up, and a lot of people, a lot of our listeners are going to remember this, and for some of them it’s totally alien, but we grew up in a time where Sunday, nothing was open.
Anne: That’s right.
Gabby: You didn’t do anything on a Sunday.
Anne: That’s so true.
Gabby: There was nowhere to go.
Anne: Mm-hmm.
Gabby: Ther was nothing. Like even restaurants, so few places were open.
Anne: I think we need to go back to that. I think we need to go back to that.
Gabby: I think we do, because we’ve come to a place as a society where we are so used to being 24/7.
Anne: Mm-hmm. Yup.
Gabby: And everything being available 24/7.
Anne: Yup.
Gabby: That the word no has become a bad thing. Closing the doors has somehow been, become synonymous with being unsuccessful.
Anne: Well you know my one day that I do take off is on a Sunday, and I’ll tell you, Sunday is one of my favorite days, by the way. And I got married on a Sunday.
Gabby: Aww.
Anne: I have a favorite day. I — yeah, Sunday is my day. You know, it’s my day with my Jer. That is the day that I have allocated –
Gabby: That is beautiful. Oh my God. Oh my God.
Anne: It’s true.
Gabby: So Beautiful, because you honor –
Anne: I do.
Gabby: You honor your husband, you honor that marriage. That’s amazing, I love you. I love you.
Anne: I think everybody that knows Jerry and knows me, I mean, yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
Everybody loves Jerry.
Gabby: You’re sickening. You’re sickening, the two of you.
Anne: I gladly share him with the world because he’s a good, he is a good dude.
He’s got good energy.
Gabby: And there you go. So you have to really think about what is working round-the-clock costing you? Is it creating guilt? Is it creating tension in your relationships? Is it hurting you? If it is, maybe it’s time to consider making a change. Maybe it is time to have an open to close hours of operation.
Anne: Absolutely.
Gabby: I know for some of our listeners and people who are in different time zones, overseas, you know, you have to sometimes make accommodations for wherever the bulk of your clientele are, and that can be challenging, but it is possible. It is still possible to set limitations and be successful.
Anne: And I think, you know, I think, Gabby, I, I’ve always kind of tried to live my life this way where everything that I do, every day that I live, try to have an impact.
I try to make it meaningful. And I think, you know, those of you that know that I’m a cancer survivor, it just became that much more so that everything that I do from now on has to have a purpose, and a meaning, and bring me joy. And that includes work or not work.
Gabby: Yeah.
Anne: Like I said, I love being an entrepreneur because we can craft our own businesses.
You can close shop on Sundays. You can close shop on Saturdays, and you can be successful. I think there’s a fear that people think if they’re not available 24/7, then they are not, you know, they are not going to make it, or their business isn’t going to be successful. But you know what? It absolutely can be. It can happen. You know, you are the, you are the owner of your business, and you need to really run it like a boss. You really do.
Gabby: And self-care is the best thing a boss can do.
Anne: Yeah. Yeah.
Gabby: Yeah. Awesome.
Anne: Good stuff.
Gabby: Thanks to our sponsor, ipDTL, fortunately for us, the company that is available around the clock 24/7.
[LAUGHTER]
Gabby: Never quits. You can learn more about how to record like a boss at ipdtl.com.
Anne: Awesome. All things boss, you need to visit us at voboss.com, like us on Facebook, subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, and make sure that you umm visit us at voboss.com for exclusive content and special offers.
Gabby: And of course, uhh under VO BOSS University and our BOSS shop, you can find some of the tools and some of the offerings that we have that can help you to uh better time manage.
Anne: There you go.
Gabby: And give yourself some much-needed time off by letting the bosses take some of your work load off your hands.
Anne: There you go. So take a day off, bosses, and have a kickbutt day or days.
Gabby: Heck yeah.
Anne: Whatever it is. See you next week.
Gabby: Bye.
Anne: Bye.
Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS, with your hosts Anne Ganguzza and Gabby Nistico. All rights reserved, Anne Ganguzza Voice Talent in association with Three Moon media. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via ipDTL.