 Hey, it's time for VOBS and George is not here. You're in Pennsylvania Pennsylvania the man is in Pennsylvania, but no matter where he is we bring you this show and tonight We've got a very special guest Paul Strickwurda Here and also in Pennsylvania. Yeah, and here I am out in sunny, Southern, California, but I'll bet it's warmer there Yeah, all right, we're gonna talk with Paul We've got if you have a question for him throw it in our chat room if you got a question for George and I throw it in our chat room and We'll throw it against the wall. We'll see what sticks coming up now on voiceover body shot. Yeah two men Twin sons from different mothers with a passion for voiceover recording technology and the desire to make Recording easy for voice actors everywhere Together in one place George Whittem the home studio engineer to the stars a Virginia tech grad with an unmatched knowledge of all the latest gear and technology in voiceover today Dan Leonard the home studio master a voice actor with over 30 years experience in broadcasting and recording and a no-holds-barred Myth-busting attitude for teaching you how easy it is together To bring you all the latest technology today's voiceover superstars and Leading the discussion on how to make the most of your voiceover business This is voiceover body shop Voiceover body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials comm home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements remote connections made even easier Vio to go go dot com Everything you need to be a successful voiceover artist J. Michael Collins demos award-winning demo production voice actor websites dot com where your voiceover website won't be a pain in the butt and voiceover extra your daily resource for Vio success and Now live from their super secret multi-media studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are George Wittem and Dan Leonard Hey, I'm Dan Leonard And I'm George Wittem and that's my uncle mark. Hey uncle mark. How you doing? And this is voiceover body shop or Vio Bs All right So what takes you to the far end of Pennsylvania? Well the far end of Pennsylvania is where my family lives where I grew up And there's a whole bunch of family visiting right now. One of them is still behind me. I ain't gonna mark Make sure they got the show on out there All right, go out there and watch it. Okay, cool My aunt I had my aunt two uncles all my mom siblings here for a 70th birthday extravaganza over the weekend and You know when family gets together they get all the attention and so it's been interesting It's been a fun lots of going on and tons of distractions. My favorite distraction is right here. Actually All right, yeah, Ella comes with you to say happy birthday to grandma. All right Go all right. All right, it's been fun. It's been interesting It's been a little stressful trying to keep all my clients happy the same time dropped a couple of balls You know who you are. I'm sorry But we're alive. That's good to hear. All right well Tonight We've got Paul stricter with us and he'll be joining us in just a second again If you've got a question for him throw it in our chat room. Somebody's monitoring the chat room We're not sure who probably sue and we will get that question on George is watching. So two people are watching it'll happen and also Later on we've got tech talk when we do the show live and if you have a tech question for us Also, throw it in the chat room. All righty. Well, it's time to introduce our guest Paul Strickwritter is the nether voice originally from from the netherlands and now residing in Pennsylvania where he is a successful voice actor and all an author of making money in your PJs even though that's not his picture on the cover and A lot of other cool stuff a blog that everybody reads Never short of something to say on the voiceover industry. Let's welcome the one and only Paul Strickwritter Paul thanks for having there he is. All right. Good to see Good to have decided to wear some Dutch colors today, do you know why orange is the Dutch colors whenever you watch Dutch sports teams They always wear orange the Dutch fans. They were orange. They go crazy for orange. Why do they wear orange? Why do we wear orange because the Dutch flag is red white and blue, right? Right? So anybody have a guess? Because it's not orange The official flower of Not quite Has to do with the Dutch royal family the Dutch royal family is known as the house of orange. That is correct That's right. All right, and you still have a royalty as I recall. Oh, yes, very much so we have a queen from Argentina and Dutch King King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima. They have three beautiful daughters and they're incredibly popular in the Netherlands Everybody loves seeing them. They're not as stuck up as the British royal family or other royal families They're actually a little bit more like you and me and people like that. They make some mingle. They're highly intelligent and differently the darlings of Dutch society and I'd say the longer I'm away from the Netherlands the more I started appreciating these things and Family on Facebook, which I would never do Which I never did in Holland. I collect elf blue and all these things and we just had a shipment from van der Veen's Dutch Dutch store Because you know, I miss home. I want to go back home I want to taste home and I want to bring the Netherlands as close to me as possible because that's even though I'm an American citizen My heart is still in Holland. Yeah Yeah, you love watching those speed skaters. Anyway, yeah now you're a successful voice actor and And a blogger, but about a year and a half ago We were all stunned to hear that you had a stroke. How do you look back at that experience? That was one of the most Weird and puzzling moments in my life because I was sitting here in this chair when it happened in this very room And I didn't know it happened because what what basically happened was that passed out and Since then I've passed out a number of times to waking up in the arms of a fireman and ending up in the hospital again And I was wondering what was going on It was so weird because I've never had a stroke and never studied the symptoms of a stroke Now I know that if you feel numbness or weakness in your face or your arms Especially in one side that's a sign if you feel confused or you have difficulty speaking Trouble seeing out of both eyes Staying balanced or even getting up all these are signs of a stroke I had no idea what was going on But I was experiencing all these things all I knew at that point was that I was on the floor of my studio and The door was hermetically sealed because it's one of those big heavy studio doors I couldn't open it and I could barely breathe because I was running out of oxygen and I honestly thought that I was going to die and That's another place where you want to be really Start saying to yourself what can I do to get out of it because I can't open the door I need help but how do we reach somebody? I Couldn't reach my phone I knew where it was, but I had no strength in my arms to reach my phone and call my wife I tried speaking to Siri because I know if you talk to Siri it will call 911, right? And I didn't recognize my voice. It said like Siri, call 911 That's not me and then I started banging on the wall and nothing happened nothing happened for a long time and then I passed out again and At the same time at a different place in The town where I live my wife was expecting me at a council meeting My wife is a counselor in the in the ward where in the the borough where I live And she expect me at the meeting and I didn't show up and she got really worried and We have this amazing connection I guess that defies words and logic, but she felt that something could be seriously wrong So she decided to call friends of ours who live a couple houses done from us They have the keys for when we leave on vacation they feed the cats, etc So they were able to get inside the house and check in on me and I can't tell you how relieved I was to hear them knocking on the wall and I yell the elders And one of our friends is a nurse and he immediately saw the signs of stroke and Tried to wake me up again getting me out of my my confused state and at that point the police came in and the EMTs came in and Then I blanked out and I woke up in the emergency room of a nearby hospital Where they couldn't really help me they just stabilized me and then they said this guy needs to go to a stroke Center as soon as possible and before I knew it. I was on the floor of a helicopter being a Flown to to a stroke center nearby and then I I blanked out again But in the middle of what turned out to be an operation I woke up and I noticed that they were putting a tube in my my groin and What they did was Trying to reach my brain and take a blood clot out. That was the cause of the whole stroke It's very weird because I was in tremendous pain. I had the worst headache. I've ever had in my life Then I felt this tube going through my body and reach my my brain and it felt like You know, one of those grabbers that you see on a ferry and when you grab a little stuffed animal or something It felt like going in the middle of my skull But I got hold of that blood clot It took it away and immediately I felt a tremendous relief and the last thing I remember is a big smile On the face of my doctor and he said he's gonna be okay Gee yeah, I've never heard the retelling of a stroke treatment like that. That was my mind absolutely to the core Well, you know what what what I heard later is that? my wife was on her way following the ambulance the the the ambulance and the the helicopter and She got a call from the doctor because the doctor said I just want to introduce myself because there's probably not gonna be a lot of time For us to talk because with a stroke, you know timings of the essence if you see somebody who has the signs of a stroke Make sure that you call 911 as fast as possible because every main counts because the longer you wait the more brain cells The victim tends to lose and the worse off you are so he said to her You know, there's not much time to talk, but I want you to know they're basically two scenarios We have to do a CAT scan first and then we'll know how much the damage is really how much the the brain loss has spread around his brain how big the blood clot is and You have to think of two scenarios one is it's so bad He won't survive and the other one is that he will wake up and he'll be severely handicapped That's just prepare yourself for the worst And thank goodness as you can tell I'm still here to tell the tale. Yes I was extremely extremely lucky that I'm still here and I People ask me all the time. How are you feeling? And I feel so incredibly grateful and The world it and puzzled that I was able to survive this ordeal and I'm walking and talking. I'm working Are you are you writing? Are you fully recovered like never before? Are you fully recovered from it? That's the thing since you don't make new brain cells you never really ever fully recover from it What the brain is doing now is it's finding new neural pathways so that the brain cells that I do have Are taking over from the brain cells that are dead But I just visited my neurologist a week ago and he looked at my progress and said Well, all the recovery is done now from now on it will only get worse won't get better. He's Russian Mr. Optimus very empowering message. I say It only get worse from now on won't get better you if you've stopped your recovery By the way, that's something I completely chose to ignore When you one thing you learn when you're in a situation like this is don't ever trust experts Unless they're called down in George, of course But never trust experts because there's only so much they know about so little Because my own cardiologist Had declared me not a stroke risk and a couple of months after he said you're not a stroke risk I got a stroke. So, you know, you got to use your own brain and check in on your own health and Of course, it's good to to help people In your camp who know what they're doing But always do your own homework do your own research because you can't ever trust an expert really Yeah, well with the internet these days you can learn about anything You know, because if I if I needed an instructional video on how to do, you know a bone graft or something There's probably a video on there. I'm like I can do that. But anyway You know, oh, yeah, oh, yeah That's the trap that a lot of people fall into as well Think all this vo thing, you know, I'll just look up a couple of Yeah There's tons of them. Yeah And uh, it's you know, you can't learn how to drive a car on the internet. Can you? It's the same with voiceovers. It looks so easy. And that's the thing everything that looks easy Is not easy. In fact, I think the easier it looks the harder it is to do And that's something that I found out with my recovery as well because I think I'm still recovering and I hope I will Keep on recovering. That's why I chose not to believe the doctor that said this is the end. It will only get worse No, I think it will get better. Yeah, so so how did this how did this impact your career? I mean you were I remember you were out for a while and then I saw you somewhere and uh You know, it was like I'm tired, you know, it's like I'm sure it was along the lines of I'm gonna go for a walk No, I'm gonna go take a nap Yeah That's one big leftover from this stroke. It's my level of energy I used to be good for like five six hours in the studio. I did a lot of long term long form narration And I love doing that. I did a lot of audiobooks and a lot of e-learning stuff I got to tell you after pretty much an hour of narrating. I am completely pooped I don't like that because that cuts down on my time of making money And first of all after the stroke all I did was sleep sleep sleep for months Because that's the best way your body and your mind recovers sleep is what I needed and sleeping is what I did and For at least a year. I'd say I've barely made any money And now I can imagine all those people that we we find on on on facebook starting a go fund me campaign because They've run into health problems. And you know, if you don't work, we don't make any money So that's really really tough and Thank goodness for my wife. She's a music teacher. She teaches food and piano and She had her students, but if it were not for her, I don't know how I would have survived So that stuff, you know the lack of energy and that's still something I'm struggling with if I'm You know another thing that happened was my voice because my voice was not what it used to be in in two ways One one was very weird. I woke up out of the anesthesia and I sounded like a robot Literally like this I could not emote any emotion Because I didn't get in touch with that part of myself. That was the emotional part because my stroke happened on the The right side of the brain and that's where the seat of the emotions are So I sounded like a robot which is not really good when you're doing voiceovers for a living. I would say that I saw the text And I could not bring myself to put emotion into words. So that's kind of inconvenient How long how long did it take for you to get that back? I'd say a year of speech therapy And exercises every single day where I really had to take a page from the phone book or some very very boring piece of copy And go at it and and now be utterly joyful. Okay. I did it joyful now be completely sad Now pretend that your girlfriend just broke up with you You know through all kinds of emotions out there at me, which is really good If you wanted to learn how to become an actor. So I learned a lot as well But it took me a while to get there and it was I always described like this It was like I saw my emotions. They were behind a wall. I could see the door That would give me access to what's behind the wall I could see the key But I could not get the key to open that door and and reach it. Wow And you know what was a big breakthrough for me? When I went to vio Atlanta that was in at the end of March. I think this year And when I come home, I was a different person It was like the stories that you hear from people who go to some Revival gathering, you know where there's something happening where they catch the spirit But honestly, I don't know what it was but being with all these wonderful people that tremendous energy and voice over Atlanta Completely changed me and the floodgates open And completely the opposite of what I was before happened Before I couldn't access my emotions Now I'm really super emotional It's very socially inappropriate and very inconvenient, but I can't contain myself I I I get tearful at the weirdest moments Well, we're glad to have we're glad to have you back I mean clearly and uh, if you're just joining us our guest is paul strickrida And we're talking right now about the the stroke he had but more importantly his recovery And if you've got a question for him, throw it in the chat room right now If you're watching on facebook or if you're in our regular chat room Uh, throw it in there and we'll get that question to him in our next segment george. You had a question for him Yeah, what if anything do you attribute to your degree of recovery? I mean, I know you said Don't listen to the doctors, you know listen to yourself But I mean, do you feel like your diet and fitness routine Before the stroke attributed to your health now and how well you've been able to recover Uh, I I really have to admit it because uh, Like many voiceovers. I was leading a very sedentary life I'm in this box all day long I love what I do and I really get so much into the moment that I forget that time passes and that I really need to get up and stretch and Do my exercises and I really didn't do it And um, I have to admit that I still in that respect have to learn my lesson Because I'm just so darn tired all the time that I don't feel like going to the gym I really know I should I know that I walk a lot more. I love to hike. I love to bike I love to swim But really I need to still keep on working on staying into shape and um, of course it was part of my um It was hereditary as well because my my dad had heart problems. My mom had heart problems And I have something called aphib atrial fibrillation Which really means that your heartbeat goes crazy for no reason And I never knew that because for me it was completely normal that I had a heartbeat of 200 and uh One night my wife was was leaning with her head on my chest and she said what the heck is going on there? Your heart just goes bonkers. This is not normal. I said not normal. This is just the way I am He said no, we got to go and see cardiologist And they hook you up and they do the ekg and they said yeah, congratulations You're one of the many people in the united states who's got atrial fibrillation Now you're going to be in a regiment of of pills for the rest of your life and blood thinners and all sorts of things But um, yeah, my sedentary lifestyle wasn't really Helping plus I don't have any ventilation in the studio and that's done. That's really dumb The only thing that I can do is to ventilate this open the door But when you so caught up in the moment you forget opening this door and before you know, you don't have any oxygen and um That contributed to me fainting and then my heart playing up So one thing led to another we can fix we can fix that by the way Please do yes Actually, we're gonna talk about that a little bit later. So anyway, okay, good. Yes. Yes. Yes If you can vent about that would be great. Yeah, uh, like great pun. Uh anyhow, um Now you've been you you blog a lot you've you've been blogging for you know, since I've known you which is You know, I get on towards 10 years here Uh, you've been you've been doing it and you you blog about a lot of interesting things You know, I mean you blogged about your stroke and the recovery and stuff like that But I'm sure it gave you a different perspective on life in general And uh, you've been you've been brutally honest in your blogs lately. Uh, I mean you talked about Yeah, that was not easy to make that choice because uh Do I really want to share with the world that I'm not well that I can't work? Yeah Because before you know it, uh, people think of me as all that's paul and his stroke I better not invite him because you never know what what they'll do when there's a life session He's unreliable. He's he talked about his voice and his voice is not steady. So let's not hire the guy So that was a professional risk. Yeah at the same time I really wanted to give meaning to something that is utterly Meaningless to me a stroke that I got a stroke is this it's ridiculous really is no There's no other way to describe it. There's no way to make sense of something like this But I wanted to give it some meaning and the only way I could do that is to share what happened to me With other people so that they can recognize the signs of a stroke and maybe save a life down the line And help people become aware of their lifestyle the level of stress and what they can do to stay healthy and be more healthy so use me as an example and um Hold me up as a mirror and say, please. Please. Please be careful and be grateful And appreciative of what you have and and make sure that you that you are well and stay well so, um, I think that was more important for me than My considerations for my in my career And you know, it's been so incredibly wonderful to see all the responses from the people from all over the world On to my whole situation. I could have never imagined the warmth and the love and the support that I got From the people and now it's going to happen again You know, I had this when I did my talk at the Atlanta about the power of words And I had a nice room full of wonderful people colleagues Who were there and some of them never heard my story But I told them that when I woke up in the hospital in the middle of the night and I was disoriented had no idea what happened to me and Or what was going to happen to me whether or not I would make it And I needed some distraction. So what do you pick up your phone? You go to facebook And I just told people that I had this stroke and it was in the hospital and I started reading and People that I know have known for a long time And people that I don't even know but that I'm friends with on facebook Haven't been in touch for a while. They were all so wonderful and kind And they really helped me and they continued to help me because Not a day not a week goes by that somebody checks on on me. So paul I had to think about you How are you doing? Is there anything that I can do for you? How can I help you? And uh, it's just so incredibly hard warming Yeah, so I'm really happy that I shared it with the world and I want to use Today this this show as well to give a big thank you to all of you who have been there for me and who continue to be there for me You probably have no idea how much that means But it really helped me Hang in there and be as well as in today. Thank you for your support Yeah, well, I have one common thing in common. I've not had a stroke But I have lost my composure at vio Atlanta in front of 600 Did that couple years ago? Yeah I joined you and that's energy from that crowd is pretty intense. Yeah, I gotta tell you paul though. You sound great Uh, although interestingly enough you have regained a little bit of your dutch accent Have I? Kind of fascinating Um Now you've been writing, you know, I mean aside from writing about your stroke and stuff You've also been writing you wrote recently about misphonia, which I thought was fascinating. Talk. Let's talk about that a little bit Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's something that I'm getting to the stage where I'm not sure whether what happens to me. I can attribute to the stroke or maybe it's just old age I don't know. I just turned 56 But either way the symptoms are the same, but I was watching this phenomenal movie on netflix About a guy who is a Specialist on a submarine And he listens on his headphones all day long and he picks up signals from foreign craft and he just by listening to the signal He can tell what boat it is How many warheads it has and how far away it is. So he's got golden ears And it's perfectly normal and very appropriate and useful in that context of a submarine But then he goes out in the real world And all these sounds get to him and he basically gets overwhelmed by the sounds And I've watched that movie and said, you know what? That's me Yeah, we seemed we seem to have lost the connection We can we can get a signal back from pluto, but from pennsylvania. It's kind of sounds and of course that has to do with my All right, well, we're going to take a break right now and reestablish contact with with paul And we'll be right back with you do is with more questions right after this Before time began there was vobs.tv watch or else Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat. Were you? This is virgin radio. Well, okay. We're not that innocent. There's genes for wearing and there's genes for working Dickies because I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values A leader for california and a voice for america. It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smart phone But it's so much more. It's a the files are ready. Don't forget to pick up the eggs What time is hockey practice? Check out this song. It's the end of the road for rick Oh, this is your neighbor when hope is lost the i8 from bmw Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's j michael collins. Bet you think i'm gonna try and sell you a demo now, huh? I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email. It's j michael at jmc voiceover dot com Now if dan will stop waxing this mustache for a minute. We'll get back to the show As a voice talent you have to have a website But what a hassle getting someone to do it for you and when they finally do They break or don't look right on mobile devices. They're not built for marketing and seo. They're expensive You have limited or no control and it takes forever to get one built and go live So what's the best way to get you online in no time go to voice actor websites dot com Like our name implies voice actor websites dot com just does websites for voice actors We believe in creating fast mobile friendly responsive highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use You have full control no need to hire someone every time you want to make a change And our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time You can get your voice over website going for as little as 700 dollars So if you want your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options Go to voice actor websites dot com where your vio website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what For the last decade or so the name vio de gogo has become synonymous with up to the moment expert award-winning training and voice over performance business building and mindset But it's also been a name that requires some explanations Sometimes a repeat calling out the numeral two Well, it's time for a change It's time for a simpler more direct and easy to spell name for their company and their training One that embodies the mission they have to train voice over talent in the art the commerce the science and the mindset of voice over To help make vio to go go clients superheroes to their clients Within the next few weeks, they'll say goodbye to vio to go go dot com And they'll say hello to something new and deep and intelligent And fun the new name will represent all the familiar knowledge and content David and his team have been giving you for the last 12 years Plus a whole lot more and it'll be a lot easier to spell and to type into your browser Stay tuned This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voice over body shot No, but paul has a daughter and she's learning voice over And we are back and we know paul is back paul you're back with us I know i'm here. Yes. Sorry about that boy the internet. It's like you never know what's gonna happen We were talking about you you were talking about miss phonia and you were talking about a movie With a submarine sonar guy we're picking up where you were talking about that Yeah, yeah, I know this guy is known as mr. Golden ears and what he can do is he listens to the sonar all day long And he can pick up what vessel it is what how many warheads the vessel has how close it is And the the the whole operation of the the submarine really depends on his ears And of course they get into kind of a nuclear war situation gets really tense But anyway, the point was that when I looked at that guy said, you know, that is a little bit like me because I pick up things that other people normally would not pick up because I listen to sound all the time I analyze it. I hear every mouth click Every rumble every barking dog every little bit of detail And it's fantastic because I'm able to do my job because of it And I'm sure you can relate to that both of you because you listen to audio all the time You need to analyze and hear things that other people don't hear But it's also incredibly pain in the neck Because I can't shut it off I hear these things Constantly and maybe after my stroke it became intensified But because I became so irritated by sounds people eating very close to me Lip smacking people chewing with their mouth open The the oomph and the beat somebody listening to their earbuds And I get so mad at it. I just cannot stand it Or I go to a movie theater and it's all so loud. I go to a cafe You want to talk to people know there's music in the background and it really really I don't know it stresses me out And apparently I'm not the only one when I wrote about it I think I got at least 20 25 responses for people say I have exactly the same thing So it is a thing now. It's called misophonia, which is kind of hatred of sound when you translate it literally And I wish I could turn it off, but I haven't found that button yet So if you know the switch, please let me know. I don't know. I will throw it out there Now one of the things you've been doing is You're you're now coaching your daughter For voiceover. Are you not? Well, I've been doing that It was quite a while ago And I have to tell you it didn't go that well The first thing that I I really missed was that I don't think she was really into it And I kind of talked her into it I said, you know, it would be nice for you and It was it was a good job that was they were offering and there was a lot of money involved as well And I thought she really had a good voice and my daughter was like me. She was an early reader She was very expressive So I said, you know, why not a little bit of father-daughter bonding time and then I got into the studio and Gave her the text and she started reading and it really sounded not very good at all and I started coaching her and she said Do I have to do this? Do I really must and why is it? Why is this right and why isn't it what I do right? And they start to explain and I felt like that I was not capable of explaining clearly to her what I was doing And she felt like that whatever I was telling her she was not doing right Then it was really wrong that she was making mistakes and the more I tried to coach her The more sad she got and at the end she was in tears and she said dad Can you please leave the booth now? I'll I'll um, I need some time by myself and I'll make the recording and I'm done, okay So I should have prepared it much better and taken more time to explain to her what it was that I'm doing And why we're doing certain things Because you run into things that we just take for granted, you know that you don't touch the microphone While you're doing it that you don't move from left to right that much And that you stress certain words and not others And then when you coach other people you really learn about how hard this is that we're doing And I learned that the hard way from my daughter But the story does have a happy ending because after her experience she recorded it and I cut it together and it was really nice I thought and of course she didn't get the job, which is another story and she felt terribly rejected And I had to talk to her about that but a couple of weeks ago we had Father's Day weekend And um, I'm one of the announcers at our local farmers market the east of farmers market, which is the oldest continuously running farmers market in the united states. We've been there since 1752 And so that's where I really get to use my announcer voice And because of Father's Day weekend I said skyline you want to join me? She said yeah, I'd love to And while we're there, I said hey skyline, why don't you want to do a couple of announcements? You know, what do you feel up for it? Yeah, of course and She she took the information. She took the microphone and she started talking. She was great I didn't have to coach her at all. She was such a natural and we had a great time And people responded to her finally a younger voice not this old middle-aged guy, you know Who has been doing it for ages a young generation taking over very nice clear voice I just said dad if I if I can we do it again next week? I said yeah, great But on one condition that you also do the playlist for all the songs that we play at the market and she really did that and We've been back almost every week now And people love her so much. I'm so proud of her So even though it didn't work out with the whole voiceover thing She's now one of the new announcers of the east of farmers market I had similar thing happen with me with my kids too. I'm like, you know, I dragged him into the booth One of them really didn't like it at all and the other didn't like it very much But now he does all his own cartoon voices and stuff So he's just lucky. He's got a dad with a really nice studio And a whole lot you ready to take a couple of questions from our audience Oh, I'll bring it on. We need to ask you what your daughter's age range was. Yeah that Well, my when we got into the The studio I think she was around six or seven years old and now that's six or seven year old girl is 17 Well, I that really hits on my my 10 year old daughter Ella's here with me. We take a little took a little stab at it. There she is He took a stab at it and I knew that unless she was really highly motivated to pursue it If unless we had time as parents To get her to the proper coaching she needed because I could coach her to a small degree but I'm not a voice actor Um, that she wouldn't be you know, wouldn't be realistic. So, you know Well, she's she's 10 and maybe too much when she's 11 or maybe when she's in seventh grade She's gonna it's gonna click At all the stuff she's seen her dad working with and all these voice actors and She'll go I actually is something I want to try but you know, certainly not shoving her in any hard direction right now But it hits home hearing that story. Yeah Yeah, well, I never had the idea that my daughter should follow in my footsteps I just thought there's a nice bonding experience. Let's have some fun together Where it was an ordeal and I decided not to bring it up until she would bring it up and Who knows what will happen? Um, she might actually go back into the studio and start recording again now that she's so easy with the microphone And it's it's not easy to to do this because in a way I think it's easy to be in a studio where there's nobody around you Right and you're anonymous because when you're at the market We get thousands of people on a nice Saturday and they all see you And if you're very self-conscious, it's not an easy thing You know, they say the number one thing that people fear more than death is public speaking And that's public speaking But I love doing it because um One of the things that we have in the studio is that we don't have the interaction with people There's no feedback when we say things into the microphone We don't know how things land but when you do live announcing you see immediate response You get immediate feedback We had when Skyler was announcing and playing music We had a couple of comedians at the market They immediately started rolling with it. They started dancing and Making fun and we see people having fun there. It's a completely different experience from being in the booth So I can highly recommend it to people who are wondering if there's more to voiceover life than just being in a booth talking to your hand Please see if there's a local opportunity an event or something where they need an mc and try your hand at that because I'm telling you I've done some pretty great Work as a voiceover for big companies that pay me big money That there's nothing as satisfying as being a volunteer at the farmers market every Saturday. I just love it Yeah, I've done air shows and things like that and they are a lot of fun Because you really get to you get the shake hands with people and it's really great We got a question from our good friend Lee penny Hey, yeah, who asks hey paul hodge. You get so darn good looking Oh gosh, I think that I have to talk to my wife because she obviously talked to lee here You know a couple of weeks ago I uh I had a tooth that was not cooperating and it needed and needed to go and toothache is the worst ache and now part of my my face was swollen and I I uh wrote on my pictures. This is mr. Potato Head. That's what I felt Thank goodness the swelling has gone down, but uh, thank you very much lee. I appreciate it must be my dutch genes Yeah, uh front north asks. He said I recall you talking about almost suffocating in your booth And you were saying that you you still haven't added ventilation into that booth now I remember when you were building that and you wrote a an e-book about it Uh, and we interviewed you before you did any of the treatment and it was the the it was it sounded like you were in your bathroom Uh, but it sounds much better now. That was good six seven years ago Uh, are you planning on adding ventilation? Is it something you've thought about? I mean, it's because I remember you you hermetically sealed this thing and talked about getting all the little pinpoints of light out Once you sealed it up. So that thing is completely airtight It is it is it is and um, I've been thinking about it lately because uh I need a new computer and everybody recommends that I should take my computer out of the booth But that required drilling holes in my booth and I just don't want that Ah, it's not that bad. You know, you It's probably a lot quieter in there than you probably realize So, you know, but there are ways to ventilate. So we're gonna we're gonna work on that Well, I'll tell you that's nothing to sneeze at because uh, you can basically Start you don't run out of oxygen so much as you poison yourself with carbon dioxide. Yeah That's the problem. So you you will die from like your own carbon dioxide poisoning Before you run out of oxygen I know someone at billa studio That it was an oversight, you know, he thought it's something he could deal with later And I I think it's causing some health issues health risks because of it and that's much larger facility so the other day, you know noise floor is uh Something we can buy back with some technology. So don't worry about sacrificing it Just a little bit. Yeah for your for your health. Yeah You're one of your tech talks of all about ventilation that would be We're very interested in that. We're gonna talk about that tonight. You need to talk about tech stuff today And I don't have a lot on my docket. So this is now on the list. Yes Great great be a lot of fun to talk about that Dave Smith asks, do you have any problems with any hand? And if so, is that the same or better? You didn't did you have much physical, uh Probably yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely Because the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body and my left side is still weaker. My hand is weaker And um, when I'm really tired my my leg starts, uh, uh, dragging and um So that's that's something that I still struggle with and I have these, uh, rubber balls that I need to squeeze That's one thing my wife says come on get the balls out and squeeze your balls And I don't do it enough. So okay, she's watching right now. I promise Pam when I come back up I'll start squeezing my balls again But that's something that I noticed that the left side of my body is the weaker side. Yes, definitely interesting, um Four things yeah four things that you wish you would have known Before getting into voiceover Go Well the one To pick up on the last thing of course How important your health is because I think that it's the one thing that all of us take for granted We don't think about that when we're well, we don't think about it. It's like, you know, you um, you uh You hit one of your toes and all of a sudden you realize it's there and how annoying it is and how painful it is That's with me too. I was leading my happy life and uh, I knew where my heart was a little my heartbeat was a little bit off but that was it And then you wake up in the emergency room and all of a sudden Everything around you is beeping people every half hour ask you what your name is when you were born Who the president of the united states is and things like that And then you realize how fragile life really is, you know, you don't really need to do anything to get into this situation And uh, so I think that if if anything I hope that people will become more mindful of their health and how Important it is that you take good care of yourself because if you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of other people as well So that's one big thing the other thing I think that people overlook is With technology having become cheaper that they think it's so cheap To get your start and voice over and it probably is compared to many years ago But the rest is just an illusion because what I think back I've been doing this for many many years now. How much I've invested over the years in this career It's thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars And it's all money that's coming out of your pocket because if you go to a bank and you ask for a loan Because you want to become a voice over. I bet nobody good luck with that one. Yeah, exactly. First of all, you're a freelancer So there's no steady income coming in. So I said, well come back if you have a steady income Forget about that. It's all it's got to come from you. So you need to have a big cash cushion to start this thing up and you need good equipment because you You got to get past the usb microphone and your your cheap setup Then you need to have a website. You need to get hosting you need to get a couple of demos That's thousands of dollars right there Then you need to keep on investing investing investing every year you need to keep on improving and you got you pay your membership your dues to To to vovo, of course it all adds up you go to conferences And it's all money spent that that is worthwhile But it's it's not cheap to make it in this business. And I think that that's one thing that people overlook as well and and We were talking a little bit before we got the show started It's not as easy to be outstanding anymore and to stand out anymore because there's so many people Trying to do what you do And there's so many people who are better than you are and you don't know it because you're by yourself And you're watching your youtube videos hoping to get better trying to teach yourself this thing that you think you like so much And you discover that it's very hard to pick yourself up by your your own bootstraps and improve at your own game Because think about coaching as well a good coach I'd say Costs at least 80 to 150 bucks an hour I mean I do coaching sessions. I charge 125 dollars for 50 minutes so That that's not really cheap and you really do need these things and it adds up so If people had told me how how expensive it would be To get started this thing called voiceover. I would have thought twice about doing it I I was very glad that I had a support system of people around me who Would be able to pay the bills while I was getting Getting my feet wet doing this voiceover thing because otherwise I would not have made it. It's it's it's so tough. It's so tough Yeah Well, it's it's it's it's a it's a fascinating story and you know, I mean your career has been fascinating and you know How you you know you saw you started your career in the netherlands and then brought it here and then you know Transfer, you know, and then transferring you're doing freelance voiceover Now you you write about a lot of this stuff in your blog a lot of it is You know, I we don't want to discourage people Uh, but like you were saying it's not an easy business to get into and you you're constantly You're railing on you know, everybody's trying to get into voiceover and Should you do it? well, it's For me what i'm struggling with is finding the right tone of voice because I don't want to be this guy with this race thing I say, you know, you're doing this wrong and all bashing all the newbies all the time Because everybody has a right to to give this a go And I I think if people really feel that true passion this calling That's what they should do because it's we all are in it because we love doing it There's nothing more gratifying than you having a great session with a great director on the other end of the line Who really elevates your level and brings things out of you that you never thought you had in you And when you're done and the client is happy and you see the end result and you're really proud of what you've done That's the best feeling in the world and I really Want everybody to have that feeling So who am I to discourage them? And so i'm not going to say don't do this and you're doing this wrong wrong wrong all the time But what i'm trying to do is to tell stories and and instead of arguing with people Because it's hard to argue with a story. I think the story is just a story A tale about someone else In your situation and you can read it and you can choose to accept it and take away what you want to take away Or you can completely discard it. It's not this guy telling you what not to do or what to do So, um, that's why i find using this blog a very good good way for me to to reach people And i'm i'm really astonished that after at least 10 years of writing that people are still interested in reading my stuff I read it whenever I wake up in the morning and I go to my my phone first after I kiss my wife Um, and I and I pick up the phone and like oh paul's got a new blog post So that's like one of the first things i'll do when I when I see that so i really appreciate Gerard McGuire said in the chat and you know, he said it's obvious What a fine writer paul is he is amazingly articulate. Yeah and Regarding how to subscribe to the blog nancy asks. Well, hey paul, how do you how do you subscribe to the blog because It might be somebody watching who's not a subscriber as hard as that is to believe Oh, yeah Well, thank you for asking that question in the upper right hand corner There is a box that says subscribe and you you put your email address in there You can unsubscribe anytime that will mean that you get weekly updates and uh, that's the simplest way to do better voice Yeah, if you go to nethervoice.com forward slash nether voice That's really a bad URL, but at the time I had it. I uh, I didn't know anything about URLs I should have done slash blog, but anyway, it's nethervoice.com slash nether voice That's where you get to the blog and then the upper right hand corner There's a little box and you can put in your name and I'll be eternally grateful for that Excellent paul it is it is so good to see you, you know in the pink again And and and working again and writing again And just being amongst us, which is the best part of all and thanks for being with us tonight Oh, I really enjoyed it and um, I want to thank you guys too because You are doing such a wonderful service to our community and you've been I mean talking about my blog I've been going on forever, but you've been going for so long as well I remember that you said, you know, we'll probably do this like maybe 10 20 times But you keep on going and going with the most tremendous guests And the way doing this the whole interaction and now you in pennsylvania and you in california and i'm here It's really delightful and I've learned so much and all my students all the people who want to know more about voiceover I send them to you guys because you're not only informative You're entertaining and I've gotten to know both of you over the years And you're both really good people and we need more of you guys So thank you so much for all you've done for our community and done for me personally. Thank you so much You're quite welcome. Paulster. Where to yeah great to talk to you Yeah, all righty. Well, george and I will wipe a few tears away and we'll be right back to say goodbye Right after this This is anthony mendez. You're watching voiceover body shop Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead Now there's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer that place is voiceover extra dot com Whether you're just exploring a voiceover career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voiceover extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books auditioning casting home studio setup and equipment Marketing performance techniques and much more It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voiceover success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voiceover audition It's all here at voiceover extra dot com. That's voice over x t r a dot com Voiceover essentials dot com just put their vo 1a microphone on sale for a limited time $20 off the regular price of two ninety nine Now here are some of the most recent quotes. They've gotten on the vo 1a from the war room studio We've been saying the vo 1a is a really great quality mic for the dollar Since 2011 we've been using it in our broadcast studio for eight years and we're still it still hasn't let us down They just work and sound good. This is a great mic From monsoor reyes Thanks for this finally a harlan hogan vo 1a review based on my cans. That is a great sounding mic For michael hall. I recently bought the vo 1a and love it too Amazing mic for the money. Here's another one. Hey, it's my mic I own the vo 1a and i've gotten hundreds of jobs over the years with it I'm adding a 416 soon. But honestly, I think there'll always be a place for the vo 1a in my arsenal I can't tell you how many compliments i've received from top industry pros over the years regarding the sound Also, take whatever you want from the vo 1a's web page and here's the address right here Mention that there are over 50 additional quotes from delighted customers at the bottom of the page Hmm including one for me and of course mention it's the voiceover microphone This is ariana rattner and you're listening to voiceover body shop vlbs.tv Hey, it's that time of the show where I make up something true about source elements and source connect And here's another true fact this software is the longest running audio streaming tool That's been used by the voiceover business in all, you know, there's there's many tools out there that run on web browsers and there's other systems that work inside a metal box that go in your rack and But this thing has been around for well over 10 years And it is in doing so it is established itself source connect that is Of being really the business tool for voiceover professionals. It has really become a standard Um now it's no longer become Do you have source connect? It is basically becoming now studio saying what is your source connect ID? So we can connect to you. I mean, it's really a big deal. Um, it's what studios ask for So if you don't have it go out go to source dash elements dot com Sign up for a 15 day free trial of the source connect standard software You don't have to have the little iLock key to do that Just if you're not ready to pay don't worry about it. Just get that Initial setup going there's a little hurdle of setting up some Technology to get it working But once it's set you're ready to go and when that session comes in the door Or you get that agent who says you have to have it or you get auditions saying you have to have it You you can say you got it and when that job hits your hits your inbox saying we're ready to go Go online pay for your subscription or you can buy it outright, but you should have it That source connect and it's a pros tool for connecting the studios Uh, we'll be right back with more from v obs and dan back in california Before time began there was v obs dot tv watch or else Well, it's so great to talk to paul. I mean it's always fun talking to him I mean i'll text with him every now and again, but you know hearing that story. It's a it's a good warning for everybody. I think It really is it really is it's it's uh health issues are not something that are strange to me and my family You know strokes took out my grand both my grandmothers and You know others health issues diabetes is a big issue big issue. So it really Makes me straighten up when I hear these stories. So I appreciate paul's sharing that with us. Absolutely Well next week on this very show It'll be tech talk number 14, which we are about to record So, you know, you can sit you can watch it live and ask questions live or you can watch it all next week But no matter what so we'll do that. Who are our donors of the week a large pile of them from what I can see Yes, we are so blessed. I have to say um A couple names maybe I haven't seen before and many I have which is wonderful ryan lilek I believe it is. Let me spell it to make sure I didn't say it wrong l e l e k Tom pinto. Thanks tom tray moseley pearl hewitt George widham senior whose office you're sitting in Right now as as am I sort of but who legitimately cannot figure out how to cancel his auto subscription But he's glad it's going like I talked to him about it today. So like no, no, no I really do appreciate being able to support you guys doing what you do Um patty gibbons diana birdsall and Uncle Roy's ant land productions. Thanks for those subscriptions Almost all of those are subscriptions But you don't have to subscribe if you just have a get if we have a guest on that you really found helpful Or we teach you something or tell you something you needed to know It's a good time to just drop us a little bit of a little donation and it's right there on the website Vrbs.tv also on our website you can join the mailing list which is pretty important our mailing list is over 600 now So we want to get up to a thousand You know mailing lists seem so passé and so I don't know 90s, but Social media is so overwhelming that the mailing lists are kind of coming back and becoming more of a thing So it's a valuable way to stay in touch when you're kind of overwhelmed with social media Right. So if you need help with your home studio, well, there's only two places you need to go One of them is george and where do they go when they want to talk to you? You can head over to george the dot tech And for many of you folks that maybe are under a certain age Or maybe I should say over a certain age. Okay. I'm being a little agist. I apologize georgethetech.com Again, I have to mention my dad. He's like, I just don't like that domain george the dot tech. I'm like, you know what? It's okay. There's some people out there that get it But you can find me either place and all of my services are available to you right there on the website And if you're overwhelmed with choices, there are a lot You can always just drop us a message or call if you have Trying to wonder what the service you should look into for your problems and dan He does a lot of crazy stuff over there. That's helpful with a lot of voiceovers at homevoiceoverstudio.com And uh, you know, I help people every day. They send me their audio You can click on my specimen collection cup. Send me some dry audio from your studio. Let's see how you really sound so That's a big help Hey, if you want to be in our studio gets get a shot of the studio audience, sue Oh, let's see. Let's see it. Come on. I had a much bigger studio audience here. There's our studio I had a much bigger studio audience here. I took a picture of everybody in the living room watching the show It was about nine people. Yeah watching here. So I'll I'll post that for you guys Yeah, if you want to join us in the studio, write to us at the guys at v obs dot tv And say hey, we want to come see the show live because it's fun to do see the show live and it makes us even more excited Anyway, um, we need to thank our sponsors, of course, harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements Beo to go go for the time being voice actor websites.com and Michael Collins demos. Alrighty. We also need to thank the dan and marcia lennard foundation for the betterment of fine webcasting Uh, Sue marlina parents for the use of this studio. Oh, absolutely. Uh, george and barry. Thank you so much for that Uh, we didn't see them. Just your just your uncles, uh, you know, but anyway And and your daughter uh our our fantastic technical director sue marlino for doing a bang-up job tonight And of course lee penni who was watching tonight simply for lee penni. All right Well, now we're gonna reset for tech talk and so stay tuned for that I'm dan lennard. I'm george widdum and this is voiceover or v o Alrighty