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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Carrie Olsen and I’m honored to bring you this episode about a hard lesson I learned through rejection. In case you’re interested, I was tied for being the shortest person in my class in the third grade.
Today’s Fun Fact: In ancient Egypt, servants were smeared with honey in order to attract flies away from the pharaoh. Innovative, yes. But also oddly cruel.
What I Learned Yesterday:
I’m a voice actor, and a significant piece of what I do is auditioning for potential voiceover jobs in commercials, online videos and e-learning. One day I got a text from one of my agents at 10:00 pm, which doesn’t happen often. I figured I must have booked a pretty big job. My agent asked if she could call right then. Of course, I said yes. She let me know that I was in the running for a job, and that the client might want to start recording spots as early as the next morning. I was ecstatic! When my agent forwarded me the email with details, she accidentally sent along the thread from the client, which indicated that I wasn’t just in the running for the job; I was the top pick!
I had already planned to have breakfast with a friend the next morning, and I didn’t cancel my plans since I could always just head to the studio from breakfast if the client needed me to. Well, the next morning at breakfast, the client did need me. My agent called and said that they wanted to hear a second audition. So I left breakfast, recorded a second audition from home, and then headed to the studio, anticipating that we would start recording spots.
Imagine my shock and surprise when I got an email from my agent, sitting in the parking of the studio that said, “Dang it — it didn’t go our way.” My heart sunk. I was especially dumbfounded because I had seen the email chain from the client saying I was the top pick. What had happened? What changed the clients’ minds between 10 pm last night and 9 am this morning? It was a hard reality to deal with, and I found myself angry, bitter, and resentful for days afterwards. But…
Here’s what I learned.
Life goes on. That things won’t always go my way. No amount of blaming myself or conjuring up reasons why things didn’t go my way will magically change the outcome. But more importantly, my value isn’t determined by the jobs I get. I teach a class in voiceover, and I always tell my students that after they’ve done an audition, if they can say that they brought everything they had to the table for that audition, then they’ve done their job. Also, I’m stronger now. It’s all a process of developing tough skin, which is absolutely necessary, especially in this industry.
I’m Carrie Olsen and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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