00:00
After I got head trauma, like I just busted the glass and we told them what happened.

00:12
Welcome to another episode of Chewing the Fat. I am your host, Big Robb. Thank you so much for tuning in, downloading the podcast. I certainly do appreciate that. Thanks to the folks that have bought me a coffee at chewingthefatbr.com. And the folks that have followed me over on Instagram at Chewing the Fat BR. This is the podcast where we explore beautiful, messy human stories.

00:35
and find out how to keep the darkness at bay. I've got a guest on from outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Please welcome voice actor podcast host. It is Andrew Morrison. Andrew. Hello, buddy. Thanks for having me on. Oh, this is awesome. Thank you so much for agreeing to be here. Yeah. I found you as I'm new in my journey in voice acting and this community just keeps growing. I keep finding people. And then I found that you were actually in Augusta.

01:03
Although you've now moved. I didn't realize that until I reached out. I was like, hey, you can come to the house. And you're like, ah, it's gonna be a bit of a drive. But- I haven't changed it yet on purpose. So I moved maybe like two, two and a half years ago. Oh wow. And I kept, you know, on Facebook where you get where those fake accounts will make accounts of like your friends and then try to be like, hey, like join the Illuminati or whatever. I started getting like an influx of those.

01:30
And so I would just ask them, okay, well, where do I live? And they would say, Augusta. And I would be like, nope, you don't know me. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. That's a great way to kind of beat the scammers there. That's awesome. And so there's a valuable tip for you, just right off the bat. Thank you, Andrew, I appreciate that. This life lesson learned. Boom, done, show over. Andrew, so you're not from Augusta. You lived here for a while. Where are you from originally?

01:59
Um, I mean, I was a military kid, so I bounced around a whole lot, but I would say most of my life I spent around Douglasville. Okay. So I lived in Doug- when my parents moved back to Georgia, we lived in Marietta for a little bit, but we had a lot of family in Douglasville. So we moved to Douglasville.

02:15
And then I went to Sandy Springs to go to college. And then I moved back to Douglasville, got married, had kids, did that whole thing. And then we split and then I moved to Macon for work. And then I moved to Augusta and then I moved back to Macon. And then I ended up moving back to Douglasville. OK, OK. Full circle. Well, the goal was to get as close to my kids as possible because I was driving like three hours one way from Augusta just to see them. And so now now I'm like five minutes down the street. It's great. Oh, that's awesome.

02:44
That's awesome. There's nothing to be sad for sure. For a while, when I was working in radio in Birmingham, my family was still here in Augusta. And so there was like six months where I was there and they were here. So every other weekend it was like, it's a four hour one way drive, but you like, you gain an hour when you go from Birmingham to Augusta because of the time zone, but then you lose an hour going from Augusta to Birmingham because it was so weird. It was so weird, but yeah.

03:13
No, that's awesome to be that close. So what was life like for you? Were you always, I mean, you got a great voice and now you're using it for its God-intended purpose. Was that one of those things that when you were growing up, it was like, oh, you got a great voice, you should be on radio or you should do that or were you the guy that made the funny voices in class or how did you get into voice acting?

03:40
Not necessarily. So I, most of my early 20s and teens, in late teens, I was working in and out of restaurants. Oh wow. And I went and attempted to get a culinary degree and turns out that can only get you a bump of $2 an hour at certain restaurants. And so I continued working on that path and tried to do entrepreneurship for a while. I ended up in a coffee house that turned out to be a roaster.

04:08
And so I started roasting coffee for a little bit. And then my roaster ended up retiring and I didn't have the funds to keep everything together without contracting another roaster. And so that ended up going down. And so I ended up becoming a manager at another restaurant. And I mean, every once in a while, I would get people that in the restaurant telling me, oh, you should do radio or something like that. No, I didn't even think of it. But...

04:34
I got an advertisement for one of the pay to play sites and it said, get a job as a voice actor. I was like, I'd love to get a job. Like thinking that it was like a, like a job career. And so I'm going through and filling out the information. I'm like demos. I have no idea what that is. Uh, experience none. And then at the end it was like $500. And I was like, I'm working in a restaurant. I don't have a spare $500 right now, but I was really, really curious because like just a spark happened while I was like, there's a new industry here and I at least get a

05:03
figure out what it is. And so I went down the rabbit hole and I joined a bunch of Facebook groups and I watched a crap ton of YouTube videos and I started listening to a bunch of podcasts and at the time a really good barrier entry for me was audiobooks. And so I started working on audiobooks and I started finding different video game auditions and very, very fortunately one of the first projects I got to work on was a DLC for Fallout 4.

05:31
And then, because after 76 came out, like Bethesda just started building more maps for four. And so I got to play a ghoul in that. And then I did a bunch of audio books and then it went from there to gaining a bunch, getting enough money to start getting demos produced, to start marketing myself, to start contacting agents and contacting producers and just scratching and clawing. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think that's, you know, I know I see it because I, these are the groups that I'm in now is I see the

05:59
Hey, you can have a six-figure career in 90 days. That is absolutely not what this is. It is scratching and clawing and contacting and emailing and building relationships. It's not about like some, it's definitely not a get rich quick scheme. Absolutely not. And people see surface numbers, but they don't see the actual numbers. So like say,

06:23
audio books because I keep seeing on TikTok all the time where somebody's like, did you know that you can get paid $300 to record an audiobook each hour? Well, that's $300 per finished hour if you have the equipment to be able to book a $300 job. Most of them are around like $100 per finished hour. And that's finished audio. Right. One hour takes when you're first getting started, probably like

06:45
five to seven hours to do one hour of audio, because you're gonna make mistakes and then you gotta engineer it and you gotta make sure that it's up to the producer's specs. And then once you get quicker, it's still like three to four hours per hour of audio. And so at that point, you're hunting down jobs to maybe make $25 an hour, which still sounds good in this economy, but like once you account for how much time it took you to find that job and how much money you put into equipment and it's...

07:13
It is not a get rich quick thing. No, no, no. You've gotta really love it to do it. It's fruitful. If you put the time in, it could be a very, very fruitful career and very, very fulfilling, but you're not out the gate making six pictures. Yeah, definitely not in 90 days or whatever. Yeah, but you're right. It is an amazing career. It is amazing if you're passionate for it.

07:42
You know, one of the biggest things that I've learned in my life, you know, going to trainings and coaching and things like that, you know, it's voice acting, it's acting. You have to like acting or else you're not gonna be able to, it's because the thing is, is you're gonna have directors, you're gonna have, you know, either a directed session and they're like, okay, I need you to put more of this feeling into that. And if you don't know what that means and how to take direction, you can't change and then you're not.

08:09
you're not gonna do what they want you to and you're not gonna get another book. Because then, just as much as his relationship, the word's gonna get out. I was like, yeah, so Rob can't take direction. So then you unfortunately get blackballed with other casting directors because they all know each other. It's a fairly small community. It's very supportive if you're approaching it right. But if you're, like I said, if you come in with like, hey, all right, I'm the thing and I'm gonna do this and blah, blah, blah, and you're gonna love me.

08:38
Lose to my voice. It's like well, you got a great voice, but you can't do anything with it Yeah, yeah, that's you know I had a session yesterday where it was a 30 minute session and it was for one line It was just what like one tag and so they got what they wanted within like the first like three to five minutes But they're like we booked you for 30 minutes. So the rest of the 25 minutes was just me giving them

09:05
different option. Each one had to be like very specific and very different from the last and it was just 30 minutes of me giving very different takes of one line. And that kind of improv skill comes in handy more times than I can count. Yeah. Yeah. Did you do a lot of I know you said you worked restaurants, but did you was that a passion for yours like when you were in high school or anything like that acting doing the drama club or Yeah, I did a little bit of theater.

09:33
I did theater and I did video production when I was in high school And and I've always been a very theatrical person like I mean I'm the first person to throw musicals on when I get into the car like when Hamilton came out I was I was one of the obsessive before it became trendy. Yeah nice That's the at the at tricks are just like I enjoy them. That's great. That's great Is there a certain well you said?

10:00
You say musical and you say Hamilton. Is there a certain, like, do you remember your first, like, role or your first, uh, you know, like, did you have it on stage? Did you do on stage work as well? No, I've never done on stage. I mean, unless you count now, like I've done a little bit of like background work, cause I'm in Atlanta and so I contacted a couple of casting companies just to kind of supplement income. Cause I was curious. I was like, I'd like to do background work and maybe find myself on camera or doing in-person commercials. Like I'd like to.

10:30
dip my toe in different parts of entertainment. Yeah, for sure. And so I've been exploring that, but like voiceover's still my bread and butter. That's awesome. But I wasn't like, I didn't grow up as like a kid in like a theater troupe or anything like that. Well, what were you into when you were a kid then? Experiences. So I did spend a lot of time in Hawaii because my dad was stationed there. And so I was a member of the Honolulu Boy Choir.

10:56
But I mean, I was a snorkeling guy. I was a whale watching guy. I was a go and explore and hike and track and create adventures. I love adventures. Oh, that's awesome. So I was always ready for like whatever the next adventure would be. Yeah. You find yourself that you're kind of a spontaneous person like that? Like, hey, let's get the car. Let's drive to the beach. You're like, well, the beach is for you. Instead of going to the beach is four hours away. You're like, yes.

11:23
That's very much so. Actually, when I now now I've got it to a science, but when I was first getting into creating businesses, that was one of the hardest parts was structure because I am a very spontaneous person. Now that makes networking and sales very easy because it brings forth a lot of ideas. Wait, what if I market this way? What if I do this? What if I do this? What but like consistency was when I was maybe 25 was like something hard to kind of get fine tuned.

11:53
Yeah, yeah, that's really cool though. That's cool that you found your way into that because we were talking before we started recording and that you individually market yourself to these production companies and places that are looking for voice actors and stuff like that instead of going kind of the plug and play automated type route, which there's advantages to that, there's also advantages to that personal touch.

12:20
that you know that every person you talk to, it's your words, you're talking. You're not pulling a chat GPT on them and copy and paste type stuff. Right. Well, I mean, because there is the numbers game of marketing because I mean, no matter what kind of business you're in, me being a voiceover artist, it is me running a business and me offering my services to different people. And the only way to get in front of people is to show people, hey, here's my stuff, hire me. Like, I mean, not quite as salesy as that, but like, you gotta show people your stuff. And so,

12:50
I choose the more time consuming route of crafting each individual email individually. Because I am of the opinion that a lot of people, especially in today's generation, can smell bullshit a mile away. And they can tell when you're using some kind of automated system or something along those lines. Now, I am working on figuring out how to use AI tools and new automations and stuff like that. Because I believe the AI boom is similar to the way email was in the early 2000s.

13:19
where people are like, oh, this email thing, is it going to happen? It's just going to go away and we're going to keep sending our faxes and whatever. And now where are we? So, I mean, I definitely believe it's here to stay and I want to figure out how to utilize it to its fullest benefit without taking away from creatives. Yeah. But but for right now, as I'm ramping up my marketing and as I'm trying to expand my business and as I'm contacting very, very large companies.

13:49
I feel like the best way to contact those larger companies is by being genuine. And the most genuine way to do that is to send their email individually. So if I want to get in front of a hundred people in a day, then I'm sending a hundred individual emails a day and it takes late nights. And I mean, I'll schedule them. I'll work late at night doing that part of it, and then just schedule them to go out the following morning so that way I'm at the top of their inbox. But, but I, right now I do spend a lot of like.

14:16
sitting in my office like scheduling out emails and crafting things and figuring out how to get in front of people. I love that though. And I'm sure that's probably refreshing to a lot of people too, because like you said, there are tools out there and then people are getting the same similar email and they feel bombarded by it. And then something that's more genuine personal kind of cuts through.

14:43
You know, hopefully that's not that's the hope but but I feel like people realize that I know I've done some stuff Reaching out to people and they're like and I get these emails all the time like this You're the first person actually send me a voice note. That's amazing. Thank you, you know, it's like that's what made it stand out, you know, so So in in with your voice acting stuff like this you also a podcast host that is a V o adjacent

15:10
podcast, which probably helps your networking. It's kind of like, hey, I'm going to tie a bunch of things in this ribbon to kind of make them all work. The podcast is The Voice Over Coffee Shop, right? Yes, The Voice Over Coffee Shop. That's correct. And how long have you been doing that? Since February of 2021. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. So you got a couple months on me. Starting in June of 2021. Yeah.

15:38
So what brought, I assume that what brought that about was the fact that you're now doing voiceover. So you're wanting to learn more and so it was an education for you or had you done podcasts prior to that? No, that was my first podcast. And I mean, even if you, I don't wanna say I'm ashamed of my earlier episode, but I definitely had to get my footing. But no, when the pandemic happened in 2020, like a lot of the voiceover related conferences were like only remote or they were non-existent.

16:08
And I had a lot of questions and I really, really liked people. And so I just started sending zoom invites to people, whether it was somebody who was an actor who I had seen on TV or somebody who I was proficient within like the Facebook groups. I was curious and I wanted to get to know people. And so I had one point where I maybe had like 15 zoom meetings in a week. It was crazy. And so I had sent.

16:35
a message to a animation coach who is big in animation and he used to work on the Simpsons. His name is Everett Oliver. And so I sent him a message and he was like, well, here's my business consultation form. It's $150 an hour. And I'm like, well, that's valuable, but that's not what this is. I really just want to get to know who you are. Your name circles, goes around my circles all the time. And I just want to like meet you.

16:59
And he said, call me. And I said, okay. And so I called him. He's like, what do you want? I was like, well, I just want to get to know you and blah, blah, blah. And so when we finally sat down and we had a zoom meeting and we talked, he was like, if you're talking to so many different people all the time in the voiceover industry, and you're just there to gain knowledge, why don't you turn it into a podcast? And so I wanted to figure out what format I wanted. And so I watched a bunch of voiceover podcasts and a lot of voice actors were getting asked the same 10 questions over and over and over again. And I had follow-up questions.

17:29
And one of my favorite speaking environments was when I was working in coffee shops or roasting coffee was that coffee shop environment where you're actually getting to know somebody and you're sitting over coffee and there's no like fluff. It's not a show. It's just a conversation. Yeah. And so I like Bob Bergen. Bob Bergen is the voice of Porky Pig. But when I brought him onto the show, like, yes, he talked about Porky Pig as like how he got into the industry, but I didn't once ask him about it. I wanted to know about his current dubbing work. I don't want to know.

17:58
something that somebody did 15, 20 years ago, because one, there is already enough content around that if they've been interviewed, and two, that's not gonna be relevant to me. I don't have questions regarding that. I've got questions regarding how your marketing's to yourself, how you're positioning yourself, how you are being more creative, how you are building your characters, how changes in the marketplaces have affected how you think as an actor. That's what I wanna know. And so it became the voice of our coffee shop.

18:28
That's awesome. That's awesome. And you're up to like, is it like 77 78 episodes, something like that? So 79 79. I believe 79 was last Friday and then 80 will be this Friday. That's awesome. That's awesome. You've been doing it weekly? Or do you take time off? Do you do it in seasons? Um, I do it sporadically.

18:52
I tried to do it weekly for a long time, but being a full-time voiceover artist and entrepreneur, that is very time consuming. Being a father of two is sometimes time consuming. And then when I do go to conferences, when I go spend time with my partner, like it's I try to do it as often as I can. I put out at least once a month, a couple of months I'll put out for

19:12
But I'm trying to get back into the consistency of it and trying to put them out every week, even if I have to pre-record a couple and then schedule them out. But overall, once a week to once every two weeks. That's awesome. Yeah, that was one of the hardest lessons I learned is when I started the podcast, because I was like, all right, I'm gonna do something every week, every week, and trying to find guests.

19:35
and booking guests and recording and then getting it done and then doing all the marketing that you have to do with it and the graphic, because I'm doing all the graphics, I'm doing all the editing, I'm doing all the everything, and then putting it out. And I felt so almost burned out after the first season, I do it in seasons, I usually take the end of December through February off. That way I know, that way I hate, this is, I'm gonna do this, if I can do every week, great, but that's the thing I've learned is like,

20:05
If it's not there or if something's going on that's taking me away from it, it's okay. People still listen and they would rather it be genuine instead of forced. And if I have to force a conversation or struggle to meet a deadline, I'm the only one holding all the keys. This podcast is me. And so give myself a little grace. As much as I tell other people to give themselves grace, I wasn't taking my own advice.

20:33
Yeah, and I wanted to make because a lot of my stuff is entrepreneur or voiceover focused, I didn't want to just try to pull like any voiceover artists that I can find off of Twitter or something like that. You know, I wanted to find people that I have genuine interest in that I believe I can have honest conversations with and people that I have questions for.

20:53
And a lot of that comes organic. Now I have a list of guests that I intend to bring on. But before I was making those friends and building those relationships with people, I didn't want it to be just a forced, I need to get a guest. Like, where do I find a guest? I didn't want it to become that. You know? And I mean, it took me a long time to figure out how to be a host. Because in my first couple of episodes, I was putting all of the...

21:21
moxie on them. I'm trying to think of another word, but everything on them and like let trying to let their personality shine through instead of becoming a host and actually having a conversation with people. And that took a lot longer to learn than I thought it would until a friend of mine came to me was like, Hey, this was a really interesting person, but your interview was really boring. And I think that a lot of that was you. Oh, wow. Yeah. But you know, that's what it takes. Sometimes it takes that friend to get be real honest with you and like, hey, I'm telling you because I love you.

21:51
that you back it off a little bit, let these people tell their story. That's what I try to do with this is to be just a guide, to allow you to tell your story and what you've got going on and where you're coming from and things like that. Because everybody, I think everybody has a very interesting story. And you never know who's listening that is gonna catch something that resonates with them personally, and how they are now moving through life.

22:21
things like that. So no stopping for the voiceover coffee shop then. Absolutely not. No, I mean I interviewed people when I had stitches in my head. Like I know I do not like my like Daniel Ross the voice of Donald Duck that interview like I have like a cut like right here with stitches like just hanging in my head. Why that happened? I do not. So I'm gonna give you the truth.

22:48
So my partner and I went on to North Georgia, Helen. We went and got a cabin in Helen, Georgia as like for our anniversary. And we went out on the back deck where there was a patio and it was on the side of a mountain. So like over the deck is like a drop. And we closed the door and the door locked and our phones and stuff were inside. So we were locked on the deck of this cabin with like no way back inside.

23:17
Oh my god. And so I thought I was going to be smart and there was a grill on the deck. And so I used the grill. I was going to use the grill spatula to try to pry the door open and it was serrated. And so trying to like slip it up into the lock, it came back and it hit me in the head. And so I had a serrated real spatula. Holy cow, which causes a whole new problem with not being able to get to the.

23:42
own because now you have head trauma and oh no after i got head trauma like i just busted the glass and we told them what happened but i was like i don't want to damage the property i don't want to break the glass of this door like this is like an airbnb sort of situation so i don't want to like bust the glass but like once you're profusely bleeding from your head you're gonna break the glass wow

24:05
And it's all good now, all recovered. I don't see any scars or anything like that. Oh yeah, that was like two years ago. Okay, wow. Holy cow. That's a great story though. I mean, jeez. It was fun. It was fun after, correct. Right, right, once the stitches got in and the bleeding had stopped and then you could look back and laugh. Oh, remember that. That's awesome.

24:35
Um, so what, uh, other than podcasts and your marketing, what, uh, what's bringing you joy, Andrew? A lot of things bring me joy. Um, it's very hard for me not to have a joyous day. I'm very, very fortunate. I mean, I've got great kids. I've got a great partner. I've got a great career. I mean, I have hard days. I have stressful days, but I mean, I mean, even in my work, like I like spending a lot of time in this office.

25:04
and I like working because I'm a very mission-driven person. I mean, even when I'm sending like a 100 emails a day and I'm not getting responses, like I'm chipping away at my mission and at my career and at my goals, and even just sending those messages or building more connections, or if I'm not getting hired immediately, like building a connection with a studio and building a relationship, or building relationships with colleagues and hopping on Zoom meetings with them.

25:32
All of that is very, very fulfilling for me. That's awesome. I love that. Is there a like, well, entrepreneurship is always a journey. There's no end to entrepreneurship. There's no top of the hill. They say the top of one mountain is the bottom of another, keep climbing. You know what I mean? But for like the podcast, or for your career, is there like a...

26:00
A brand you'd love to work with, is there a guest you'd love to have on the podcast that's like the dream? If I can get them, that would be so amazing type thing. Or if I could get in a whatever spot, that would be amazing that you've got in mind. As far as individual spots, no, I wouldn't say so. I mean, yeah, there are brands that when they come across and like when I booked the job, I'm like, that's really cool that I booked that.

26:28
And like when I first got into this, I was like, I want to work with Nintendo. I want to work with like Coca-Cola. I want to do that. But like the more like those are the 2% wins. Even booking a job is the 2% wins. Like when you see somebody successful in their career, you're seeing 2% of what they're doing and you're not seeing the, uh, the rest of like the 98% of the stress and the worry and all the things that took them to get there and all the.

26:51
other jobs are doing or when you see a voice actor that's like, hey, they voice this big campaign or they voice this video game. You're not seeing like all of the internal e-learning or explainer videos or corporate stuff or on hold messaging stuff that they also did. Like that was like that built their income. So that way they could do the audition to potentially get that other job. So, I mean, and I enjoy that, especially being remote and being in Atlanta. Like I'm.

27:17
Very good friends with a lot of people in a lot of major studios, and they have been very point blank with because I've met them at conferences and they're super sweet people and I love to have coffee with them. And we have honest conversations about how with a lot of stuff, with the fast turnaround or with how we want to keep things as uniform as possible, unless you're living in L.A. or New York, you wouldn't be able to work for our specific company. And I find those things as eye opening, like say dubbing.

27:44
I've talked to some people at Funimation and they have told me that because of simuldubs and we're doing stuff overnight, even if you built a budget to fly out here, sometimes we send auditions that send notices at 11 o'clock at night saying that you have to be at the studio at 8 o'clock in the morning. So that would not make sense. So I took that as an opportunity. Okay, if I cannot get my foot in the door.

28:05
And these Japanese studios, who's doing Korean dubbing? Who's doing Polish dubbing? Who's doing Chinese dubbing? Like, I try to find my work anywhere that I can because I love storytelling. Like, it doesn't need to be a major brand. Oftentimes, the people that are still bootstrapping their business, those are the people that are most passionate about the story that's going into it. And then being able to trust you to tell that story is amazing.

28:32
And that's how you get ground floor into stuff. Like when you're working with an indie animation studio, you never know if something they create is gonna end up blowing up and people are gonna notice you from it. I prefer to be at the base and I prefer to work with people that are just as passionate about the story that they wrote as me who's telling it. That's awesome. And so, as far as podcast goes, I wanna give the answer of, oh, I love all my guests and they're amazing, which they are.

29:02
wonderful people, but if I can get Will Arnett to finally answer my emails, that would be dope. Like, they said yes, and then they said not at this time, and then they said yes again, and then I don't know. I don't know where that's going to go. But if I could get Will Arnett on my podcast, that would be a fever dream. Well, I mean, if he's in Atlanta shooting another episode of the Lego Masters, maybe just like... Right. Yeah. I know a few people that weren't rigging on that show, it's like, I mean, like, hey.

29:30
He just slipped this in Will's dressing room for Andrew. That'd be amazing. Yeah, no, he's, he's a great actor and he, and, and how he got into this industry was very, very, very similar where he just took on a bunch of small parts until he could land some big parts. And then now a lot of voiceover scripts for males are coming in. We want to Will Arnett type and stuff like that. But like how he started his career was literally just finding any production he could get into and finding a way to be an

30:01
Yeah. Because once you can be an actor in front of people, then they can see what you've got.

30:11
Andrew, this is the second segment of the show where we dive a little bit deeper into your mental health journey. You know, I'm a firm believer that one of the things depression tells us is that we are alone. So the more we can talk about it, the more power it takes away from that so that people realize they are not alone. And that other people go through these same type of struggles. Other people deal with anxiety and stuff like that. For you, how do you keep the darkness at bay?

30:38
I do a lot of it through finding things that bring purpose to me. Because I know there is a difference between medical anxiety versus just the feelings of anxiety. And a lot of the feelings of anxiety I can correlate to different aspects of my business. Whenever I feel anxious in my business, that usually means that I have too many choices or too many things going on. And so that's generally when I make a list of all the things going on and build them by priority.

31:08
When I feel depressed in my business, usually I correlate that to like a sense of hopelessness. And so that means I need to find more choices. But when I'm personally having down days, honestly, a lot of times I'll just contact colleagues or I'll find auditions to do. Because then that allows me to immerse myself into a story. And that allows me to relive the reason that I love this.

31:34
Or I mean, sometimes I'll just spend some time with my kids, or I'll spend some time with my partner. But I mean, I'm very goal driven. And so I do listen to a lot of motivational stuff. I have to find that fine line between, am I listening to motivational stuff because it's productive, or am I listening to motivational stuff because it's distracting me from what I actually need to be doing? But yeah, no, I...

31:59
I try to find other things that either give me peace or give me goals. Because being a mission driven guy, I try to figure out another thing that will lead to my mission. And also whenever things get hard and I start to feel anxious about it, um, or depressed about it, I try to flip the script on it because the harder something is for me to do, if I'm doing something here and it's difficult that

32:27
also means that a bunch of people did something here and it was difficult and they gave up. Which means the more difficult things I can do, no matter what the feelings they put me through, the smaller my pool will be and the greater the fruit it will bear. I love that. And I love that your mindset is very much about... I hear seeking balance is what I hear.

32:54
You know, if there's something that's, you know, if there's something that's too, you're gonna rise to the occasion, you're gonna balance yourself to the occasion. If it's something that's, feel like it's weighing you down, you're gonna do something that's gonna bolster you up. If, you know, if you feel anxious because there's too much, okay, then maybe I need to start subtracting things to find that balance point. I love that. Right, and I'm not a work-life balance person. Yeah.

33:20
And a lot of people are, and a lot of people need that. And I understand that, and that's just not how I'm personally wired. And I recognize that. But I'm very, again, I'm just very goal driven. And so if that takes late nights or if that takes more time, I find that I find more peace in that. I feel accomplished. And it's hard to feel anxious or depressed about something when you feel accomplished. Because I stopped looking.

33:50
at the goal as the goal, if that makes sense. I stopped looking at the end goal as the goal rather. But what I've started doing is instead looking at my tasks for the day that inevitably over the law of averages lead to that goal. And now my tasks for the day are my goal. So if I'm able to get even 80% of my to-do list done for that day, I feel accomplished. And I feel like I did something that day. Because I'm...

34:16
very conscious of my mortality. And I'm very aware that every single second counts. And where I feel the most depressed is when I look back on my day and I'm like, what did I do with myself? Like I didn't do anything. I don't feel like I did anything towards my goal. I don't feel like, I feel like I was given a day where I woke up and was given life and was able to breathe it and I didn't do anything with it. And I hate that feeling.

34:45
And so if I'm able to accomplish something or I'm able to get through a list or I'm able to talk to a friend or spend some time with them or like any number of things, then I feel like I had an accomplished day and that gives me purpose.

35:01
And you're right. I read a book by Oliver Berkman, it's called 4,000 Weeks, Time Management for Mortals. And it's very much that same type of, like be aware of the time, Jeff. We all live about 4,000 weeks. So when you're given this time, what are you gonna do with it? And it's okay to make those priorities and do those things. And sometimes the other 20% is not gonna get done on the list.

35:31
Be okay with that just as much as you feel accomplished that you got the 80%. It's like, be okay that, all right, well, I didn't get to that 20%. That now goes onto tomorrow's list or whatever. It's okay. And like you said, just to feel that sense of accomplishment. I love that mindset about what you're doing and how you approach each day, basically. Just each day of life. That is great. No, even cold callings like I'll...

35:56
Like I, I, I sometimes would do cold call. I don't do it super often, but I will sometimes do cold calling for my business and I even had to turn it into a game because the worst part of court cold calling is call. No, no, no, we don't want you. No, we don't want this thing. We don't want what you have to offer. Whatever. So I started to make a game out of it where every time somebody's like my goal was to get 20 consecutive nos in a row. So the minute somebody says yes. Oh.

36:23
darn, gotta start all over again. Gee golly. I love that. I love game of flying stuff. Yeah, yeah, and that's a great technique for people who do have issues where it's like, somebody could easily hit that 19th, no, be like, but if they weren't wanting to get the 20th so they could accomplish something, hey, I got 20 in a row.

36:53
Because either way, you're either going to start over and feel accomplished now that you have to start over because you didn't get a no, or you're going to hit the no and feel accomplished because I had a great day, you know what I mean? Yeah. You can give yourself a chocolate chip cookie or something else. No, that's awesome. You know, and that is, that's one of those techniques that I think anybody can do is you find the fun in it, find the game in it. Well, yeah, because I don't like to have the thoughts

37:23
I have to do this. I have to do this thing. I have to do this marketing to get jobs. I have to do it. Like I get to do this. I chose this. Like all of my decisions, at least ever since I moved out of my parents house, like 10, 12 years ago, every decision that I've made up until then, for the most part, has been my decision. So I have done the things that have led to this. And so I chose this and I get to do this. And sometimes it's really, really cool. I mean, granted, a lot of voiceover work.

37:52
like 70 to 80% of it, especially in today's market, is an office job. Like it's direct marketing and keeping spreadsheets and doing your taxes and stuff like that. But I mean even that part, like I get to do this. And it's still really, really cool. And I love the get to instead of have to mindset.

38:13
All right, Andrew, it's time now for the third segment of the show. It's time now for the Fast Five. The Fast Five. It's time now for the Fast Five. Fast Five. Sorry, I'm still working on a theme song there. I'll get somebody to write something eventually. Fast Five is powered by Poddex. If you go to chewingfatbr.com slash poddex, it'll take you to the link where you can download the app on your Google store or your app.

38:40
Apple Store or wherever it is. It's great. It's made for podcasts, it's great interview questions. But they're also icebreakers and stuff like that. So if you just need to have some cool questions next time you go networking, check out pod decks. It's five questions. No wrong answers. So no pressure. No wrong. I'll give you a wrong answer. No, there are no. Don't test me. You're challenging me. 19 wrong answers. No, no wrong answers. All right, you ready to go?

39:10
Yeah. Here we go. Question number one.

39:15
you can choose anyone in the world to become friends with, who would you choose? Will Arnett. There you go. Nice. Nice, that would make getting him on the podcast so much easier. Well, I mean, I don't want him on the podcast because he's Will Arnett. I find him a very interesting person. He's a really good actor, and there are traits to him that I really, really admire. So it's switched. No, I love that. I love that, though. That's a great answer. Question number two.

39:46
What is your greatest fear and how do you manage that fear? Public speaking, I will let you know when I figure out how to manage it. Mm, wow. Weirdly enough, yeah, every time I get on stage in front of people or I talk in front of a large crowd, like, I mean, Zoom meetings and doing directed sessions and even recording in studio, I haven't had that problem. But when I am the center of...

40:11
Knowledge if that makes sense like if I am if I am where the attention is due to an expectation I get this ringing in my ear and my legs start shaking and I can't figure out why like I mean inside I'll be like, I'm okay. Why do I feel weird? Why is my body doing this? But like my body just has a reaction and I still can't figure out how to get past it Just maybe you find like an improv class or something that gets you on a stage Where you're having to rely on your own words with other people in front of people just just a thought

40:40
Maybe, but then when I become friends with them, it won't be an issue. Like, it's always strangers. Well, no. Well, the audience is always a stranger. So, that's true. The audience is always a stranger. But yeah, anyway, just a thought, you know, I know there's like Dad's Garage is a great improv theater up there in the Atlanta area and stuff like that. And they have, you know, classes that you could even just, you know, check out and see. Just a thought. Not trying to change your life or anything. But I mean, I've been looking for an improv troupe around Atlanta anyway. So thank you for that. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right.

41:10
Question number three.

41:15
What makes you lose track of time? Chocolate covered Reese's pretzels. Ooh. Wow, you just. I just go to town on the bag, man. Or second answer, those weird, like, those weird malicious compliance Reddit stories. Oh yeah.

41:37
Like where they're like, okay boss, well you told me to do it this way, fine, I'll do it the exact way that you wanted me to. And then like the company crashes and burns. Like I love those. Like I mean, they don't serve me, they don't benefit me in any way. But like I just, I just can't get enough of those and I don't know why. That is good though. That is good. Maybe because I used to work for corporate America. I'm like, you're a burning girl. Right. There's a little part of you inside. You know, I think when you've, it's, what is it, shared trauma.

42:05
You know, we all kind of rally around the shared trauma we had because of corporate America at some point. Or if you worked at a fast food restaurant or a Walmart or if you ever worked retail, pretty much any retail ever, it's all shared trauma. That is all that is. I love that. Question number four.

42:31
Where is one place you hope to visit before you die? Ooh, now I have to think. The Netherlands. I have two friends in the Netherlands and they post pictures of the food and the culture and the mountains and it looks gorgeous. And I would love to experience that culture. It looks beautiful. Yeah.

43:01
Yeah, go visit Santa Claus and just do the whole nine. Right. That'd be amazing. I love that. The Netherlands would be great. Yeah, I love that. It's funny, I have a friend who's actually on vacation in the Netherlands. The voice actor friend, Anton Gill, he is on vacation up around that area for a couple of weeks. That's really cool. Yeah, I keep telling him, I was like, send me pictures. He's like, I'm making the pictures in my head. I'm not really doing it with my phone. I was like, all right, all right, fine. You should have strapped a GoPro to his head before you left.

43:30
Enjoy then enjoy your vacation. All right question number five

43:39
What do you love to do for others?

43:45
Problem solved. I like to problem solve for others. Very very often I have a gaggle of really really close friends in the industry. Like I mean I have a lot of friends that I've made over the years in the voiceover industry or in just friends in general. But you know adult life like friends come and go and whatever so I still have like a close group of people and a majority of them are from the voiceover industry.

44:10
And we very, very often, like whenever we are coming across problems, we will consult with each other. Like, Hey, how are you addressing that? And not just like, like physical problems, but mental problems too, where we'll, we'll sit and be like, Hey, do you have time for a call really quick? I'm really going through it right now and I can use some help. And, and those are always incredibly fruitful and, and very, very filling and, and great. Like I love having those pow wows. Yeah. There's something special about being part of a sounding board.

44:40
or somebody that just needs someone to know that you're listening and that you're invested to kind of help them through. It's like, do you need me to actually, do you want me to just, I've said this to my wife before, it's like when she comes to me with a problem, it's like, do you want me to fix the problem or do you want me to feel the problem? Because there's two different things and you may need one of those. You don't want me to come up with a solution. You just need me to hear that you have a problem.

45:08
Right. But if you want me to hear that you have a problem and help you figure out a way to solve it, then we can do that too. I'm here for either of that. So. Right. And I love problem solving because I love like I like being resourceful. Like I love being resourceful. Like, oh, this thing has been troubling you for the past three months. Well, what do you know? I have just the fix. Like Dr. Feelgood. Right.

45:32
I've got this cable that I've been keeping for like five moves and it's 20 years old, but it's the exact adapter that you need so that it'll fix whatever you got going on. Right. And that box of cables that you keep. No, I love that. That's great. Well, Andrew, that's question number five. That is the Fast Five and that is the show. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for having me on, man. This was a blast. This was fun. Yeah, I really, really do appreciate it and hopefully I will.

45:59
be able to join your cadre of friends now and as we go through this voiceover thing. But if people want to keep up with you, what's the best way they can do that?

46:10
Andrew D Morrison dot com or the voiceover coffee shop is at VO coffee shop dot com or anywhere you can get podcasts including on YouTube. Awesome. So I'll make sure to put those links in the show notes so that folks can find you directly. And yeah, if you haven't listened to the voiceover coffee shop yet, please take a listen. It is great conversations very similar, very similar to to what we do here on Chewing the Fat. But it's real people, real conversations.

46:40
And if you've not, if you have listened and you've not given Andrew a five star rating yet on whatever platform you list to please do that. Write him a review as well on Apple podcasts, because that, let me tell you, as a podcaster, that means so much to us. And when we see those emails come through that we've gotten either a new rating or, or a new review on the podcast. So please do that for a hand. I would appreciate it personally. Bless man. Thank you. I love you. I wish you nothing but success in everything that you've got going on. And I know we'll talk again soon. Yeah, absolutely.

47:10
Absolutely. And if you would like to support this podcast, I'd appreciate it if you bought me a coffee at ChewingTheFatBR.com. But until next time, I look forward to the chance we have to sit a spell and chew the fat.