The right tool for the job

I’ve written about this a few times before, but Seth Godin reminds me again today why I say I’m not in the voiceover business, I’m in the problem solving business. What hammer are you carrying around? If the only tool in your toolkit is the voiceover hammer, and that’s working for you, good. If, on the other hand, that one tool is limiting your opportunities and your voiceover business; maybe it’s time to figure out how to be more flexible.
Here’s a real world example. I love narrating audiobooks, especially non-fiction audiobooks. It’s a lot of work for the amount of money involved, but I love each one of them because I love telling stories and audiobooks are wonderfully long stories. So, a couple of years ago I received a message from a publisher who needed someone to edit an audiobook that was read by the author. The pay was pretty decent so I took that job. I didn’t get to tell the story that time, but it added nicely to my bank account and, as it turned out, the author was an excellent reader. All in all in wonderful experience. One I would have missed (not to mention the check) had I only thought in terms of voicing audiobooks rather than helping to solve problems.