General

Kara Edwards can. OK, I guess maybe I didn’t quite get that quote exactly right; but you really should spend a couple of minutes reading Kara’s blog today. Her post Mrs. Flexibility has some very good words for you, especially if you’re tempted to fill your day with lots of low rate jobs just to guarantee a certain amount of monthly income.

When you want something bad enough, and work hard enough, is it possible to achieve the impossible? From the time Bob Bergen was 12 years old, he wanted to grow up to be come the voice of Porky Pig. To read the story, don’t miss Stephanie’s superb review and summary of Bob Bergen’s presentation at VOICE 2007.

One of the great highlights of that evening was learning that a tape Bob made (when he was 14!) talking with Mel Blanc on the phone, still exists. Bob has posted the conversation on his web site.

Adam Creighton is an actor who lives in Austin, TX. We’ve not yet met in person, though I’m hoping to see him when I travel to Austin in a couple of months. Along with lots of other things, Adam blogs about acting and voice acting in a place he calls Ramblings. I visit Adam’s Ramblings often, because he so frequently has things to say that I need or want to hear.

His post called Networking for actors is a perfect example.

Adam writes about how much time and effort he used to put into networking, and then says…

But then I stopped doing it.

Why?

Because I honestly didn’t like how good I was at networking. I got into situations and saw people doing the networking thing, and they weren’t sincere. They were looking at opportunities for themselves, and didn’t give a damn about the people they were meeting. They were superficial. They were exploiters. They were users.

I so didn’t want to be them.

So, Adam did what most of us do. He over corrected. More recently, though he’s started networking again…but with a difference…

Here’s how it works for me.

I meet someone, and we talk. I find out what they do, what they’d like to do, and what makes their day worthwhile. And I talk about what I do, what I’d like to do, and what makes my day worthwhile. And we figure out if we’ve got stuff we want to do together that makes our days worthwhile together.

That’s right, kids, we have a conversation.

And then, independent of whether we can do something together, I try to keep that person in mind when opportunities come up for them, even if there’s no benefit to me.

I encourage you to read the entire post, but leave you with this final quote…

The net-net is I think networking — really effective networking — shouldn’t be exploitative “what can you do for me” usury. It should be relationship building. It should be mutually beneficial. And when it’s not mutually beneficial, it should be beneficial for the other person.

If everyone had that mentality, what kind of cool world would this be?

Very, Adam. Very.