Well hello hello! Karen-Eileen Gordon here, Technique and Home Studio Advisory Goddess. In addition to storytelling, my other great passion in life is the wellness world. I come by this passion honestly: at the start of my performance career, in my effort to take advantage of every glittery sparkly opportunity that came my way, I often found myself working until I was a burnt-out-pile-of-goo, requiring massive rest in order to get back to base-line. After way too long in that cycle, I sought and found tools that helped me work from a “full well” – some of these tools are: meditation, yoga, Reiki, reflexology, aromatherapy, sound work, color therapy, acupuncture/pressure, and the list goes on from there. I now keynote and workshop on something I love to call “Radical Self-Care for Voice-Over Artists” – more on that in another blog!
What I’d like to do today is plant a few seeds in your fertile voice-over brain: have you ever considered using your gorgeous voice-over talents in the category of wellness? “Well, Karen-Eileen…(I can hear you, yes I can!), I mean, I’m interested in my health just like the next human but what do I have to offer the wellness world as a voice-over talent?” GREAT question, and the answer is: a lot.
Whatever you personally are trying for in your health and wellness world, I guarantee you that there are tons of humans who are either trying the same thing or thinking about it. There’s nothing more inspirational than hearing another human’s honest journey, the wins and the losses. Speaking for myself – I always benefit from knowing what does NOT work for someone as well as what DOES…so if you have the belief that you must have a degree or certification to share your experience in the wellness world, I very humbly disagree (IMPORTANT: always be clear in your voice-over products that you are not a physician or medical professional (unless of course you are one!), and that your personal voice-over story/opinion is meant for information purposes only, and is never meant to replace the care or guidance of a trained medical advisor.)
Let’s start with some “low-hanging fruit,” as the buzz-phrase goes: wellness audiobooks. I am, as many of you know, engaged in an ongoing mad crush with audiobooks…I’m constantly in production on at least one, typically via ACX.com. Currently on ACX, there are 22 genres of audiobooks available for your viewing pleasure, and two of my favorites are “health and fitness” and “self development.” Today, as I write and speak this, there are nearly 350 books in those two categories waiting for the right audiobook voice-over talent.
Here’s an unexpected benefit of choosing to seek voice-over jobs in the wellness arena: it reinforces your own wellness. Someone massively brilliant once said (in fact a lot of people have said a variation of this), “We keep what we have by giving it away.” Another way to put it: what we’re offering to the world via voice-over strengthens that very thing in us. It’s a win-win.
Here’s another yummy wellness voice-over idea: if this category of voice-over is new to you and you’re open to donating a little of your time and talent (and trying on something novel!), consider creating a short meditation. (Yes, that’s right!) I know many of you meditate, and likely have crossed paths with what is called a “guided meditation.” For those unfamiliar, a “guided meditation” is one in which you relax and listen to a voice-over of someone leading you into a deep state of calm, typically with music in the background. If you are already a meditation fan – try this one on! If you have a Home Studio, this is a wonderful new thing to experiment with. In terms of adding music, here’s a great tool, which many of you already make use of: YouTube has an AMAZING, royalty-free music library at your disposal, if you’d like to investigate adding a bit of music under your meditation (Google: “YouTube Sound Library.”) And be easy with this: two minutes? Five minutes? It doesn’t need to be a 20-minute meditation to start with, unless you’re having so much fun with it that you’d like to do that length.
Another useful resource to see what’s happening in the meditation world, if this idea intrigues you: “Insight Timer.” On it, there are 55,000 free meditations available at this moment; ranging from five minutes to 30 minutes or more (helpful whole-body voice-over wellness tip: meditation strengthens your ability to get-and-stay calm quickly, so is a fabulous business practice for your ever-growing career). Insight Timer calls themselves “the largest free library on earth!” You’ll create a free account to use it, either on your computer, or on the awesome app via smartphone or tablet. AND! If you want to do this on a regular basis, either as a gift to the planet or on the way to creating your own wellness voice-over content and monetizing it, this organization is happy to have you apply to contribute regular content: insighttimer.com/meditation-teachers/join.
To bring it all home: take a look at your current, past or future wellness and health adventures, and see if there’s anything in there that you feel moved to share as a voice-over product. (Meditation in a certain area of health/wellness? Podcast? Audio blog post? YouTube video that you voice? Ebook that you then voice as your own audiobook?) And/or explore the places in the world where folks who are hungry for that kind of content might be looking for YOU (Insight Timer is just a place to start!). As a voice-over artist, you can also approach humans in your world in this arena and offer your voice-over magic. (Does your yoga studio need a new outgoing voicemail message? Does your gym’s website need a welcome voice-over?) Here’s to your voice-over wellness and success–and please let me know what happens!
