Paul Schmidt, Voice Actor, Entrepreneur, Dad

00:00
The gasoline that fuels this community is kindness and generosity.

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. This podcast is where we help tell beautiful, messy human stories. Maybe help you keep the darkness at bay as well. I appreciate you being here. And it would not be a show without my guests. And I'm so happy to have this man on with me. He has become an inspiration to me here recently in my journey into...

00:41
voice acting, I just gravitated to his no-nonsense, no-bullshit style. Please welcome from Richmond, Virginia, it is Paul Schmidt. Hey, Robb. How are you, man? It's good to be here. Thank you, Paul. Thank you so much for agreeing to be here on the show. Well, thank you for having me and thanks for the kind words. I really appreciate that. Yeah. You know, as...

01:06
We were on a call the other week and I said, you probably could tell my story is just as easily as I could. Because you've heard it so many times. But I found out about Paul at my first foray into a VO conference, VO Atlanta earlier this year. And his attitude was very similar to how I approach things. Some people think it can come off as crass, but it's just matter of fact. It's like, and at my age, I'd rather you say something plainly and me know what you mean, as opposed to trying.

01:35
figure out some innuendo double entendre or whatever, you know, just say it. That way it makes it easier for me to just make more forward momentum. Paul is a voice actor, a VO coach. He came from radio as well. And you're in Richmond, Virginia now, but that's not where you're from though, right? Where are you from originally, Paul? Originally born and spent the first 30 years in Baltimore.

02:05
So a big Orioles fan and Ravens fan to this day. Now, deal, you talk about the, you know, the darkness and the onset of the darkness. When you get swept in the divisional round for the wild card round for the second straight year, there's some darkness that crops up. So, but you know what? I'm a long suffering Orioles fan and just to have them back in the playoff race every year is a treat. So, you know, it's funny. I.

02:34
I was never a sport. I was always the band kid, the theater kid. So I was never a sport. But I was an Orioles fan here in Augusta, Georgia. Because I liked the logo. I liked the orange and black. I liked the bird. You know what I mean? It's stupid. Because everybody here was a Braves fan or this, that, or the other, and I already didn't know. So I'm like, well, I'm an Orioles fan. It's like, oh, OK. You know? Hey, we'll take them anyway.

03:04
Take them anyway we can get them, you know what I mean? And I feel like I didn't have to answer a whole lot of questions after that, because they're like, oh, OK. So growing up in Baltimore, I said you're in voice acting now, was that your path when you were a kid? Did you create your own radio station in your garage? Well, you know, my path kind of looks like one of those mazes on a place mat, Long John Silver's, right?

03:34
So I start when I was a kid, kid. So my mom was from coal country in West Virginia, right? And I grew up in East Baltimore. And, you know, when you sat and I sounded like my mom because, you know, my dad was working all day. And so I spent more time with my mom, obviously when I was a kid and I had a noticeable Southern accent in East Baltimore, which is not a friend maker. It turns out.

04:02
Yeah. You know, kids can be cruel and what have you. And I took my fair share of ribbing and an occasional, you know, beat down over it. And and so in school, I got exposed to school plays and what have you. And I got to play characters. Characters didn't have a Southern accent. And so I learned that theater. Was, I mean, a lot of people go to it for the escape.

04:30
I went to it for two things, the attention, which I now know I was doing, and the, like, it's going to teach me how to speak better. Right? And better in my mind was let's not get my face handed to me every day. And so I, and I really took to it. I really, really loved it and did in Baltimore in those days. The only thing to do was musicals and I'm not, I'm not a singer, but you know, if you give me

04:57
six, eight, ten weeks worth of practice and a patient musical director, yeah, I can get there. Right? Yeah. Just don't ask me to sing harmony. Big enough handle on that bucket, you can carry that tune. Exactly. Yeah. Big enough handle is right. And I was, you know, I was successful on a community level. Like I did a lot of community theater. I did some summer stock theater when I got older. And then I thought that was going to be my trajectory. And I entered college as a theater

05:27
It was artistically, it was like getting dropped off a cliff because I went from, you know, like Rogers and Hammerstein right into Chekhov, right? We did. I was the only freshman to make the main stage production that year. And we did the three sisters. And, you know, if you're familiar with Chekhov at all, it's like it's it's heavy. It's deep, you know, Russian theater. Yeah. And I essentially went, nope, not for me.

05:54
I didn't like the way they were they were teaching theater, etc, etc. And I said, you know what, I'm going to take a break. And that break ended up being from the theater, ended up being 15 years until I did my next production. So in the meantime, I was like, all right, what the hell am I going to do with my life? And I just on a whim, I took a radio one on one course and we cold red spots the first day. And the teacher who God rest his soul, Jim English, he was the guy that lit the fire.

06:24
And he said to me, I want to see you after class. I thought, oh God, I fucked up something again. And he said, I want you to, I want you to go over to Van Bocklin Hall and go down in the basement and find the radio station and find a guy named Dave Sullivan and tell him you want a morning show shift on the radio station. And I said, am I being punished? And he said, he said, he said, no, he said, you cold read well, and we need talent on the radio station and we'd really like you to be a part of that. Okay.

06:53
And I sucked at it and was terrified of it for three years because we had a 50,000 watt student radio station, which on the East Coast is a rarity. And it was student run, student operated, the whole nine yards. But that's where the fire was lit. And then I ended up going into radio for 15, almost total, almost 20 years, almost 15 of that was on the air in one shape or the other.

07:22
That's how we got, you know, that's how it started. And then of course doing radio is when I started doing production, meaning producing commercials. And when I figured out I could put acting together with the microphone, I went, holy shit, get out of my way. Like, I got to do more of this. That's kind of where the voice acting thing started. So no, that's awesome. Were you? Were you Paul Schmidt on the air or did you have to change your name?

07:52
No, I was and it's funny because the first Radio station where I was on the air part-time Actually, it's not that's not true. The first station was a little tiny like I don't know I think it was lit by an iPod and a light bulb I think I think it was a a 90 watt station in Elkton, Maryland. It was an AM day timer WSCR and I did a couple weekend shifts there, but my first

08:21
big job was at 98 Rock. That was my hometown's radio station in Baltimore. And we were a union shop. Oh, wow. And so we bring up the name thing. You can't have the same name as another union member. Fortunately, at that time, that was not an issue, even though my name is fairly common, Paul Schmidt. So I didn't have to take a nom d'air, as some people do. But there was only one time I ever used a pseudonym.

08:51
There was a talent show on my hometown TV station, WJZ in Baltimore. And I was doing standup at the time. Well, I was trying standup at the time and I wasn't very good because I didn't stick with it long enough, but I used the name Paul Stone because I was like, I don't know how this is going to go. And it didn't go especially well, but it wasn't especially embarrassing either. So, you know, we made it through. That's great. Yeah. I unfortunately with last name light.

09:21
Not far from yours, except mine's Smith. So yeah, there were a few Rob Smiths around. So yeah, I had to change my name several times. And I ended up just being Big Rob, made it much easier because I was a Mike over street for a while and people would be like, Mike, Mike. And I wouldn't turn around because that's not my name. And so that's not good if you're trying to do an event.

09:49
And you're just like, man, he is an asshole. He does not talk to the listeners at all. It's like, no, I'm sorry. Mike Overstreet, nice guy, but apparently hearing impaired. Yes, exactly. You mentioned about doing theater. Do you remember one of your first plays that you did? The first thing I ever did was in, I think it was first grade. We did...

10:18
Yeah, we did. We did this sort of I went to Catholic school and we did. I'm trying to remember the name of the play, but it was essentially was a morality play and I played God. And one of my best friends played the devil. And it was it was a comedy, obviously, it's for, you know, first graders. But it was a real play. It was about an hour long. And there were lots of lines to memorize and lots of blocking and.

10:46
It was a real play done by first graders and I just loved it. That's awesome. What the heck? Yeah, it was pretty cool. It was pretty cool. So that's the thing that lit the fire and probably gave me a God complex in the meantime. I was about to say, I think I've seen you play that role before. You may remember me as God. You should put that on your resume somewhere.

11:16
Just an asterisk at the bottom, FYI, God. Formally God. Yes, formally known as. You're in voiceover now, and I know you've got a lot of clients and this, that, and the other, but what again drew me to you was your your willingness to share your knowledge.

11:42
You know, there are a lot of people in a lot of industries that are very, you know, gatekeeper-ish and like, hey, don't, you know, like, you're my competition. I never got that feeling from you. And truthfully, in this, in the VO Atlanta community, in the voiceover community, there were a thousand people there, you know, I never felt that with any of the presenters or the attendees there. It reminded me of high school drama.

12:10
you know, where everybody's kind of accepting of everyone else. You know, I have called it before, you know, and radio too, to a certain extent, is just, you know, high functioning freaks and nerds, you know, and that's what I feel, and I love that about this community. Was there a point where you decided, yeah, you know, I'm going to be that guy that helps those others along? Was there a point in your career where you're like, hey,

12:39
I've made it, I need to turn around on the ladder and start putting that hand out. Yeah, so I was part-time for 20 years in voiceover. Exactly. And when I started to dig in, like the help was immediate and palpable. And it was really apparent to me what you just said, right? That the collaborative spirit of this community, the fact that everybody wants to help everybody else. Fuck man, I used to say there's a hundred people that helped me and it's more than that now.

13:09
So, you know, I believe that if you get help, if you accept help, and you should accept help, then it's your responsibility as you're able to help the people that are coming behind you. And so, you know, the Brad Hylands and the Pat Kirchner's and literally there's hundreds of people that have Craig Williams and, you know, Jen Greenfield and everybody's helped pull me along, right?

13:37
I don't think anybody's above or below anybody else, but I describe it as left and right, right? I guess because I'm right-handed. We're all moving to the right, and it's your job to reach out and pull somebody along with your left hand, right? And there's been literally hundreds of people that have done that for me, so I feel an obligation to do it for everybody else that I come into contact with. That's just the way the world should work in my eyes. So, you know? Absolutely, absolutely. And part of one of the ways that I'd...

14:06
I feel like that you help people is through VioPro. That's your community that you have, but also you have classes that are about the, you know, not like, they're not acting classes necessarily. It's about the business of being a voice actor. It's how to market yourself, how to do the self marketing, how to not depend on.

14:31
these websites that promise, you know, this, that and the other, you know, if you pay us this, you'll get all these auditions and da da da da da and seven figure salaries and da da da da da. It's really about learning how to be an entrepreneur, be a business owner. When did you decide that that was the route to go?

15:02
couple years in and started to notice two things. One, the success that I was having was not the case for a lot of people, right? And it takes a while for you to figure that out because we're all, we're in our own bubbles, right? And I just thought, okay, my career is going well, I assume everybody else's is. And I started slowly to see that that was not the case. And I started to notice people leaving the business.

15:31
And the thing about that was, Rob, in way more than one instance, in several instances, those people were, I knew in my heart, they were as talented or more talented than I was. So it told me that talent may not be the biggest determination of success, which did not surprise me. I mean, I'm good at what I do, but I'm by no means elite, right? And it was even more true then.

15:59
So that was number one. And number two was, I read through one year, the State of VO survey, which in those days was started and conducted by the voice actors in New York City, Karen Gilfer's group. And now is under the purview of another Karen Gilfer group called the National Association of Voice Actors, right? So now I was taking it over. But in those days it was Voice Actors of NYC.

16:27
And I was reading through the survey and I had participated in the survey for a year, maybe two before that. So I was interested in the results and there were two results that kind of jumped off the screen at me. Number one was they asked voice actors, uh, how much did you make last year? And 50, and this is, this is what? 2022, I guess. Uh, 50% said less than eight grand a year and my mouth hung open. Right. And 75% of us were making less than 40 grand a year.

16:57
Well, you know, I'm not in a big city. I'm in Richmond, Virginia, and 40 grand isn't even a lot of money here. Right. So I can imagine how far 40 grand goes in New York, L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Houston. Right. So we're not making a lot of money as a group. And that shocked me. And then the second thing was they asked voice actors, how often are you reaching out to market your services? And again, three quarters of us said less than three times a day.

17:27
Well, I haven't mentioned it here on this podcast, but after I segueed out of radio and went into sales and marketing. So I had a lot of sales training in it. That just like, if you've ever done sales, like you're reaching, like if you said to any sales manager in the country, I reached out to two people today, you'd be fired. Yeah. Right. So, uh, you know, there's no business in the world that can expect to talk to two people a day and be successful.

17:54
And I immediately went, well, that's cause and effect. We're not making any money because we're not reaching out to anybody in the first place. And so I like that stuck with me for a while. And I thought, well, why the hell are we not doing that? Right. As a as a group. Right. And it's not like it's not the minority. It's a three quarters majority. Yeah. So I decided, you know what, let's let's have some conversations and find out. So I made a goal to talk to 50 voice actors that fall.

18:24
And I ended up talking to 69 people in 75 days, I think, over zoom, right? And trying to dig into why, why are we not reaching out to people? Are we what are we afraid of? Or what what skill sets do we lack? Like, what? Can we define the problem? Because we can find define the problem, then maybe we can define the solution. And, and so, you know, I found out that we have a fear of marketing, we don't know what it is.

18:52
90% of the people in the American workforce, Rob, have no marketing or sales background. And that's nobody's fault. That's just life. We need other people to do other stuff. So how can first-time voice actors, first-time freelancers, first-time entrepreneurs, how are they supposed to market their business when they don't have the foggiest? And that's when I thought, well, okay, I built a system for myself because when I went full time, I spent six months.

19:22
getting my system in order, right? My tools, my processes, all of that stuff. And I thought, OK, I built a system for myself and I know it works for me. Because it did. Maybe it'll work for somebody else. I have no idea. Like maybe you need all the stuff that I went through after I got out of radio to make this thing work. Right. But maybe I can teach people a sort of streamlined version of that. Right. And.

19:52
But I didn't like, I thought if I throw this thing out there and people pay me money for this and it doesn't work, I don't want that on my conscience. So I thought, okay, let's test this. And I thought if I could get 10 people to test it against, then maybe they can tell me what doesn't make sense or what's not actionable or what's not comprehensible. And I can tighten this thing up and make it work for people. And I ended up getting 25 people in the first test.

20:20
And so that's what we did. We tested it. We recorded the sessions on zoom so that a people could stop me dead in my tracks and go, Hey, this doesn't make any sense to me. Can you explain this to me better? But we could capture all that feedback. Right. And how we worked through it on the sessions. Uh, so that was, that was hugely. So I, I probably gave you the history of Switzerland when you asked me what time it was, uh, that's kind of how I got into this, like I didn't set out.

20:48
One day, you know what? I'm gonna teach people how to market the voiceover business. This just kind of snowballed for me. And, you know, like eight months in, I found myself on this odyssey, like, I don't know how I got here, but I found a deep, and I hate the word, but a deep, deep passion for it because I thought, man, this is gonna help level the playing field, right? Because it's not all talent. Let's acknowledge that and let's teach the skill sets.

21:18
because we're great at teaching people how to do the work, right? To get them trained up on the craft and the tech and all that crap. And it's not crap, but you know what I mean? Uh, but we're missing the third leg of the stool and that is how to find the work. Right. So that's how I got into this. And I think your approach to it is, I want to say universal. I know you it's, it's called VO pro. It's for voice actors, voice over artists.

21:47
But I think any entrepreneur could benefit from the knowledge that you have, that it's applicable to other venues. Like, hey, all right, I'm going to start a food truck. How do I get more people to come to my food truck? If you've never run a business, if you've never done that, if you've never learned how to self-market your food truck, I definitely believe the information that you have is valuable to that niche. It's universal, which I think is one of the great appeals of it. And of course,

22:16
You and your attitude about it is, again, very matter of fact. It's like, here's the stuff. You have to do the stuff. I appreciate you saying that. I think it's certainly applicable for creative freelancers overall, creative entrepreneurs, people that have to get up every day and go out in the world and find business for themselves. I think it is applicable outside of voice acting.

22:45
But it was originally and still to largely to this day is still centered on and created for voice actors. Will that will that change? It won't change. But I may end up, you know, who knows, making it a little bit more. I hate this term, but I'm going to use it anyway. More generic so that it may be more applicable to photographers, coders, videographers, right? Folks like that, because you're right. The core.

23:13
premises and the core practices that we teach are applicable to other creative freelancing disciplines. Yeah, graphic designers, people that voice actors actually work with, you know, the editors, the like I said, the people that are putting commercials together, agencies, things like that that are actually doing the editing, doing the shooting or whatever it is. Also a big part of what you do is mindset because it is a switch.

23:40
And that's one of the things I had the hardest time with because even though I've done, I've had a photography business myself, I've done shoot photos because people ask me to take head shots because I know a bunch of actors and they're like, hey, can you take some head shots? Sure. Sure. But for the majority of my life, I have clocked in, quote, clocked in and had a check come every two weeks.

24:05
Now I do not do that. The upside is I'll never be fired because I'll never fire myself. I kick myself in the ass for not doing the marketing that I need to so that the money comes in, but I'll never lose a job again that way. But not being able to count on something coming in, clocking in, doing a thing, and seeing a check in two weeks, that's a big mindset change. It's huge.

24:34
There's a good friend of mine here in Richmond named Jeff Kelly, who, uh, who had the corporate gig. He is a, he's a writer. He was doing a corporate PR and worked for a very large company here that he got downsized. And that's when he decided to take that down, severance and use that for the on-ramp to start his own. He calls it corporate journalism, which I think is a neat way to look at it, but essentially he's got his own.

25:03
He's a very, we'll call it a PR firm, but essentially he is a creative solopreneur. He has a couple of contractors that he works with now that he relies on too, but essentially he's a freelancer. And he pitched me on the idea when I was still doing corporate IT sales, selling high-end custom web applications, he pitched me on the idea of doing that as a freelancer for multiple providers.

25:32
And I just could not get over the hump of, are you kidding me? There's no, the risk in that is insane. Right. Right. And I just, I had, I had such admiration for what he had done. And I saw, like, it was my first glimpse into the freelance lifestyle. Right. Uh, and I, and I saw that and I respected the hell of it, but I never thought, you know, in a million years, I could, I could ever do that. Uh, and this was years and years ago before I, you know, I'm still doing

26:02
I was doing voiceover, you know, part time, but it was before I realized that that that freelancing as a voice actor was a possibility. I didn't see it then. Right. So that was the first seed. And then I, you know, I started having coffee with people that I would meet that were creative freelancers in whatever field had their own small businesses. And another friend here in Richmond, Amy Bachman said to me one day, she said, starting your own business is jumping off a cliff.

26:32
and sewing the parachute together on the way down. And I'm like, well, that sounds fun. You know, cause I have, and I didn't even know it then, but I've had anxiety my entire life. So I was very risk averse, right? And I just could not see that world, but the more I understood how the world had changed since the first time I tried to get into VO 24 years ago, at that point, at this point, I guess it's been 26 years now.

27:02
to then when I thought, it turns out you can now go after your own clients because you couldn't do that 25 years ago. So it was a slow boil for me and it was like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle all coming together. And yeah, that's why we teach mindset because Rob, starting your own creative freelance business, whether it's voice acting.

27:32
Honestly, it doesn't even have to be creative freelancer. Starting your own business is the hardest thing you'll ever do professionally. Period. Right. It's like having a child. Having a child is the hardest thing you will ever do. Also the most rewarding. Right. Just like starting a business. But it is the hardest thing you'll ever do. And here's the thing. Parents will never admit this. So we'll keep it in a business setting. There will be multiple, multiple times when you're going to want to quit. Yeah. Right.

28:01
It's not if, it's when. And if your mindset isn't screwed down, you're going to quit. Right. You need to, to develop the grit and the resilience and the, uh, all the, the elements of a growth mindset that say, you know what, no matter what happens, I'm going to figure this the fuck out. And I'm just going to move forward. And that's why to me, mindset is so foundational because if we're not, we don't have a good mindset, Robert affects everything we do, right. It affects how we deal with clients and how we set expectations.

28:31
and how we negotiate and all that stuff. And if we're not confident in our businesses, guess where that bleeds into? The booth, right? We carry that in with us as emotional baggage behind the mic, probably as much or more so than any other creative freelancer, right? It may get filtered out more if you're a graphic design person. You're not gonna necessarily sense desperation in somebody's graphic design, right? What you do on the mic, if you don't have it properly screwed down. So.

29:00
So it's all interconnected and that's why we spend a lot of time on it. Yeah, my friend John Patrick, and I say it a lot, he said that when he started his own podcast to sell, we're in Augusta, he does a golf podcast, Augusta Golf Podcast. Nice. He's like part of that is waking up every morning, looking at a bill and trying to invent the money to pay that bill.

29:29
somehow during that day. He's like, that's all you can do. It's like, you can't look much further than that. It's like, what are the immediate needs? How can I invent this to make it go today? Go to sleep, wake up the next morning. Now I'm handling today's, you know, new adventure in inventing money. Somebody in one of the, and I don't wanna misquote the group. I'll just say one of the Facebook groups for newer talent. Somebody posted one day, what's your...

29:57
What's your favorite motivational on a poster or line or quote or whatever it was? And I just said, the rent is due at the first of every month. That's the only motivation you should need. Right. If you've got to get motivated to get up and put food on the table, uh, you, you, you never go make it right. You've got to, and your why I think has to be bigger than the rent is due. Oh yeah. Because it's not enough at that point. It's about money and money ain't a big enough. Why? It's not. Right.

30:27
Money's cool. It's great, right? It gives you more freedom and flexibility in your life But it's only a tool if you make it all about the money. You're never gonna have the grit and resilience you need, right? It's got to be about something bigger for a lot of people. That's freedom or flexibility Yeah, right. And that's the thing is there's money everywhere. There's money everywhere There's money at Walmart if it's about money you can go become a greeter at Walmart or Be the person that stands there to watch the self-checkout Or you'll do what I did for a long time, which is take a job that pays you well

30:57
that you have no passion for, right? Where what I'm good at and what they'll pay me for overlap, but it doesn't overlap with, you know, in the Venn diagram, it doesn't overlap with your passion. And that's a big missing piece because you can be well-paid and still be damn miserable. And I know because I was. Dead on the inside. It can be soul crushing. Yep. I've had more days of not wanting to go to a well-paid job than doing a free gig.

31:26
for something that I was absolutely passionate about. Yeah, and the irony, once you figure that out, is that high paying, well paying job, it's a trap, because you don't want to get it up. You become dependent on it. You give lifestyle creep and everything else, right? Golden handcuffs, golden handcuffs.

31:47
You look up 25 years later and you've got a wife, three kids, a mortgage, you know, maybe grandkids on the way and you go, okay, I like, I got it. Like I got to hang on to this because this pays the bills. And that's, uh, which is fine. There's, there's no ability in being able to pay your bills. There's no ability in being able to, uh, suck it up and do for your family, what you need to do to get those bills paid.

32:12
But there's also a longing for, man, my heart's not in this and it's in this thing over here. And the more that contrast became apparent to me, the more I went, I gotta, I gotta find a way to do this with my life.

32:28
Paul, so for now, for you, you're doing the VO Pro, and you've created your own community that's almost self-sustaining with VO Pro as part of that, as people who have found you and they have discussions about these same things. It's protected, it's a place for people that are in VO to come together and to help each other out.

32:53
You know, you not only were on the ladder, you've built the ladder for other folks to be able to now kind of get together and communicate in the same way and build relationships. This is another very relationship built business. It's not about, hey, I need all the jobs. It's like, hey, my voice doesn't, I'm not a 12 year old Asian girl. Let me see if my friend who happened to has a 12 year old Asian girl that does some.

33:21
Vio, let me let them know about this gig in case they didn't know about it. Yeah, I think you know occasionally you'll hear Somebody who's kind of new to the business. They'll say something well like well Why do I need to you know hang out with and build relationships with other voice actors? There's two reasons one we do refer each other so it will It will never be your main source of business, but it is still can be quite lucrative But more importantly than that

33:49
You know, the old trope about us voice actors being stuck in our tiny little padded cells, talking to ourselves all day. Yeah. What we do is inherently isolating and disconnecting. And, you know, when I was having these conversations with these 69 voice actors was in the shadow of the pandemic. Right. It was 2022. And I knew for a fact that this sense of isolation existed before the pandemic and then the pandemic threw gasoline on it.

34:18
right, and accelerated it and made it more even more like people were craving community. And I thought they okay, that's something I didn't know, I'm not sure how to solve that problem yet. And then a little bit, you know, we started developing the course and I partnered with a guy known with a long known a long time and Paul Walsh, who we've known each other since college. And he just happened to be the online and distance learning program manager.

34:48
for the entire University of Maryland college system. And so he helped me build the content up to the point where it was sound from an online learning perspective, that it was up to university standards. Like just knowing this guy and having him be one of my best friends was like the most fortuitous thing in the world. And we did that. And that's why we're so solid in the curriculum because it's the most tested and proven curriculum in the world. But.

35:18
He went, he and I were having dinner one night and I said to him, I'm like, dude, I, I, I, here's my big problem. If we build this thing, no matter how good we make it, right. People are going to struggle with it at some point. That's a, that's a fact. And if I get more than like half a dozen people in this program, I'm going to spend all day, every day answering questions. And guess what? I got a voiceover business over here. That's running pretty well. I want to keep that, right. I don't want to have to sacrifice that to do this.

35:47
And he said, have you thought about building a community? And like the freaking light bulb went off. And so that's how we do support, right? The people that have learned this program and used it, bring their own experience to it, adapted it for their own businesses, they're using it daily, they're able to help the people that come behind them. And can those people help the people just like in real life, right?

36:12
I was talking, you know, they're reaching out with their left hand and they're pulling people along and then those people pull the people to their left and so on and so on and so on. And so we do support in our program by community. And that allows us to not only answer questions and help people through the curriculum, but it unites us. It brings us together. It gives us a support system, right? It gives us a community of people that are all using the same roughly tools and processes that we are. And so it's highly contextual.

36:42
And it's super helpful. And the quality of the people in this community blows me away every day because the gasoline that fuels this community is kindness and generosity. Right. You cannot be an information hoarder and make it in this community. And that's true for our community. It's true in the voiceover community at large. So aside from the O pro and your, your, your voiceover career and all the other stuff that you have going on.

37:10
What is bringing you joy right now? Well, one constant thing and one new thing. The constant thing is, well, for the last almost 18 years, my son, Robbie, having him changed my life. Being a parent, much like having a business, the hardest and most rewarding thing you'll ever do. And so that's number one.

37:38
You want to break it down a little bit more. My favorite thing to do in the world is to play golf with my son. Right. Now we're not accomplished golfers, but damn, we have a good time, you know? And it's about, it's just about quality time, hanging out and doing something we both love to do. Yeah. Uh, and then the second thing is, uh, I have a new roommate for the last, uh, a little over a year. He has four legs and he barks every year now and again, and his name is Gus. He's a rescue Siberian husky that I got at the Richmond SBCA.

38:08
And this little guy has just warmed his way into my heart and keeps me joyful on an ongoing basis. You have, I would love to find a passion, Rob, for anything in this universe, as much as that little guy has a passion for his ball. Like, you know, I mean, I don't think I've ever felt joy like that in my entire life. And to witness it every day, it's the greatest thing in the world.

38:42
This is the second segment of the show. This is where we dive a little bit deeper into your mental health journey. As someone that deals, myself deals with depression and anxiety, I feel that depression wants to tell you that you're alone and the more that we find out that other people are dealing with the same things, the lighter that burden feels. So for you, how do you keep the darkness at bay? I am very lucky.

39:10
So to go back and paint a little more context, looking back, I have had, clearly, I've had anxiety my entire life. Like ever since I can remember anything, I remember feeling something in that vein. Here's the thing, I never knew it. And the reason I never knew it was because I always perceived anxiety for me, and I don't think it presents the same way to everybody.

39:39
But for me, it presented as irritability, right? I described it to people like, it's like somebody following you around, constantly poking you with a fork, right? All the time. So that when the least little thing goes wrong, or the least little threat presents itself, it's always huge, right? And so, what that gives rise to is a quick temper.

40:08
right? Because you're already that anxiousness has already got you at level eight. Yeah. And you know, a scrap of paper in the wrong place can put you at a level 10 real easy. And for me, I always knew that I had no like people tell you, you know, in certain kinds of therapy, you know, you've got to take a beat before you respond. You've got to be able to just take a breath and take a beat and choose your response.

40:38
In my anxiety, I did not have that ability, right? No matter how hard I tried, there was no gap between stimulus and response. Everything was knee jerk, right? And so I was dating a girl a few years ago, and I was describing this to her. And she looked me dead in the eye and she said, that's anxiety. I said, no, it's not. She said, yeah, it is, because that's how it was for me. And...

41:07
She was on a particular medication and she literally, she felt so strongly about it, she dug into my health insurance and she found the telemedicine doc and made the appointment for me. And I went and about 15 minutes in the doc said, yeah, I think she's right. And he prescribed for me 10 milligrams of Lexapro and in the next 10 days my life changed.

41:33
which was doubly surprising because earlier in my life, I had had moderate depression and I went through a, you know, a revolving door of medications. Some would not work at all. Some would work for a little while and then stop working and others would have crazy side effects that made me unfunctional. And so when this guy came out of the box with the first medication and the change was so immediate and so dramatic, like it was life altering.

42:04
And I got to be the person I always wanted to be, which was the guy that just had a little gap between stimulus and response. Right. Yeah. And that's how I presented for me. And my son noticed it. He was God, he was probably about 10 at the time. He noticed it in the first two weeks. And so, so that's how I keep the darkness at bay for me. And I realize this is not the case for

42:34
this medication works. Thank God it does. And that helps. And yes, I also try to be proactive and work on my own mindset and really take time to spend time in self reflection because that helps me. I take time to, I fell off the wagon this summer because I had a large project, but I take time to take care of my body because I'd learned long ago when I had depression.

42:58
That it's hard to feel good when you don't feel good, meaning it's hard to feel good mentally. If you don't feel, if you feel like shit physically, it's really hard to feel good mentally. Right. Yeah. So I put myself in that hole. So I started taking care of myself a long time ago. Uh, and that really helps. Um, and it helps, I think with the anxiety too. So it's, there's not one strategy that's going to work. I have a main strategy and thank God it works for me and that's medication. Uh, and, and, but I also.

43:28
That doesn't relieve me of the responsibility of doing the other things in my life that are good for me. And therefore good for the people around me that I love. As you said, that, you know, the medication gives you the gap that you can then take that step before you react. Yeah. But I still have to make good choices with that gap. Right. You got to use that gap wisely because you can still go off the handle or whatever, even though you've had that moment.

43:56
So having something that allows you at least that breath, I think that's great and that's great for you. And I think there's such a stigma though that people say, well, well, I'm on medication for my mental health. And it was so negative that, well, I don't wanna go to the doctor and they tell me I'm crazy. It's like, it's not that. It's get better.

44:25
to be a person. Get the help you need. Yeah, get the help you need and get to be the person that you wanted to be, the person with the gap. You know what I mean? If that's all it does, it gives you that moment to take a breath so that you feel that you're in control. Because I feel like that's what a lot of anxiety is, is you just are out of control. You just feel like you're out of control and you can't. You're overstimulated. You can't, in your mind, delineate what a good response is.

44:52
Yeah. And because everything is a huge threat. So like you don't have any like there's no filter there. Everything's getting through. Right. Uh, and it's, it's, it's difficult. I think there is still some stigma. Um, looking back, I think my dad had anxiety and I think he was being medicated for it and this was in the late sixties, early seventies when nobody talked about that thing. Right. So, uh, if you were going to a shrink then.

45:19
like you were certifiably crazy, right? There was something wrong with you. I think that still exists in pockets today, but largely compared to 40, 50 years ago, it is out in the open and there is so much less stigma than there used to be. And I think maybe in another 40, 50 years, it'll be even less. Yeah, and you know, I think as men, sometimes there's even more stigma on it, that you know, it's like, you know,

45:47
You're supposed to keep all of your emotions hidden inside and you're supposed to tamp it down and men don't cry and don't have these problems. But that causes more problems. I don't think it's more intense for men. I think it's intense in a different way. You know, yes, what you mentioned is true. Men are taught to sort of stuff it all down and not talk about it. I think in some ways women are taught that, but they're also taught that

46:15
they're supposed to be able to do it all, right? Take care of everybody and have that great corporate job and be a ass kicker there, right? And be a great mom and a great wife and do it all, right? That's, I think, having never been a woman myself, that's, I think, more the pressure that they deal with and where their anxiety comes from. I don't know that it's better than being a guy. I really don't. I think it's different. I think it might even be worse. I don't know.

46:43
But anxiety definitely, I think, comes from different sources as far as the genders go. And if you're non-binary, God knows only what you're dealing with, right? Because there's a whole associated stigma, which is much more, I think, pronounced around non-binary people, right? That's a whole brave new world that the rest of us are learning about that maybe had the same stigma that mental illness had 40 or 50 years ago. Right.

47:11
because it has all these other connotations also tied to it too. Cause again, you're not, you're not, you know, saying you're non-binary. So you're, you're not in this group. You're not in this group. It's a new group. So again, you've got this whole other thing that you're dealing with on top of absolutely the anxiety and stuff. And that's what I said in my newsletter this week. I was reminded multiple times this week of this thought and you've seen it everywhere. Be kind because you don't know.

47:40
the unseen battles that somebody's rolling through, right? Somebody appears to have it all on the outside, maybe miserable on the inside. You just don't know. Absolutely. And there's no reason, I don't believe there's any reason to move through life in an unkind manner. Nope. Things can annoy us. We can find things that we may not.

48:07
believe in or not find the same answer to, but there's no reason that you can't still have a conversation and kind of have a discussion. And just your intention that you put into your life, the steps that you take, to be like, I'm gonna be kind as I go through. Because again, I don't know what anybody else is going through. I know what I'm going through, but that's it. But here's the thing too, Rob, with the way anxiety was for me for most of my life, I often didn't have

48:38
Or the choice was orders of magnitude harder to take that feat and be kind. Because that fork was getting poked in the ass all the time. And so being kind was a Herculean task before, if at all possible. Now that's much easier for me. I didn't like who I was because of that. When you said the change was noticeable within 10 days. Oh my God.

49:08
What was that 10th day that you're like, yeah, this is like, was there a situation that you're like, Holy yep. The fork stopped and I was able to be more relaxed and, and more centered, right? Like anybody that's had small children, that's an anxiety producing condition in the first place, right? Because they have constant needs and I love my son, right? And we've always had a good

49:37
But when you're already getting constantly poked by the fork, any little thing that child does has the potential for you to react in a way that you don't want to, right? Now, I was never, I've yelled at my son when he was little in ways that I regret, not constantly, but there were certainly incidents. I would not say that I verbally abused my son. I would not, certainly wasn't physically abusive to him. And I think he had a fairly good upbringing.

50:07
But it could have been better if I had had a little more gap, right? Yeah. Um, I don't, I don't, I don't regret that because I didn't have the ability. Yeah. Right. Can't, couldn't control it and I can't go back in time and change it. Right. So it doesn't pay me to regret it. It doesn't serve. Yeah. I think, um, one of the things I've learned in having anxiety under control is that you do become more present in the situations that you're in.

50:37
No doubt. No doubt about that. You appreciate the times that you have with people in the conversations and whatever you're doing, you're to be there as opposed to worried about stuff that has not happened or what could happen and this, that, or what did happen and just here to be present. Yep. And that's the thing about anxiety is you're constantly living in the future. Oh my God, what's gonna happen now?

51:07
Right? When you have the relief from that, you by definition move into the present much, much more.

51:23
This is the third segment of the show. It's time now for the fast five. The fast five is time now for the fast five. Fast five. Sorry, I'm still working on a theme song. I really should get my music on top of that. That's the storyboard for the imaging. It is, it is like, you know, just like, the only new people that could write these. Right? Maybe we get a voice actor involved, maybe some audio producers. Who knows what could happen? Let's just spitball it. Right.

51:52
still workshopping. The Fast 5 is powered by Pod Decks. It's an app created by my friend Travis Brown. If you go to chewingthefatbr.com/poddecks, you can get the link to download it on your favorite app store. But it's five questions. No wrong answers. First thing comes to the top of your head. You're ready? I'm ready. All right, here we go. Question number one.

52:15
name one thing on your bucket list? Oh, to go to Europe. Yeah, a couple of different places I want to go. I want to see Madrid. I'd like to see Ireland, but honestly, I'm a scared of the weather. Because I don't do well in gloomy climates. So I do want to see Ireland because I know it's beautiful. Paris I'd like to see one day and maybe Rome, but

52:41
God, there's just so much, so many tourist traps in Rome. I don't like to do the touristy stuff. You know, I like to go and like get into the, into the weeds in a city. Be one of the locals. Do the, do the, when you can, do the local stuff without getting mugged. Right. I love that. All right. Question number two.

53:02
Is there any local dish or food product from where you grew up that you miss? I mean, I know you're not far from Baltimore and it's not like you can't get back there. I'm not far, but you would think about three hours south, it would be not a stretch to get a good one, but man, there's nothing like a good crab cake. Yeah? Oh yeah. And don't hand me this fried crap. Right? If you fry crab cake, no, we can't be friends.

53:32
And use as little binder as possible. Yeah. Fresh lump crab meat, Old Bay. Yeah, a good crab cake is really hard to find. And there's even a couple of bad crab cakes in Baltimore. Worst crab cake I ever had was in Newark, Delaware. It was a crab pancake that was deep fried. Oh. That's not a crab cake. Yeah, it was awful. It was horrible.

54:02
Did you send it back? It was a sin against humanity. I considered calling the FBI, but I didn't. I love it. All right, question number three.

54:15
It's a classic toilet paper over or under. I'm not a cat owner. I'm a dog owner. And, uh, experience has always taught me over. If you have a cat or you have a toddler under, but, uh, yeah, there's a, there's a great picture of my son sitting on a can when he's about a year and a half, two years old and we were, I was an over household and he had just spun the wheel. And there was a.

54:43
toilet paper and a smiling little toddler sitting there. And it's one of the cutest pictures I have. But generally over, yes. Awesome. That's the number four.

54:56
What would constitute a perfect day for you? Golf with Robbie. Probably a really good old fashioned on the 19th hole. Being able to sit outside, watch the sunset, maybe with a little live acoustic music.

55:22
and looking across the table and seeing a happy, well-adjusted kid, you know, who is going to make a great contribution to this world. That's a perfect day.

55:41
And question number five.

55:45
If you could meet any entrepreneur, living or dead, who would it be? Ooh, wow. There's so many.

55:58
I've met so many that were on my bucket list. Like, you know, when you first get into the business, entrepreneur wise, you know, the 800 pound gorilla is JMC (J. Michael Collins). I've been lucky not only to, you know, to get to know him a little bit, but to spend time with him, you know, and to see how he runs his business at a pretty, you know, upfront, I don't have a front row seat, but I've got a second row seat.

56:25
And he's one of the guys I admire a lot, he and his wife both, J. Michael and Anna. So that's one that's already sort of ticked off the box. There are people that I follow, that I get great inspiration from there. And not like, I don't always want to be quote unquote, like these people, but I want to take from them what works for me. And the people that come to mind are people like Alex Hermosy.

56:54
Because I think his mindset is solid as a rock. People like, oh God, Marie Forleo, Brene Brown, people don't think of her as an entrepreneur, but she absolutely is. And she's making such a social impact on the world because of her background. There are tons of people that I would like, you know, the old who would you want to get stuck to on a cross country flight or intercontinental flight? Those are the people that jump to mind.

57:22
Right. Just to be able to sit and chat with them for an hour would be amazing. That's awesome. Well, that's question number five. That's our fast five. And that is the show Paul. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks. And that was probably the slowest fast five on record, because sometimes I can't shut up. No, no, actually, actually it wasn't. So there you go. This was, this was a treat because I love talking about this stuff and you and I.

57:47
clearly get along quite well and have since you've become a member of VO Pro and we're so happy to have you in that community.

57:54
You've already made a great contribution and it's a pleasure to know you, man. I appreciate that. If folks want to keep up with you, what's the best way they can do that? The easiest way is to search VO Pro or VO Pro.Pro because that handle, you know, as much as I like to be consistent, it wasn't some... There are structured things about how you can do handles on the different platforms. So if you search VO Pro or VO Pro.Pro, you'll usually find me. You can search my name as well.

58:20
There's YouTube. We've got about, I don't know, 3,300 subscribers right now. Instagram, TikTok, those are the main three. I'm also on LinkedIn. Just search Paul Schmidt. And you can always find me and the community at vopro.pro.

58:37
sure I put those links in the show notes as well. Again, Paul, thank you so much for your friendship, for what you do for the VO community, and I just love you and I wish you nothing but success in everything you've got going. Likewise, brother, and believe me when I tell you the pleasure's all mine. Thank you again for being here.

58:56
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.