“The greatest of faults…”

While doing some computer cleanup today, I ran across a bunch of old VO files. These were all pre-training, pre-demo, pre-agent, pre-actual-professional-gigs. And boy did it sound like it! The saddest part is that I didn’t know how bad I sounded. I thought I was doing all right. Boy was I wrong!

This reminded me of my first interview with an animation studio (back when I was pursuing animation as a career). I was meeting with members of the animation team, and one of them asked me where I felt that my animation skills placed on a scale of 1 to 10. I was feeling pretty good, so I said that I felt I was about a 6 or 7. He replied, “What if we told you that you were closer to a 3 or 4?”

“Well,” I said, still feeling pretty full of myself, “Maybe you just don’t know me very well.”

Yeah.  I actually said that.  In an interview.  Talking to people who’d been animating professionally for years.

Miraculously, I got the job.  But the story doesn’t end there.

After I’d been animating on production shots for a couple weeks (or maybe months…I’m not sure of the time frame), I wrote an email to the animator who posed that question in my interview.  I don’t have a copy of the email any more, but I apologized for my arrogance in the interview, and said something like, “After further reflection, I feel now like I’m actually only a 1 or 2 on that scale…and the scale is exponential.”

Today’s tip: learn to hone not only your skills, but also your ability to see where you need to grow, where you truly fall on the quality spectrum. If you look at your work — whether it’s acting, voiceover, programming, animation, accounting, construction, etc. — and feel that you’re doing pro-quality work, look again. Really break it down and compare it to work done by professionals. Does it really hold up? Are you really as good as you think you are? Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. Whatever the case, there is HUGE value in humbling yourself and acknowledging your faults. Not in a demeaning, condescending, belittling way, but simply as a way of tracking the areas where you need to push yourself harder to do better.

The title for this post comes from a statement made by Thomas Carlyle:

The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none.

Everyone has room to grow.  I believe that those who succeed in their chosen fields are those who are honest with themselves about where they need to grow, and then actively work on that growth on a regular basis.  Take some time now and then for a little honest self-evaluation.  If you’re in a field where you have access to work created by your peers, compare your work against that of established professionals.  How does it stack up?  Take note of what’s working and what’s not, and set some specific plans on improving the things in the “what’s not” list.  Don’t beat yourself up over those things.  Just be aware of them, and make a plan to change them.  That awareness is critical.  You can’t change what you don’t know, and as my GI Joe buddies are fond of saying, “Knowing is half the battle!”