Sucking is Totally Acceptable in Service to Becoming Awesome 

Inspired by Lazy

When I was flirting with the idea of becoming an audiobook narrator I tagged along to an informational session at Voice One school in San Francisco. My brilliant cousin Rob, an actor, singer, and co-founder of Sightglass Theater Company was checking them out and I went along for fun.

In that one-hour session, the bolt-of-lightning that struck me was something the founder, Elaine Clark shared. (I’m paraphrasing here, I’m sure she was more eloquent) She said she liked voice-over work because it was “lazy.” You show up. You read stuff. You leave.

This statement was impactful because “lazy” is one of my trigger words. If I didn’t do something fast enough or good enough when I was a little kid, I was called “lazy.” I was exhorted to not be “lazy” about a LOT of things in my grade school days.

At some point in my 30s, after I had had some career success and some wonderful business mentors, I learned that the label “lazy” is often one that perfectionists and actual lazy people use to goad on people who are high achievement oriented— motivated by results and completion…not perfection. With exposure to ideas like agile software development and iterative design (and frankly the influence of my brilliant husband) I came to believe in the Steve Jobs quote, “Real artists ship.” Getting it done is always better than getting it perfect.

Sometime after moving back to my hometown of Santa Barbara and becoming a caretaker to an ill parent, I developed a new life mantra. I shared it regularly with those who challenged me (including, and predominantly myself):

Laziness may be the low road to contentment, but it will get you there.

Sitting on a black plastic chair in the theater space of Voice One, I knew then, (and for sure know now) that a job you can be lazy about is not the same as a job that is easy…until you’re really, REALLY good.

And of course, getting good takes a lot of work. You can’t be lazy about it. Good, let alone great, will never come. You’ll just suck forever.

Fear of The Suck

While working last night I faced one of my biggest fears about being a narrator: Sucking.

To some extent, being awful at something you want to be good at is everyone’s fear, but if you are your own boss, that fear is compounded. If your job is not only to suck (hopefully only at first), but also to judge whether and when and how bad you are sucking, that is twice the pressure. Now make those stakes higher by piling another layer of responsibility onto self-critique: you make the decision about whether it is acceptably sucky, or un-shippable.

Going back to those trigger-words, A lazy person will tend toward “it’s done” no matter how bad the output is, in order to achieve the contentment of finished. A perfectionist says, “do it until it is perfect.” I’m a realist, and I have a mantra that reminds me specifically when lazy is acceptable and when it is not. Lazy gets to win unless I recognize I am in danger of not learning—not getting better.

There are lots of ways to express this and a lot of famous people with their own take on the idea of letting fear inform your growth. What it comes down to for me is that sucking is only acceptable in service to becoming awesome.

This past week, as I edited and cringed; As I judged my narration work as downright awful in Chapter 7, I noticed how demoralized and fearful I became. My characters were flat and inconsistent because I was focusing too much—working solely on—making them discernable from each other. Despair over the sucking and the fear of failing are sure-fire signs for me that it is time to let the perfectionist win for a little while. Make or do something the perfectionist can be proud of.

Perfect Work, Not Perfect Product

But the perfectionist can’t be allowed to run amuck. Letting my perfectionist tendencies run rampant over a project will result in me giving up. So I have to set criteria. Figure out, “What is the specific challenge?” “What do I want to practice in this moment?” And that is when my lazy aspect comes to my rescue again: Lazy Yvette is a helluva problem-solver. She is in charge of figuring out how to get something done at an acceptable quality level, expeditiously.

Chapter 7 as a whole sucked. But specifically, four minor characters sucked WORST. The perfectionist wanted to re-do the whole thing; “Re-read the chapter, re-write character notes, prepare better for understanding the scene, deliver those character’s lines until they are Oscar-worthy, make the whole thing better.” And I will not lie to you, I cried in frustration, anticipating the rework. The “waste” of time.

So I let laziness save me. Get me excited. “Let’s try a different technique! Let’s keep what is fine and fix only the unacceptable.” When I allow myself to be lazy, the perfect work gets done.

I went into the studio and listened again. One character wasn’t so bad. Most of her lines could stay. Then I re-recorded the dialog for the three characters who were ruining the chapter for me. I listened to the choices I had made for their lines and played around, making stronger ones or just different ones. I listened to my sample clips and ran lines to practice the tone and resonance and quirks of their individual speech patterns. And thanks to being lazy, when I felt ready, I cheated: I recorded all of Marie’s lines, then all of Beth’s lines, then all of Lenore’s lines.

I didn’t try to practice the fast-switch from character to character, because that was not what I was choosing as my focus for this moment, this chapter, this book. I have to get better at that, yes, but not right now. I don’t have to do it all at once. The chore of having to re-do the work went quickly, smoothly, and it was a blast.

This morning I am EXCITED to finish editing chapter 7. I know the voices are consistent, unique, and some of the choices are fun. I’m going to be done, it is going to ship…and I learned a lot doing my process. Doing the work. Working hard…but not on everything, and not all at once.

Could I have worked harder? Sure. I believe in myself, and I’ve got a perfectionist inside me that says I can always work harder. Does that lead to done? Nope. Will it bring me satisfaction…contentment? Nope. And what is most important to me in this moment: pummeling myself to be better, faster…or being more balanced? Being content? Laziness and perfectionism make a great team, tempered by a realist.

It is time for me to add an additional mantra to my toolkit, and I hope it helps you in your own dark, hard work, learning moments:

Sucking is totally acceptable in service to becoming awesome.