Millennial Lifestyle

Taking a Millennial Holiday for Your Millennial Self

Millennial Lifestyle, Millennial Marketing, Millennials on the Road

One of the biggest trends sociologists and psychologists are noticing about the Millennial generation is the high levels of burnout across the entire demographic. In fact, we even touched on this very thing in our blog in an interview with renowned Millennial therapist, Tess Brigham.

But, as summer approaches and we [theoretically] have at least one moment to ourselves to reflect on just what we’re even doing anymore, we figured it was time to look at a long-lost Millennial indulgence: hobbies.

So, grab a hot cup, a tasty cocktail, or some sparkling water, and let’s dive into a pastime we should be doing more — that is, pastimes, of any kind, where the only #grind you should be getting into is a rich cup of coffee.

Ads Show You the Way

Perhaps the biggest indicator of the split between Millennials and their free time comes in the form of advertising. On Instagram, Facebook, streaming services, and even good ol’ fashioned cable [which we only watch when we’re visiting our Boomer parents, naturally], Millennials are flooded with options for what to do with their “extra cash” [HA!]. In fact, as Millennials, we’re more often than not in the ads offering quick getaways, special deals, and travel packages we’d love to hit with a little more time and pocket scratch. On one hand, the gigs are great! On the other, we’d love to take a little taste of what we’re creating every now and again.

And we’re quickly learning that if we don’t carve out time for ourselves to do these things, no one else will.

Hobbies Becoming Hustles

Maybe one of the most classic Millennial moves is to take a passion project — either from childhood, adulthood, or the neighborhood — and see if you’re able to make part of your living from it. On one hand, it’s a natural progression: do the thing you love because you love it, and if you can do the thing you love for an actual living, well, isn’t that the Millennial American dream?

It certainly can be. But everyone, of all generations, can attest to where that can go. When you’re doing the thing you love for work, eventually it becomes actual work, and suddenly, you no longer have the thing you loved to do… you just have yet another job to keep track of in the gig economy that helps your bottom line, but doesn’t quite get you over the hump to have it be your only job. From there? Well, more likely than not, it’s time to drop the hobby in place of something that’ll make you more [or escalate it to maybe, possibly, hopefully be your only gig]. Either way, the thing you did to unwind and show some self-love gets absorbed into the #hustle… and you’re burning out all over again, but with the added emotional context of losing something you loved, as opposed to simply adding another survival job.

On a personal note, I don’t mean to sound bitter about this —we’ve both caught ourselves in this Millennial cycle more times than we can count as Millennial voice actors. But we’re both at stages of looking for what else we can do that’s just “for us,” and we know we’re not alone [just search “Millennial burnout” or “Millennial hobbies” and you’ll see every example you could want].

So… What Do You Do for Fun?

Increasingly, Millennials are turning away from the traditional modes of unwinding [despite what advertisers might say], and looking for things that a) bring Millennials more “in the moment,” and b) are activities that are the total opposite of what they do for a living. If it hits on both? Even better.

Oftentimes, this means turning to “older” hobbies, a.k.a. the hobbies of our grandparents. Look through Millennial Instagram, and you’ll be flooded with images of Millennials crocheting, making sourdough, birdwatching, canoeing, cross country skiing, and gardening. Board and card games have made a huge comeback in the last 10 years, as has crafting in all forms, from adult coloring books all the way to simple woodworking classes. The common thread? All of these are decidedly unplugged activities. For a generation that’s allegedly “addicted to our phones,” we’re sure trying to move away from them as quick as possible for our leisure time.

A Little “Millennial Me” Time

So as you take to summer, please: do your best to take your summer and practice some good self-care doing something you genuinely love. While “summer” may never be a verb for Millennials at large, it can still be a perfect time to unwind and find something that’s purely for you.

Wondering what’s happening with millennials in the workplace? Us too!

Millennial Lifestyle

The Work from Home revolution. The Great Resignation. Wordle taking over our work days and barely leaving us any time to eat or shower. If you’re someone who’s been paying any attention to the workplace, you’re not alone if you’re thinking “what the hell is going on?”

The truth is that even we, as Millennials, aren’t even really sure of the answer to that question. But we’ll do our best to try to answer it in this article. 

A Group of millennials huddled around a MacBook in an officeWho is a Millennial?

First thing’s first—let’s talk about who we’re talking about when we use the phrase “Millennial”. While the word has become a kind of catch-all phrase to refer to young people, a lot of Millennials aren’t so young anymore.

Okay, so maybe that’s a hard pill to swallow. We don’t have to go so far as to call Millennials old yet. But the phrase “aging Millennials” or the even more flattering “geriatric Millennial” is a thing for a reason. Millennials can be largely defined as anyone born between the years 1981 and 1996, and because this is a broad range, it’s safe to say that this is a diverse and varied age group that’s hard to put in a basket.

However, there are some things that most if not all Millennials have in common. They came of age right around the Millennium. They were working their first jobs around the time of the Great Recession. They remember the glory (shame?) of MySpace. And they have an insatiable hunger for avocado toast.

Okay, we’re joking with that last one. The most important thing to remember is that Millennials make up the largest segment in the workplace and by 2025 a whopping 75% of the workforce is going to be a Millennial. More over, boomers and Generation X—the Millennials run the show now. And there’s early signs that show that things are about to get pretty different.

Why should we care about Millennials in the workplace? 

As more and more Millennials enter the workforce, more Millennials will find themselves in positions of power. This means that we are likely to see a shift in the way that we think about work in society.

So what are our new Millennial overlords going to bring to the table? It’s still a bit early to say for sure, but there are some patterns that are already showing up. 

Working Millennials: 5 trends that stick out 

COVID-19 is still a thing (ugh) 

Poor Millennials. As we mentioned above, many in this age group had to deal with finding their first jobs during economic tough times. Then, while many of them are in the prime of their working life, they’ve had to deal with a large-scale global pandemic.

Unfortunately, in 2022, COVID-19 is still very much a presence in our day-to-day lives. It would be hard to sum up the effects that the pandemic has had on employers in just one paragraph, especially since it largely depends in the industry. However, there’s no denying that the pandemic has shaped the job market considerably, and has also changed the way we work. Which brings us to our next point.

A man sitting on his bed working from his laptop and phone.Remote work is king

Millennials are a digitally-savvy generation, with most individuals in this age range growing up with access to a computer from a young age. As a result, many Millennials work in jobs where they rely on the use of a computer. For these Millennials, being able to do these jobs from home is a huge plus. Two-thirds of Millennials feel like remote work gives them a better work-life balance. As a result, it’s been harder for workplaces to retain talent if they aren’t able to offer at the very least a hybrid set-up. 

Millennials love office accessories

Millennials spend less than other generations. The reason for this is simple—for many of the reasons that we’ve already touched on, Millennials, on average, just don’t have a lot of money. Times are tough out there.

However, when Millennials do shop, they shop with purpose. And, with so many Millennials working from home, it’s no wonder that home office accessories are such a hit among this age group. After all, they’re been innovating new office trends for years. 

Job hopping

For better or for worse, Millennials will have, on average, 7.8 jobs over their course of adulthood. There’s a reason why they’re called the “job hopping generation”. Some pundits may say that this is because Millennials are never satisfied, but there’s probably a more sinister reason for this. It can be hard to get a raise without changing careers, and with inflation higher than ever, it’s more important than ever to get a raise. 

Many Millennials employ themselves

Many Millennials are turning to self-employment as a viable career option—and many more are loving it. The most likely reason for this is that it affords them a better work-life balance, but it’s also possible that Millennials see this as an opportune way to combine their passions with their careers and chase that “dream job” they’ve always wanted.

Whether you are a Millennial yourself or you’re working on a team with Millennials, one thing is clear—this age group is hard-working and determined. If you’re looking for a voice-over talent who understands the Millennial existence, consider hiring us, Ian and Maria. It’s an easy way to appeal to one of the world’s most coveted demographics. 

Millennial Burnout: An Interview with Tess Brigham, “Millennial Therapist”

Millennial Lifestyle, Millennial Marketing

Millennials and burnout tend to go hand-in-hand. From trying to navigate myriad social media channels right on down to surviving in the gig economy, it’s no surprise that generationally, Millennials are by and large finding themselves perpetually exhausted and stressed, with a range of studies exploring and confirming associated health issues.

To that end, Maria & Ian sat down with Tess Brigham, known as the pre-eminent “Millennial Therapist,” a Licensed Psychotherapist and Board-Certified Coach specializing in helping Millennials navigate a #boomer world, for a fantastic discussion about self-care, work/life boundaries, and what burnout looks and feels like across generations.

Enjoy!

—

IF: We wanted to talk to you because, reading what you’ve written, you’re incredibly insightful about what we’re generationally up against. Maria and I are both entrepreneurs…

MP: We both do a “weave,” both got a lot of natural hustle, which as you know having worked in the industry, you need to have that to be able to build a voiceover business. But the more we look around, it seems like the hustle is getting compounded by just trying to survive in a gig economy.

IF: I know I’ll look around and see similar issues, no matter what industry my peers are in.

MP: Ian and I know we face burnout by the nature of our business, but is this something that has actually gotten significantly worse generationally? Would these problems still be there if we picked different careers?

IF: Also, we apologize in advance that the way a lot of these questions will be posed will be like you’re our personal Sage.

TB: [Laughs] I tell this story a lot when I consult for companies and talk about millennials. Everyone wants to know, not just what’s the difference with Millennials, but what’s the difference about how things are in the world that we live in today?

My first job was working for this talent agency in San Francisco and at that time, there were no cell phones, there was no email — we spent all of our time on the phone all day, every day, but we worked 9:30 to 5:30, and when 5:30 came, we’d literally turn off the lights, we shut the door, we locked it, and we walked out. My boss had no way of getting a hold of me unless I was home and I actually picked up the phone.

And so, the expectation — I always talk about these “always on” expectations. When my first millennial clients came into my office eight, nine years ago, what surprised me was how much you have to be on all the time. Like, there is no work/life balance. It’s all mixed in together. And what’s so hard is, while yes, I own my own business, and when you own your own business, you could be working all the time if you wanted to.I can’t imagine being 25, 26 and trying to impress a boss, trying to build a career, and then having to sort of say at 9 p.m., “Oh, I’m going to ignore my bosses phone call, I’m going to ignore my bosses fax, I’m going to ignore the email they sent me over the weekend.” And let’s not forget, a lot of these expectations, and the technology we use to satisfy them, were created by boomers.

IF: I never think about that aspect of it.

TB: When I was young, there were well-defined areas of my life, you know: “this is work time,” this is life time.” What I’m seeing with my clients is they, on their own, have to figure out how to set their own limits and boundaries and expectations on themselves for their “work.” It’s much easier for a 50-year-old to figure that out: the boss sending the email maybe isn’t thinking so much about, “They know not to work on the weekend or whatever it is,” but it’s very hard when you’re 25, 26, 27 and you’re trying to build a career, where you feel like, “Okay, I should just respond.”

MP: The technology is so pervasive, and once you get a notice, it takes so much impulse control to *not* look, let alone *not* respond.

TB: I know people have written about Millennials that they “just don’t want that,” they want their lives to be intermixed all the time. But actually, they do and they don’t. On one hand, there’s that freedom to engage as you please… the flip side of it is, is that you’re then having to decide for yourself, when am I going to work, when am I not going to work?

There’s a recent article in the Harvard Business Review where a psychiatrist was talking about how he kept having people come to him thinking that they had adult onset of ADD. And really they did think that. Essentially, because of all the distractions that we have in our world, we increasingly can’t connect with our frontal lobes for our executive functioning — decision making, reactions, all of that. We’re basically short circuiting our brains on a daily basis. And so what’s happening is, we rationalize that as, “I’m not strong enough. I’m not hard-working enough.”

MP: Which makes it so much harder to allow yourself a break.

IF: We both struggle with that all the time. I had a sketch comedy show for about 4 years here in Minneapolis, and we realized fairly early on that part of what made our team click was that we all “relax by working more.”

TB: My clients really struggle with valuing play. They really struggle with valuing sleep, play, rest… doing nothing. There’s such a drive to optimize everything all the time. “I have to optimize, I have to ‘like,’ I need to make sure that if I go to this country, I see all these things. If I’m home for the holidays, I have to see all my friends. I have to optimize.” None of us are just sitting. We never just sit, you know? I take BART into the city to see my clients, and once upon a time, most people were sitting there reading, staring out the windows. And now we’re all like, “Well, I’m on the train, I should optimize and get some work done.”

MP: Or even worse, you get together with your five friends for dinner that you haven’t seen in six months and you all are sitting there on your phones.

TB: Exactly. People are struggling to just “be,” right? We’re struggling to sit still.

I was having a conversation last week and as we were about to part, she said she was on her way to a class, and I asked, “Oh, you’re going to yoga?” And she’s like, “Yeah… well, actually, it’s just kind of a nap.” It’s a guided nap, where they go and they lie down, allowing them to sit and process. I know there’s a spot in New York, building sleeping pods so people can take a nap during work hours.

IF: I remember seeing something like that really briefly when I went to college by Wall St, like a good 15 years ago. When I first saw those, I was like, “Why would you do that?” But it’s genius. Where else are you going to take a nap in lower Manhattan for 40 minutes? If you tried to get home, by the time you get there, you can’t even nap and recharge — you have to go right back to work.

TB: It’s like we’re little kids again. “Everyone get on your mat and lie down.” Or at least read a book for a bit. I remember my son going through this in pre-school. “Nope, you have to rest.”

MP: That’s basically all the startups I want to build next: nap time and snack time for all of us.

IF: [Laughs] Free snacks, kegerator in the kitchen, and nap pods and play time…

TB: [Laughs] You know, we joke about this, but the problem is, these are real perks companies are offering, and higher-ups and CEOs are sitting around thinking, “Well, we’re giving those snacks, we’re giving them breaks, we’re creating work/life balance.”

MP: “We’re doing their dry cleaning, they’ve got a gym here and day care. What else could you possibly want?”

TB: Exactly. But their workers are simply getting their lunch, and going back to their desk, eating their snack while they’re working. They’re not actually taking advantage of these things! They’re stressed out there.

MP: I was just chatting about that — I am the worst at not doing anything. Just allowing free time to be free time. I think part of it is a carry over for me: I worked two full time jobs essentially at the same time for about three and a half years, building my voiceover career while I was working for this nonprofit organization, which sometimes felt like a trick: you’re doing really good work, but there’s still bureaucracy just like at any other type of job.

TB: What did you do?

MP: I was working full time managing a team of eight people, essentially managing a team of fellow Millennials on their first jobs out of college, and communicating with everyone over video conference only. And I am an extrovert, a gregarious extrovert. So sitting in a room by myself, only communicating with people over video, which was very hard. And at the same time, building my voice over career, it got to the point where I would literally work from nine to six on the left side of my desk and then I would roll over and work from like, six to two in the morning on everything that had rolled in that day for recording. And then when I finished, I’d just go to bed and wake up and do it again. And that was working fine until I found a partner. And then I realized, “Wow, I went on 97 blind dates to find someone to actually like spend my life with, and I’m asking him to play video games on silent every night so that I can do these two things. And that was a real wake up call for me. But even when I focused on voiceover as my primary, I didn’t find any extra time in my day.

IF: I think that that’s one of the hardest things about truly getting going in voiceover, or really, acting in general. I know that that’s part of what drove me from New York, was realizing that I was spending all this time developing two careers — a survival career, and my actual career. But for Millennials as a whole in the gig economy, it’s not just a want, it’s a need to be working all the time.

TB: Which means that Millennials have to actually schedule their time off, and try to stick to it.

MP: We call them garbage days, where we, like, won’t leave the house. Like, no bras, no pants, just exist as the people that we are.

IF: So, knowing we’re all living in a 24/7 world, do you see this kind of thing happening much with Boomers, or even GenX? Or is this really a Millennial problem?

TB: I personally think that it’s across the board. But I think the difference is, I didn’t have to do any of this or figure any of this out when I was young. Your brain isn’t fully formed until you’re 25.

I remember being in my 20s, and so much of it is trying to figure out who you are and make all these big life decisions and find your path… and it’s also incredibly difficult to try to figure out what your priorities are, right? Because as you get older, your priorities, your values get clear. And so even though I see the older generations struggling to put the phone down and engage too, they’re much more able to prioritize. In your 20s, since you typically don’t have a ton of responsibilities, you can engage all the time and you don’t have nearly as much immediate incentive to not. When you’re young, these decisions and choices for yourself become incredibly overwhelming.

I live in the Bay Area, and a very typical thing out here in tech is four years to burnout. It’s this crazy race to get to five years. By the time people get to four years, they’re exhausted, but at five years, they’ll get a month sabbatical. But by the time they get there they’re really crispy. Burnt. I mean, there was a big report recently that showed that 50% of Millennials and roughly 75% of Gen Z have left a job because of mental health reasons — stress.

IF: What do you see as the best ways for Millennials in particular to pre-empt burnout?

TB:  Eat lunch.

IF/MP: [Laughs]

TB: We laugh, but it’s true: it’s really making a commitment to yourself to create down time for yourself, and a simple one to start is just eat lunch away from your desk. Sit somewhere else, talk to someone, sit quietly, do nothing. Look out the window! It could be as simple as that. Everyone has little buttons, but I do encourage people to kind of go back to the old school way.

Yeah, some days you have to be up at 6:00 AM for a meeting, and have to be up at 10 o’clock at night to talk to someone else in another part of the world. But make a commitment to schedule that out. If you’re going to be up working until 10, don’t start work till 11 or 12 the next day — if you’re going to be up at six, then leave at three, you know? There’s a reason the standard workday became 8 hours.

It’s also a simple thing, but try leaving the office. Most of us don’t smoke anymore, right? Take a non-smoking break. Once upon a time, smokers got up, they left, they went outside into the air and granted, they weren’t putting the best things in their lungs, but they’re taking five minutes to just breathe, away from the computer screen away from the work. Go outside, walk around with someone, see what the world does.

Outside of extreme circumstances, at the end of the day — no matter what generation you are — there is absolutely nothing that urgent that you can’t pull away from for a few moments. And we certainly know your work will be there for you when you get back, but you’ll come back far more ready for what’s next.

—
Tess Brigham (LMFT, BCC) is a Licensed Psychotherapist and Board-Certified Coach and specializes in helping Millennials discover their unique life path so they can go out into the world and make an impact. She’s been featured on the TV show “The Doctors,” is a regular contributor at CNBC as “The Millennial Therapist,” and has been a featured Millennial expert at NBC News, Oprah Magazine, and USA Today among many more.

To learn more about Tess, go to her website www.tessbrigham.com, find her on Instagram or FaceBook, or email her at tess@tessbrigham.com.

 

Digital Nomads, Part 2: An interview with the “VOMad”

Millennial Lifestyle, Millennials on the Road, Voiceover Abroad

Far and away, one of the best aspects of the Internet is knowing that, no matter what you do, you are never alone.

Building off of our “Digital Nomads in a Gig Economy” post, Maria and Ian chatted recently with fellow millennial voice talent Sean Gray, known as the “VOMad” [or, “VONomad”]. Sean’s a smart, talented fellow voice actor who is taking full advantage of the portability of voice over work to travel all around the world. Read on [or listen below!] to learn more about this fascinating fellow, and how he’s carving out his niche while traversing the globe.

Audio playback:

      Millennial Voiceover — VOMad Transcript Audio

——-
Ian Fishman: Sean, where are you right now? Where are you joining us from today?

Sean Gray: I’m in Berlin. It’s kind of becoming a little bit gentrified now, but it has some nice history. Where I am has always been the neighborhood where the artists would always go — I think David Bowie spent some time here in the 80s. It’s where the Turkish families came and it was always very cheap to live here, which is what attracted the artists. It’s just a very nice, relaxed atmosphere. It definitely feels like a city, but the atmosphere is not tense, like I would usually feel in a city. It’s a very relaxed, laid back place.

IF: I’ve always pictured it as being like the best parts of the Village in New York and Wicker Park [Chicago], but with less yelling and shoving like you get in America. Or at least like a different kind of rudeness. I picture sharper elbows but less yelling.

SG: Yeah, for sure. I haven’t been in the States yet, but I would imagine there’s maybe a bit less yelling from the movies, you know?

Maria Pendolino: Obviously, we always slam our fists on car hoods and scream that we’re walking just to let people know that we are, in fact, walking.

IF: “Hey, I’m walking here!” is the unofficial slogan of America at this point.

MP: Sean, a big part of why we wanted to talk to you is because as millennials, a lot of us have become digital nomads in a gig economy and especially in the voiceover community. And one of the things that kind of freedom allows us is to travel all over the place. And it sounds like that’s something that you’ve figured out really well for yourself.

SG: For sure. I’ve had my sights set on this for about, I’d say, three years. I read [Tim Ferriss’] “Four-hour work week,” and I was already in voiceover by that time a little bit, very slightly, and then it just clicked for me — I don’t need to be some kind of e-commerce guy, I can do voiceovers anywhere I want. So why not do the four hour work week thing as a voiceover?

IF: That’s one of the best things about it. Being alive in 2019, as long as you’ve got the chops to do it, access to the auditions and a good internet connection, you really do have the freedom to do it from anywhere. Even 10 years ago doing it outside of New York, LA, London, and to a lesser extent, Chicago, it was significantly harder to just to build your business, let alone exist in it.

Speaking of which, where have you gone as a VOMad? What’s reaches of the planet has this taken you? Make us jealous.

SG: I started in March with an experiment. I went to Bali. I decided, let’s do five weeks and see how it goes. I figure, I’ll get all the gear and we’ll see how this works. If this is gonna work for me — a six hour or seven hour time difference and basically living in the jungle — then I know at least most other places will also work for me. I’ve just arrived in Berlin a couple of months ago. I’m pretty much at the beginning of the journey. I’ll be in San Francisco at the end of October.

MP: So with someplace like Bali, which is perhaps a little bit more far-flung and less industrialized than Berlin or San Francisco, how did you find things like internet access, or different sites to upload large files?

SG: Bali came with pretty much all the challenges that you can possibly hope for… or let’s say, not hope for. The main challenge in Bali — they had some decent internet, but you had to kind of find it, which was a big challenge.

IF: How did you find it?

SG: I spend a lot of time and energy looking for the right place. And you know, the internet was one thing, but that was the least of my worries, to be honest, because the houses there are kind of made of bamboo, or the doors have holes in them and it’s in the middle of the jungle. So you’re hearing the jungle screaming through the walls or even the roof, you know? The big challenge was finding a place that not only had internet but that also was not filled with jungle sounds or mopeds or what have you. It’s a pretty loud place to be honest.

MP: So you’ve just got like, screaming Howler monkeys as a watermark on all your files.

IF: I was just thinking that I’ve been doing this all wrong. I’ve been adding all of that in post.

SG: If you could just go to the source, I recommend it. If you do a lot of jungle work, go for it. If “jungle” is your niche voice, Bali is the place for you.

IF: Did you find any challenges in this kind of first experiment in Bali with of your long-term clients? Let’s say there was a project you did before you left for Bali. Did you have trouble matching audio? How are you thinking about that as you move from space to space?

SG: The sound stays pretty consistent in this booth that I bought. I didn’t have any problems with that. That was totally fine. And I didn’t have many projects at the time that were carrying over to this five week thing. I made sure that most of the jobs I did in the weeks coming up to Bali that I did them on my portable set, so that if there were any pickups that needed to be done it wouldn’t sound too different.

A couple of instances did occur when a client asked, “Hey, can you redo this sentence?” This was totally unexpected and a job from like, a few months ago. I said, “Sure, but do know that I’m on a portable setup now, it could sound slightly different.” And when I sent it to him, he was like, “Hey, this is perfect. I don’t even really hear the difference. So thanks very much.”

IF: I’m always so relieved and terrified when I hear that. I’m like, “Oh good, that’s awesome that it matches! Wait a minute, you’re telling me that this mic matches that mic, when… how much have I spent to treat out my sound booth and such?”

MP: You just get a little overconfident on your pillow forts. You get that plane coming in, but then you don’t have to add it back in post. [Laughs]

SG: It’s a good point what you’ve just said here. One of my fears before doing this came from not wanting to compromise in the slightest on quality, because this is my business and my goal is to have my business grow throughout my travels. I want it to grow, so no compromises, and at the same time, how can I possibly offer the same amount of quality with so much less? I think the main difference is that I have slightly more challenges in terms of sound coming from outside. It’s just a matter of finding a quiet environment. And other than that, I think the quality is pretty much the same.

IF: I was wondering initially whether or not you would line up a number of gigs and rent out a studio and then just go and bang all of those out in one afternoon. But it sounds like you do everything from your portable rig. Is that correct?

SG: I had a few instances where I had to do a live recording. For those, I went ahead and just hired a studio over there because I don’t want to take any risks at seeming unprofessional of course. And that was fine, too. They are very affordable, actually — especially in Bali. It’s like, I think I paid like 25 euros an hour for a very, very nice studio. I just took a scooter, brought my iPad, brought my own gear because I didn’t want to deal with an engineer and everything, so I just set up my own gear in that studio. I had a nice quiet space with internet. It all went perfectly.

IF: Logistically, time zones are already a slight mathematical nightmare. But as far as where your business is based out of, versus where you are, versus where your client is… does that cause any hiccups for your business? Has that affected you at all in the ways in which you can procure and complete work and get paid?

SG: My business stays in the Netherlands, and that’s not gonna change anytime soon. In terms of time zone, that was a challenge in Bali mainly… but I guess I work with people from all over the world already. We just figure it out. We make it work because that’s what we’ve got to do.

MP: You’ve just added like 14 world clocks to your iPhone, so you always know the time.

SG: A funny thing happened with the first call I got in Bali. So, it’s like a six hour time difference. And so, it’s evening where I was, and it was just normal working hours back in Holland where I have a lot of clients. And they called me and I was like four beers into a nice night out at a live music event. So I was like, okay, what should I do? So I picked up and I had to play it cool. I was like, “Yeah… I’m at an event. Uh, is it okay if you email me this and I’ll get back to you in a couple of hours when I’m back home?”

It did take a bit of getting used to: I could get a call in the middle of my evening. How am I gonna handle that? And I don’t want to lie, but at the same time, I don’t need to make it more complicated by saying, “Oh, I’m in Bali now, but I can still record, etc.” I keep it simple and just provide the same level of service and convenience. The “no compromises,” that’s been the whole basis on which I’m doing this, that I don’t want to compromise in service or quality of what I’m delivering.

MP: Yeah. I think there’s this element millennials in general are more comfortable with, perhaps than some of the other generations. in the expectation of always being “on.” And especially in the gig economy and freelancing, there’s a lot of people who are side hustling — you know, some people doing something like voice over or another creative pursuit, and they’ve built up a portfolio of clients… but they might also still be working a day job.

It’s interesting because I feel like there’s this surge right now, where people are trying to recapture work-life balance and like, “Don’t forget to download your six meditation apps and write in your gratitude journal!” But also when your client emails you at 1130p EST, the expectation might not be that you’re getting up to do the job, but there is an expectation that you’re going to reply to their email, because they know you’re seeing it with your notifications, because they know you have your phone, because they know you’re scrolling while you’re doing whatever you’re doing.

So, how do you find that? Like, as you know, as the gig economy keeps building and as you’ve got clients all over the world, different time zones, whatever — how are you finding balance while taking time to explore these new cities that you’re in. Obviously there’s a reason that you wanted to travel — so, how’s your work life balance?

SG: I’d say it’s pretty good. I try to be reachable as much as possible. So that does mean that, you know, during a nice evening with friends, I might have to take a couple of minutes out in order to let a client know I’ve read their message and when I’ll get back to them. I mean, not every job, not every email needs to be responded to immediately. But I can always respond and say, “Hey, I got your message, I’ll get back to you.” If it’s really pressing, I’ll go for it. Of course I’m here to enjoy my travels… but it’s also my career, my voiceover business that’s allowing me to do this.

I will admit there have been some stressful times during evenings out and that kind of stuff, but then again, that’s also occurred when I’ve just been at home in a normal time zone. I think it’s part of the voiceover industry… or at least, it has been for me. It takes a bit of getting used to how to handle boundaries in that respect.

MP: I feel like I’ve conditioned my friends. I’m in Buffalo, New York, which is Eastern time and they know I do a lot of work with people on West coast time in Los Angeles, and they kind of know the look on my face when I pick up my phone and like, turn my body slightly away from the table to try not to be rude. And they know I’m teeing something up to record after dinner and I’m only going to keep it to one margarita.

IF: It’s a trade off — it’s that blessing and a curse that there is always everything to do, and nothing to do. “I’m going to go live my life as I see fit, but I’ve gotta take my work with me.”

SG: For sure.

MP: Sean, if people are interested in reaching out to you and pitching a city where they think you should visit or want to hit you up for a drink if they’re in your city, what are your socials and stuff where people can find you?

SG: Feel free to reach out on Instagram. My handle@seangray1 is just kind of my personal one, but I post both personal and business stuff there. You can also email me at sean@voiceofgray.com. If you want to reach out, I’d be super happy to chat!

Sean Gray: Voice of Gray [website]

Want to read more about being “Digital Nomads?” Check out the original blog post here. Or, bring it all back home to hear demos or request a demo.

Digital Nomads in a Gig Economy

Millennial Lifestyle

Freelance Voice Over, Around the World

“Freelance” has always been part of the gig in the world of voice over, much like any other artistic discipline. When you start voice acting full-time, you know exactly what you’re signing up for: a career with great peaks & valleys, moving from job to job [often multiple times in a day] and sending out far more submissions for voice work [i.e., auditions] than actual jobs booked. It is a numbers game, after all — the more people you reach, the more likely you are to find and book potential jobs.

But where in the past, this kind of freelance life was largely contained to Los Angeles and New York [and, to a lesser extent, Chicago], thanks to the internet, you can run a successful V/O business from just about anywhere you want [hello, Ian in Minneapolis and Maria in Buffalo!] — and in many cases, non-traditional locales are actually better, since the gig pays the same no matter where you book it. Might as well live in a place where your dollar goes further, then, right?

[Un]surprisingly, this same trend has permeated across the generational Millennial landscape.

 

Millennials: Taking Their Work Home, And On Vacation, Since 2008

Voice over talent are absolutely not alone in seeking out the locales that’ll give the most bang for their freelance buck. And, for the record, neither are Millennials in the voice over world: baby boomer and Gen-X voice actors are spread far and wide, rural and urban. It simply doesn’t make sense to build your business in a place with screamingly high rent, when the immediate tools you need to work include high-speed internet and quality, sound-proof space. 

Millennial Voiceover Peaceful Recording Place
Try finding a place this quiet in NYC or LA.

But one of the surprise benefits that gets overlooked in our Great Millennial Migrations is how good this can be for the local economy: in essence, Millennials who embrace being digital nomads are able to show up wherever they want [however temporary they may be] and contribute local, commercial dollars. 

Think about it: let’s say a Millennial voice over talent, formerly in New York, decides to leave the city and set up shop in Vermont. With them, they’re bringing their full business — which, for the sake of argument, we’ll say is roughly a $60,000 per year voice over business. Out of that, they’re going to have a decent percentage now going to the state of Vermont and whatever locality in business taxes… and that’s still saying nothing for the money they’ll spend locally working at coffee shops, dining out; basically, living their lives. Millennials who embrace digital nomadism bring their own economies with them, and for struggling small and mid-sized cities, that’s a really great thing.

Especially if you’re in a rust belt city that’s trying to revitalize. There’s a reason those old, abandoned warehouses are turning into galleries, breweries and shared workspaces: they’re significantly better for the economy than abandoned warehouses.

Millennial, 21st Century Voice Over: Not All Genres Are Created Equal

Obviously, the digital nomad lifestyle has its cons, too — some specific to the voice over industry, but others much stronger across the entire Millennial generation.

For voice over in particular, the perception is changing somewhat  — as we get better, internet-specific tools like SourceConnect, iPDTL and Zoom, and deliver broadcast quality audio from home studios that rivals full production studios — but it hasn’t quite caught up, especially in the more traditional voice over genres. If you voice lots Explainers, eLearning, audiobooks, and regional and local commercials, chances are you’ve built your voice over career outside one of the three big hubs. But, if you regularly voice for anything related to network television — voicing national commercials, promos, live in-show narration and cartoons/animation — you either almost have to be in one of New York, L.A. or Chicago, or had to have built your business and contacts there before running away to your bunker in Montana.

Millennial Voiceover Finding a Good Recording Place
“One day, Simba, this will be where you record voice over”

Obviously, this says nothing for the race-to-the-bottom in voice over rates that’s come with the internet and the accessibility of auditions via pay-to-play sites, but that’s for another blog.

Go Where the Work Is, Young Millennial

But, that touches on how this affects Millennials as a whole: as traditional entry-level and middle-class jobs disappear, increasingly, Millennials rely on their wits and skills to piece together a freelance living wherever they can find it.

Unless you’re independently wealthy [already a misnomer for just about anyone in their 20s], you simply don’t have the ability to follow up four years of college with an internship… let alone finding the 3-5 years of “relevant experience” to gain most entry-level positions that promise some kind of stability and the promise of benefits. It’s not hard to see why it’s easier to turn to readily available project-based contract work… even if it means stark trade-offs in taxes, retirement, health benefits, and stability.

Like our generations before us, as we start “adulting,” we’re going to go where the work is. And, more often than not, that means finding contract work online… and looking for where we can stretch our dollars farther.

Gone Workin’

On one hand, as voice actors, it’s nice to have some company: for voice actors as a whole, even if and when you join a union, you’ll get access to benefits like health insurance, but you’re still pretty much on your own when it comes to retirement [let alone finding more work]. But for our generation at large, when you want to reach us, you’ll have to do it online… which means, we’ll probably be working in some capacity, hitting the digital pavement to find our next gig.

Want to learn more about Millennial trends? Check out our “All About Millennials” hub, or just bring it on back home to reset your Millennial Voiceover exploration.