Always_Ask_For_The_Opportunity_You_Think_You_Deserve
00:00:00.000 | Hello everybody, it's Sam from Financial Samurai and in this episode I want to talk about opportunity
00:00:05.800 | and what happens when you don't get the opportunity you think you deserve.
00:00:11.400 | If this is the situation, you need to stand up and fight for yourself.
00:00:16.200 | Let me share with you an example that I recently experienced.
00:00:20.280 | When a producer from Penguin Random House contacted me about creating the audio version
00:00:25.240 | of my book, Buy This, Not That, he asked me a series of questions on who I thought would
00:00:31.760 | be the best fit to narrate my book.
00:00:35.880 | And he gave me three or four examples, all were okay, it felt kind of weird, why can't
00:00:41.520 | I narrate my book?
00:00:43.000 | What's wrong with my voice?
00:00:44.920 | Is it just not smooth enough?
00:00:46.960 | Is it not authentic enough?
00:00:49.100 | What's wrong with me?
00:00:50.440 | And so I went down his list and I finally found some guy who I felt was pretty good.
00:00:55.720 | He sounded like a 10 year old version of me.
00:00:59.560 | Theodore Chin, my narrator, was a seasoned actor and I didn't look at any of the narrator's
00:01:06.200 | backgrounds before I chose them.
00:01:08.880 | But when I finally chose Theodore Chin, it turns out he was very similar to me.
00:01:14.100 | He lived in San Francisco, he's Asian American and I thought, oh, I guess there is that right
00:01:19.160 | fit.
00:01:20.160 | So yes, I could have been one of the four white narrators.
00:01:23.080 | Yeah, I could have been a white man on audio.
00:01:26.000 | I could have been an Indian man on audio.
00:01:28.560 | But instead, I chose the person who best fit who I am.
00:01:33.240 | But still, it wasn't me.
00:01:35.360 | So it wasn't 100% authentically me.
00:01:38.800 | And so I asked the audio producer, can we come to a compromise?
00:01:41.960 | Because I had surveyed my newsletter subscribers, and you can sign up at financialsamurai.com/newsletter,
00:01:48.440 | whether they wanted a professional narrator or me.
00:01:52.880 | And about 70% of the respondents said they wanted me and 30% said a professional.
00:01:59.560 | And that was a surprise.
00:02:01.460 | But it made a lot of sense.
00:02:04.120 | Writers are writers first.
00:02:05.720 | We are not professional narrators.
00:02:08.220 | Even though I've been recording this podcast for over five years, I'm not a professional
00:02:13.480 | narrator.
00:02:14.480 | Listen to my voice.
00:02:15.480 | Is it as smooth and silky as you hear on TV?
00:02:18.120 | Is it as professional as you hear?
00:02:20.000 | Well, I guess I could try to sound like that, but it's really not me.
00:02:24.400 | And a lot of the respondents said, writers who narrate, who are not professional narrators
00:02:29.360 | just don't sound as good.
00:02:31.720 | It's just a little bit off, and they would rather have a professional.
00:02:35.440 | So that was 30% of the respondents.
00:02:37.520 | And so I came to a compromise because I did feel a little bit slighted.
00:02:40.880 | I said, what's wrong with me?
00:02:42.920 | What's wrong with me, the creator of the book?
00:02:45.260 | And the compromise was that I would narrate the introduction and the conclusion, so the
00:02:50.640 | book ends of the book.
00:02:52.340 | And by the way, the audio book is about 12 hours and 50 minutes long.
00:02:56.560 | So it's a really long book.
00:02:58.780 | It's packed with a lot of information.
00:03:01.080 | If you get the audio, you're going to enjoy driving across the country with it, but you
00:03:05.580 | won't be able to see the charts and the art if you were to buy a hardcover.
00:03:09.920 | So that was a good compromise, I thought.
00:03:12.200 | If listeners really hated my voice, then they could go to the professional for the meat
00:03:17.280 | of the book.
00:03:18.500 | And if listeners didn't like the professional, which I do believe they will like the professional
00:03:22.460 | narrator, at least I tried and offered almost 45 minutes of my own voice.
00:03:29.300 | So the lesson here is to speak up for opportunities you think you deserve.
00:03:34.480 | As you go through life, you will probably be slighted, disrespected, and passed over
00:03:40.300 | for things you deserve.
00:03:42.380 | Therefore, to try to even the playing field, you must speak up.
00:03:48.380 | And also don't take things too personally.
00:03:51.380 | As a writer, I like to be really introspective.
00:03:54.540 | I wrote a new post called "How to Convince Someone You're Bad When You're Actually Pretty
00:03:59.300 | Good" and it's a story about how a teammate disrespected me after doing very well in the
00:04:04.780 | regular season for my tennis league.
00:04:08.020 | I could have been all disgruntled and felt bad about myself for not getting the respect
00:04:12.780 | that I thought I deserved after having an 83% winning season.
00:04:18.500 | But instead, I turned it around.
00:04:20.580 | I looked at the negative as a positive to think, "Hmm, if I could learn how to position
00:04:25.720 | myself as a mediocre player, as someone who is not a threat, I could then surprise on
00:04:33.300 | the upside and outperform and win."
00:04:36.380 | If you've ever watched any Chinese drama based out of mainland China, I don't know why you
00:04:42.500 | would but I do because I like to practice my Mandarin, you'll notice that all the actors
00:04:47.960 | and actresses are dubbed.
00:04:50.660 | They are dubbed.
00:04:52.060 | And why is that?
00:04:53.060 | Well, the reason why is because China is a big country with over 1.2 billion people and
00:04:58.540 | there are different accents and dialects of the Chinese language all throughout the country.
00:05:04.500 | And the actors and actresses hail from all throughout the country.
00:05:08.260 | So they want to formalize the sound, the narration, the voices, so that when people listen, they're
00:05:15.380 | listening to "proper Chinese dialect and accents."
00:05:21.300 | So I thought that was really fascinating.
00:05:23.340 | But that's also interesting, right?
00:05:24.980 | Because the audio producer didn't think my voice was the proper American accent.
00:05:32.100 | And maybe it's because of my name.
00:05:34.660 | Maybe it's because of what I look like.
00:05:36.260 | I'm not sure.
00:05:37.260 | But again, I fought for myself to speak up for my own book.
00:05:42.140 | And I hope you enjoy listening to it.
00:05:44.100 | And I hope you enjoy reading it.
00:05:46.360 | If you pick up a hard copy, which will count towards the bestsellers list, you'll be able
00:05:50.720 | to see all the beautiful art by Colleen Kong Savage and the graphs and charts that I created.
00:05:56.940 | And if you order the audio version, I really believe you'll enjoy the hybrid narration.
00:06:02.360 | It's a long audio book, folks, over 12 hours long.
00:06:05.140 | So if you are driving across state or going to that next three or four hour road trip,
00:06:10.660 | I think you'll really enjoy it.
00:06:12.540 | So please, the next time you find yourself in a funny situation, a hairy situation where
00:06:18.380 | you think you deserve an opportunity, please stand up.
00:06:22.860 | Please speak up and ask them, "Why not me?
00:06:26.900 | Why not me too?"
00:06:28.020 | Ask yourself, "Why not me too?"
00:06:31.460 | Because chances are, you deserve it.
00:06:33.900 | Thanks so much.
00:06:34.900 | And you can pick up any version you want of Buy This, Not That at FinancialSamurai.com/btnt.
00:06:42.340 | It goes on sale July 19th.