Barb Lyon
Voice Artist

I’m working on a bunch of new demos right now. It’s exciting… and honestly, a little stressful. Exciting because of the potential. Stressful because of the pressure. What kinds of spots should I feature in my quest to deliver authentic voice over? Can I reuse a spot from my main commercial demo on something more authoritative? How do I create enough variety without sounding forced?

We’ve all heard the line “fake it till you make it.” I prefer the way Simon Sinek phrases it: “Act as if.” When you think of your situation, is your first thought I can't, because… It'll never work, because… I’ll never…? All those thoughts stop you cold. You don’t because “you can’t”. It’ll never work so you don’t even try. You’ll “never get there” so you just don't even think about it. But what if you made decisions as if things were going to work out exactly as you im

Ever feel like everyone else is just so lucky? I mean if we watch their feeds, everyone else’s life is full of rainbows and unicorns. Booked over here. Incredible travel over there. Won a bunch of money playing scratchers and now they’re driving a new car. Well, OK, maybe not that one. No matter how we feel, or how it appears...none of that happened overnight and they're not simply lucky.

Is it just me, or does it feel like advertising has slowed in recent weeks? Auditions aren’t gone…they’ve just gotten a bit…light. At first I did what we all do. I made it about me.Maybe I bumped my mic settings and they sound off. Did I forget how to do this? I probably suck. And then I zoomed out a bit. We’re in a moment where people are talking about nuclear threats again. Supply chains are still a mess. Long-standing alliances are shifting in ways that’ve sounded far-

I write about motivation a lot. And honestly, that’s because we need it. You might think that it’s because I’m surrounded by these amazing sources of it. And, I mean, I guess I am…if you look close enough. But the truth is that keeping yourself going every day is just tough.If you worked in an office you’d at least have teammates to celebrate wins with…or the flip side, those Debbie Downers that drag us all into the pit of despair. So maybe that’s not worth the risk.

So I recently redid my website. I’m relatively happy with the result… but I never fully trust myself. It does look good. And I have gotten some real (not spam) leads from it, which is always encouraging. Still, with the way people search changing, it feels smart to take one more pass. Afterall SEO has totally changed the way we search!

This freelance voice over feast or famine cycle is something no one really prepares you for.One week, you’re buried in work. Emails, files, deadlines, pickups—you’re moving fast, feeling good, maybe even thinking, “Okay… this is it. This is the new normal.” And then… Nothing. No emails.No audition feedback.No messages “just checking your availability”. Just a whole lot of quiet. And then your brain is flooded with answers.

Lili Wexu. You might recognize her name from Grey’s Anatomy, American Crime Story, Assassin’s Creed, or Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem. Imagine my surprise when I found her Get Clever About VO course almost a year ago. I was over the moon! See, I’m a bit of a process person. Tell me the process, I’ll execute, and voila! So when I found out there was a step by step process to breaking down scripts, I was like, YEAH! Now we’re talking!

How many times have you made a decision to do something…and how many of those somethings have you actually accomplished? (oh, no.) If you’ve ever struggled with overcoming procrastination, you know exactly how this goes. And, yeah, I’m guilty of it too. “I’m going to clean out the basement so I could exercise down there.” (The actual exercising, is a whole other ball of wax.)

If you haven’t had a chance yet, it’s a great time to check out NAVA’s State of Voiceover in 2026 Survey. I know that many of us filled it out. But, if you didn’t, it’s worth it to go through and answer the questions now and see where you fit in the industry. Some revelations I think we knew in our hearts. In a traditional job, more hours tends to correlate (at least loosely) with more pay. In voiceover…not so much.

As voice over pros, life can be a bit solitary at times. You need to do it all. From recording, editing, and engineering, to accounting… and voice over marketing. It can be tough to keep your chin up through all that. You barely have time to breathe because there’s always another item on the to-do list, but you’re supposed to keep a smile on your face and look forward to another bright, shining day… even when you’d rather cocoon on the couch and binge your favorite show.

Last week I read an article about Grrls to the Front, a program designed to encourage girls to step into parts of the audio and music world that have traditionally been dominated by men. The goal is simple: give girls a chance to try engineering, producing, and running the board—the behind-the-scenes work that shapes the sound we all hear. And I couldn’t help wondering what my life might have looked like.

There’s a moment most people don’t talk about in voice over motivation. It’s not booking the job. It’s not the callback. It’s not the email that starts with “We loved your read…” It’s the Tuesday morning when you step into the booth and think,“Alright… let’s see what happens today.”

The first time I met Carrie Farris, what struck me was her calm confidence. Relaxed, self assured, but still able to laugh at herself. She didn’t compete for the room, she just quietly owned it. When you meet people like that in this industry and you remember them. I did and I’m so glad you agreed to be interviewed, Carrie! When I really looked at your body of work, I thought, Wait… what?

Some days inspiration shows up like a polite houseguest. It knocks. You open the door. It sits down at the table and gets right to work. The words flow. The ideas line up. And for a brief moment you wonder why anyone ever complains about the creative process. Those days are wonderful. They are also…not most days. Most days inspiration is nowhere to be found. Not late. Not stuck in traffic. Just gone.

2026 has been the year of due diligence for me. Every day you hear more and more really scary things about AI, it’s becoming more and more important to protect ourselves. So this year I’m having all clients sign the NAVA AI rider. Most seem to understand, and sign it willingly. I’m especially following through with new clients. I had two inquiries last week. One of them was super straight-forward and professional.

If you can overthink the worst, why can’t you overthink the best? We are fantastic at imagining the worst case scenario. It's just easier to envision disaster. We send a cold email and immediately assume we’ve annoyed someone. We reach out to a new agent and picture them rolling their eyes. We send a recording to a brand-new client and wait for the email that says, “This isn’t what we had in mind.” Our brains run straight to the worst-case scenario.

It’s National Grammar Day! Which may not sound exciting… unless you work in audio. Then it’s basically job security. Here’s something most people don’t think about: Grammar isn’t just about correctness. It’s about interpretation. Take this sentence: “Employees who complete training quickly advance.” Great motivation. Now imagine that line read flat. No inflection. No awareness of structure. No human deciding what matters. That’s where things get… unintentionally awkw

From time to time I meet someone who says, “Voice over? What’s that?” I’ll explain that a lot of the work I do—eLearning narration, YouTube videos, telecom applications—you’ll probably never hear unless you’re especially interested in paying an electric bill in Detroit, really dig solar panels, or just can’t learn enough about child car seats. It’s not glamorous. It’s steady. It’s useful. And every now and then I get lucky with a national or regional ad they might have seen.

So the last few weeks were…a lot. Like a lot, a lot. And it taught me things about myself. But let me set the stage a bit. See, last fall, I talked with an immersive audiobook company. I’ve done plenty of narration work before, but immersive audiobook narration is a different animal. It sounded interesting, so I went ahead and cut sample audio which they accepted. And then it got quiet. I figured I may never hear from them. Oh well. Easy come easy go. And then it happened.