Before choosing a new life path, we often explore the idea in imagination. Let’s imagine voice-over work. Everybody has a voice. Most want to be heard. Most are also shy about being seen. Voice-over work might appeal to many people, if they thought about it.

Does using your voice to earn money-and command a little attention-interest you? It’s often just as much fun as it sounds, resembling, as it does, what we loved to do as kids. (Occasionally, it is also work.)

I started a voice-over gig at Fiverr.com after retiring from private practice psychotherapy. I wanted to improve the audio when recording video classes at home. Instead of paying $15,000 to develop my voice-over technique, I decided to freelance, learned voice work, earned $7,000, and had a grand adventure.

I became the voice of newsmen and presidents, generals and soldiers, assorted aliens and video-game voices galore! Now, I make my own video classes that incorporate what I learned by being the voice for other people’s messages.

Voice recording is an easy freelance skill to deliver since our voice is a “wind instrument” that-unlike the oboe-we all practice daily. You can begin with whatever microphones and skills you find lying fallow about the home and then learn like crazy on the job. Study, while you are doing the work, is easier; concepts are more immediately relevant in this teachable moment.

Fiverr freelancers, and millions more, are earning while learning (whatever skills they want to perfect). Voicing can be as simple as reading an announcement or as limitless as the world of voice acting. For those who are part performer and partly shy, voice acting lets introverts perform while hiding.

Einstein used his famous “gedankenexperiments,” or “thought experiments,” to explore bold new ideas, and, since I like dropping his name, let’s use a thought experiment to imagine how you might first consider doing voice work. We’re just thinking out loud here. This is only a pre-test; do not adjust your mind-set. We’re only “pre-preparing” for voice work.

Can you imagine using your voice as a tool? Did you ever love reading stories to someone? Have you had a seductive encounter with a microphone’s power to magnify and transform your voice and, therefore, how you experience yourself? Even if you normally avoid attention, is there not some part of you that, at the least, longs to be listened to, and maybe even to perform?

How to imagine “Audio Acting” and/or Renting your voice to “Announce.”

1. Listen with new attention to television voice-overs, and to radio (all voice-over, all the time). Can you imagine yourself doing some of those parts? Repeat a line or two now and then. What do you feel?

2. Discover announcers with voices similar to yours and study how they “use their instrument.”

3. Imagine voice acting in which you become different characters. What characters would appeal to you?

4. Experiment by reading aloud from a short script or poem or story that lets you bring one or more characters to life. Does that bring you to life? Observe your enthusiasm.

5. Record yourself “announcing” a few different kinds of information, and dare to listen, repeatedly.

6. Find your natural voice. Broadcast style has evolved from a pompous grandiosity to more “authentic-sounding” voices. Unusual or imperfect-seeming voices sometimes benefit from their uniqueness.

7. Explore your not-so-natural voices! Play at voice-performing several different characters. Record, listen, and notice what you notice. Keep checking for hints of excitement. Return from imagination when ready.

If voice-over work still or increasingly intrigues you, it might be worth looking into. There are many places to freelance online. You can explore Fiverr or search on “freelance” and “voice-over” to investigate further. The skills you develop freelancing at Fiverr can later be used to compete for higher-paying online voice work as well as other projects.

If this imaginary “test drive” speaks to you-notice the voice in which it speaks because we all have an interior voice-over commentary! Another important discovery to observe. All things begin in imagination. You can now choose to leave voice-over work right there, or begin to imagine some audio adventures in your future.

An explosion in online freelance work is democratizing how and when and where we work. The “why” of work-what it means to people, beyond surviving-has changed very little. Freelance workers, at entrepreneurial sites like Fiverr.com, are innovating new ways to work. Many create models of service delivery that are designed to enrich both the “worker/entrepreneurs” and their customers.

In times of social transition-or whenever individuals navigate for themselves-it helps to recall what some of the wisest among us have said. Since a person’s attitude contributes so greatly to their ultimate success or failure, how should we think about work?

What do the doctors of depth psychology prescribe?

The most influential psychologist of the last century, Sigmund Freud, wrote: “Love and work are the cornerstones to our humanness. Love and work… work and love… what else is there really?” Far from seeing work as a grudging necessity of life, Freud thought it was essential to our humanness. He thought nothing else-nothing but love itself-could match work’s importance in our lives. Must those two fundamentals be forever at odds?

Modern cultures quarantine love in the workplace. Office romances disrupt. Emotions complicate commerce. Business prefers predictability. For too many, “work” is that imposed misery whose recurring intrusion forces us to abandon the people and things we do love… because we have to go to work.

What a triumph to harmonize these competing components. Imagine your own ideal marriage of work and love. What would you genuinely love to do as your work in the world? Freelancers are leading the efforts to merge Freud’s dual-if not dueling-essentials. It requires doing work you love.

The most influential psychologist of this century, Dr. Carl Jung, described an equation of the heart: “The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.” That’s why love, meaningful work, and even meaningful play, are so deeply nourishing. It’s also why some people can lead happy lives amid great simplicity, while others with great advantages may find life meaningless and live in misery.

Both triumph and terror can inspire individuals to new heights.

Pearl S. Buck earned the Nobel Prize in Literature “for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces.” The first American woman to ever win that prize, she shared her secret: “To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.” That’s one way to recognize “worthy work” that could enliven, challenge, and renew: look for joy in the work itself.

The absence of work resembles a “fountain of aging.” Many older men do not live terribly long or well after retiring. Even crummy-but-familiar jobs defer deterioration. Work is so important that one Federal Reserve study found that the suicide risk for unemployed people is 72% higher than for someone who is working. Even retirees and people who were simply on leave from work had elevated rates of suicide. Work structures our world. Work keeps us together. To be blunt, work makes us 72% less likely to give up on life and kill ourselves.

Doing work that you love not only maintains you, it energizes and revitalizes your life force. The fountain of youth is not in Florida. Renewal is found in giving and receiving love and in doing the life-work that you feel drawn, attracted, excited, called, destined, or just plain “lucky” to be doing.

Theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking has written: “Work gives you meaning and purpose, and life is empty without it.” Finding your purpose enriches the meaning of being alive. Engagement in meaningful work and having a sense of purpose in life are psychological pillars of mental health and life satisfaction.

Far from satisfaction or any shred of human dignity, concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl felt that finding meaning and purpose-even in the manmade hell of Hitler’s death camps-made all the difference for his survival of Nazi horrors. Frankl’s mother and brother and wife all died in the camps. He not only survived but went on to teach and inspire, including writing a best-selling book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” that has benefited millions.

Inspiring guidance expands our definition of what it means to work.

Fortunately, wisdom about work has been around for as long as there has been miserable work. What endures is of great value. “Work” is what we call what we do in the world. Many centuries ago, the Sufi poet Rumi summed up his advice in one phrase: “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” That is precisely the prescription for success that is being rediscovered today. “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”

The Buddhist concept of “right livelihood” encourages everyone to find work that does no harm and awaken to the effects, far and near, of how they earn a living. The Buddha offers the following cosmic job counseling: “Your work is to discover your work, and then, with all your heart, to give yourself to it.”

So, the very first step of doing your work in the world is to find your work. You are not told to find any work, but to find your work. By discovering your work, you unveil to yourself what you are “cut out for” and would love to do. There is an alternative, but if you choose your job just for the health benefits… you’ll probably need them.

There is some wise counsel, if not 2,000-year-old “career advice,” in the Taoist wisdom of the I Ching (Sarah Dening version):

“We become hypnotized and conditioned by other people’s opinions as to what is right. To continue making progress, you must discover your own deepest values and live by them. If your life-style is incompatible with your true nature, you cannot be happy. What matters most is to live in harmony with yourself. Your life will then unfold in exactly the right way.” There may be no better way to live in harmony with yourself than by finding-or creating, if you must-a way to do work that you love.

Once you find your work or feel a calling, it will be your attitude that counts the most. So, in closing, here is the attitude toward work recommended by Dr. Martin Luther King: “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, “Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

Freelancer: You are the cutting edge of modern work design.

Designer work is here. Your “job” can now be tailored to fit you like fine custom clothing, and you are the tailor. To benefit, you need an independent spirit and the self-awareness to define just what it is that you really want to do with your life. That can be harder for some than they expect since neither school nor work may have asked us, “What would you love to do?” Neither bosses nor employees normally get to do just what they feel like doing; just ask them.

Freelance work is a way to discover your work in the world and thereby discover yourself. Acknowledging the difficulty and the importance of finding proper work, or right livelihood, the Buddha advised: “Your work is to discover your work and, then, with all your heart, to give yourself to it.” The freelancer is challenged to discover work they can do with whole-hearted devotion. Half-hearted jobs are worse than second-rate; they diminish our lives.

Online resources, like Fiverr, allow any person to create, from scratch, their preferred-or even their ideal-services and test them out with no risk. The crafting of work has never been this adaptable to the desires of the individual worker. In online micro-service marketplaces like Fiverr, each individual completely designs their own work: their services, their policies, and their style. Freelancers are free to create their heart’s desire, so long as it builds a following.

Traditionally, the work shapes the worker.

The employee-sculpting process used to begin with selecting pliable prospects. It continued by instruction and “job training.” And finally, the work itself reshaped the worker with help from discipline when rules were enforced. If a job required you to be present at the same time your child’s proper care and nurture also “required” your presence, either the job came first or the employer got more careful when selecting and training your replacement.

In the allegedly “good old days,” your preferences were your problem. If the boss even listened to what you might prefer, or how you thought things should be done, it counted as a “favor,” even if unaccompanied by action. After all, you had been listened to, hadn’t you? If you didn’t want the job, you could just leave. The fact that worker concerns were generally ignored was, generally, ignored.

Must the work reconfigure the worker?

Throughout history, the laborer’s bent back has illustrated how the work has shaped the worker. Often, the work has misshaped the worker. The “freedom” in “freelance” means you do not have to reshape, repress, or camouflage your authentic self to fit the expectations of strangers. With growing automation and robots doing the boring work, the individual’s deepest interests and intrinsic motivations will only grow in their importance.

As an independent operator, the freelancer is free to shape the work that shapes their life. This process requires self-discovery which is followed by study and work that appropriately engage, enchant, and empower that specific individual. The social systems we create, later recreate us in their image as we live within them. New models for work that is nourishing, in and of itself, will lead to more fulfilling lives for many.

One of the wisest teachers I ever met, Joseph Campbell, urged everyone to discover their natural enthusiasm and “follow their bliss.” Finding what you love to do is the key, according to Campbell. He underscored the need for meaningful work with a warning: “I think the person who takes a job in order to live-that is to say, for the money-has turned himself into a slave.” Working a job you dislike may keep you fed, but that’s closer to surviving than to thriving. Ill-suited work will not satisfy your hopes and dreams. It will not challenge you, discover your talents, or realize your potential.

Modern Freelancing is the workshop of employment innovation.

Entrepreneurs and freelancers are re-imagining the shapes that work can take. Observe the growth of diversified and personalized services (at sites like Fiverr) that address the needs of both parties to the transaction. Freed from the power hierarchy of the boss-over-worker model, the freelancer can relate on an equal footing. They are no longer enslaved by survival employment.

There is an accumulating tide of individualized experiments in new and better ways to work. This experimentation contributes to newly emerging attitudes toward work and a diversity of personalized service models. We improve everyone’s lives when we design work that inspires workers and provides work they can do with care, because it’s work they care about.

Anyone can join this movement toward new ways to work. Concepts like purpose and hope and joy and even love-long kept alive in freelance work-can eventually spread to more of how the world does its work. By upgrading the quality of work itself, a society improves every citizen’s quality of life.

Consciously chosen freelance work can accelerate personal growth and increase life satisfaction. Surprisingly, people often derive more satisfaction from doing meaningful work than from seeking “escape” or pleasure. When you’re doing the right kind of work, I agree with playwright Noel Coward: “Work is much more fun than fun.”

People like case studies, which are basically “people watching” with better details. Hearing how another person has managed a real-life situation is more informative-and interesting-than a list of facts. I would like to write about freelancing with sites like Fiverr, and, since I have personal experience working there, I want to briefly share some of my discoveries and a little about what might await you.

Hello, I’m Dr. Ron Masa. I’m a Jungian psychologist, now retired from private practice. I’m also an artist, having sculpted in stone for many years and sold nearly a thousand small paintings online. I began freelancing with Fiverr in 2013. I wanted to learn to make professional-quality voice recordings from my home.

In the 1960s, I had worked as a TV Director for the NBC affiliate, KVOA-TV in Tucson, Arizona. I got to do a little bit of voice announcing then, and I loved it. I have wanted to do more voice work ever since. My first inclination was to locate a formal training program for voice-over education. Fortunately, I learned that they charge thousands of dollars a year! I say fortunately because that cost, plus the delay before I could do real voice work, convinced me to try something new.

I decided to “adventure” my way into freelancing with Fiverr. I read several books about voice work, found a plastic microphone lying about, and created my first gig on Fiverr.com. You, too, can start very simply and upgrade as you learn and earn. I grew a little with every job. I made mistakes. I learned how to correct-and eventually avoid-them. As I gradually improved my voicing skills, I also upgraded the microphones and software involved.

Choosing to work limited hours, over three years, I was paid more than $7,000 to learn voice-over work by actually doing voice-over work from the first day. I completed 450 professional audio jobs! To my surprise, they earned 100% satisfaction ratings. I did cancel a couple of “difficult buyers,” but nearly everyone else was great to work with. Buyers know they’re getting a great deal, they want the services to work, and they are typically very understanding.

In addition to recording traditional voice-over scripts, I discovered that I especially love voice acting. Who knew? Yes, self-discovery is one of the rewards for designing and doing work that you love. I was soon the dramatic voice of insistent reporters, troubled and brooding presidents, creepy evil villains, kindly loving fathers, disturbing alien predators, and a variety of WWII generals and battle-weary soldiers. These recordings, and hundreds more, now appear throughout movies, TV, video games, the internet, and corporate audio systems on several continents.

I also discovered that I love doing educational narration for kids about whales and stars and dinosaurs. I performed endless commercial messages. I even got to narrate several entire books. One influential classic by Dale Carnegie was far ahead of its time. Another book taught financial planning and insight. The book that I felt most honored to record was “A Summary of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.” It summarized the life and novels of the powerfully inspiring “father of African literature,” Chinua Achebe.

I loved being able to leap right into real voice work and learn the craft by doing real projects. And I particularly liked being paid to learn. If I count the $15,000 I saved on formal training, plus the $7,000 I earned for doing voice work-this freelance path put me more than $20,000 ahead! If someone prefers traditional training methods, there is nothing wrong with that. I, personally, found freelancing more exciting and more engaging.

When you do work that you love-which freelancing invites-you are much more likely to meet kindred spirits and find related opportunities that truly suit you! There are immediate, and then secondary, benefits to following your heart in employment. While practicing voice work, I learned to audio edit my own recordings as well. I later used that experience to teach an audio-editing class online!

Now, the combination of my original voice-over training and those audio-editing skills has enabled me-has really empowered me-to teach online classes. (And, yes, they have been praised for their exceptional audio quality!) Unanticipated benefits are more likely to come your way when you follow a path with heart. I now know it is possible to bring a long-term dream to life through carefully chosen freelance work. Want to get paid for work you would happily do for free? How would you design the kind of work or service that you would-admit it now-genuinely love to do?

 

Freelancing is Really Great… Sometimes.

People around the world are doing freelance work from home. Without careful planning, they do not all end up happier. Are you interested in the life-changing chance to earn “job-free money” from anywhere? If so, take time in the beginning, to improve your likelihood of happiness by “job crafting.” That’s when you reshape your work to truly suit you… instead of struggling (or pretending) to reshape yourself to suit a job.

Among your many choices for freelancing, Fiverr.com is one of the true giants. Most preparations for working through Fiverr focus only on making money-which is important and is the point of freelance work! But, and it’s a sizeable but, money is never the whole point.

Evolution is Counting on You to Outgrow the Previous Generation.

We humans are complex critters with many simultaneous hopes and needs. We have social needs, psychological needs, identity issues, and a yearning to reach beyond our grasp, to strive for better. After all, we are evolving toward something new and different, and we are at the cutting edge. If you freelance only to improve your income, all other life needs, goals, and values must be “kept on ice” while you work. Design your freelance work–from the start–to enrich much more than just your wallet.

As a psychologist, I want to help you make money in a way that directly improves your life. The main reason we do anything is because we think it will make us feel better or be happier. Money does often make us happier but is never enough by itself. Focusing only on income can starve us emotionally. Once basic survival needs are met, humans also need to learn and grow, to express their inner potentials, and to relate to fellow humans. It’s not always easy to relate to someone as complicated and challenging as we humans can be, but we are very social animals and we need each other.

“Rich or Poor, It’s Always Nice to Have Money”

That’s what my Grandfather always said. Now I see that earning that money in creative ways will further enrich your life, which is even nicer than just having money. First, clarify what matters most to you, and then design your work to make you feel better and be happier while you do it. You can do work you love-even if it’s on the side. Sometimes, you can monetize your favorite skills and hobbies. You can always develop new skills and practice them at Fiverr until you get good enough to compete elsewhere. That’s what I did. Now I record my own online classes using those voice-over skills which help me to reach for bigger goals.

You can even pre-test your ideas for a small business by experimenting with the process as a Fiverr gig. This lets you build a fan base, develop your skills, and improve your business model, all at no risk and at no cost to you. Whatever your financial goals, meet your higher needs while you pay the bills. Enjoy your work, enjoy how it makes you feel, and also enjoy the money!

Three things will make you a “Fiverr Thriverr”:

1. Study and master their system.

2. Choose work that matches your talents and enthusiasm.

3. Continually improve your abilities and your service.

Craft Your Freelance Work to Express a Dream.

When in crisis, survival is enough, but I encourage you to build a stable freelance income that is based upon your heart-fully chosen and deeply-valued work–the kind of work that, in and of itself, enriches your life.

Most people will not get rich from an online home business (unless you consider doing work that you love to be a treasure all by itself). Actually, there are many well-documented stories of freelancers who have bought houses and cars and boats and more with their Fiverr side-job income. So, don’t count on getting rich-but don’t rule it out either!

Most people can earn a good deal of side income on Fiverr. The average part-timer might hope to make from $200 to $500 a month after building up their “gig” (or service) for sale. If you get more serious, much more can be earned.

I, personally, earned thousands of dollars at Fiverr with no advertising at all. At the same time, I used that opportunity to learn how to do voice-over work, which has been a life-long interest of mine. What a thrilling education: I got to do over 400 voice jobs of every possible sort! Fiverr is a gigantic marketplace of eager buyers waving credit cards. When I Google-search for many skills, Fiverr has page-one listings for all of their sellers in that skill category-which could include you.

Since Fiverr sellers completely design their own gigs, freelancing offers you that rare chance in life to choose exactly what you would most enjoy doing. Maybe you could offer skills or talents that have never had an audience. Maybe you could develop and showcase new abilities that would open new doors for you. Whatever path you take, doing work that you love enriches your life in ways that ill-fitting work never will. I encourage you to clarify your heart’s desires and craft your jobs to best enrich your life! (And also pay some bills.)