Aug 8, 2023
In this episode, Anne & Lau delve into the energizing power of
generosity + how integrating it into your personal and professional
life can be incredibly rewarding. They explore various ways to
incorporate acts of kindness into your daily routine, emphasizing
that giving doesn't always have to be monetary – it could be a
service, a skill, or even just a few minutes of your time each day.
They also discuss the importance of giving without seeking
recognition, and how simple gestures can strengthen connections and
relationships. Listen in as they share their own experiences,
provide insights on how businesses can contribute to organizations
like 100 Voices Who Care, and inspire you to unleash the
transformative impact of giving in your life and the lives of those
around you.
Transcript
It’s time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level!
These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes
being utilized by the industry’s top talent today. Rock your
business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let’s welcome your host, Anne
Ganguzza.
Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast and the BOSS
Super Power series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I'm here with
ah, the one and only Lau Lapides.
Lau: Hey, Anne. Happy Saturday.
Anne: Happy Saturday, Lau. How you feeling this
Saturday?
Lau: Awesome. As always. Excited to be here with you.
Anne: Me too. Me too. And you know why? I was gonna tell you before
I asked you
--
Anne:
--
do you know why?
Lau: I know what's coming up. I think you're gonna talk about
giving today, giving, giving.
Anne: I am. I wanna talk about giving. Yes. And I've mentioned
this before, purpose beyond profit for your businesses. So, I mean,
it's awesome to be BOSSes, right? It's awesome to be a business
superpower and to be a BOSS. And I think a big part of being a BOSS
is also understanding the power and the power and the grace of
giving back. And I think that there are a lot of people who, if
they had the opportunity, would really get a lot out of giving
back.
I mean, anybody who's given to a charitable organization knows
how good that can feel. And I truly believe that today people want
to align themselves with businesses who are about more than just
profit. You know? That they stand for something, they believe in
something, they do good, they give back. I just think it's a good
thing to do in your business. And I know it's hard if we're just
starting out, trying to get our careers going. And I know there's a
lot of people who are like, well, I don't know if I have the money
to be able to donate at this time, but I'm going to ask you guys to
think about your purpose. Think about the positive outcomes that
can come from giving back. Lau, what are your thoughts about?
Lau: I am so into that, and I have to say, this isn't an elitist
sort of thought process of, oh, I've made it to this amount of
money. I'm grossing in my business, then I can give, or this or
that. It really is not contingent upon how much you're taking in or
how much you're making. Really, I think the truth is, as a business
owner and as a human being, a citizen of the earth, I like to say,
you should always take a very small percentage of anything that
you're bringing in and give it away to the charity of your choice.
And I always say to people who haven't done it yet, who don't know
what it is, and it's a little scary to do that, just start really
small.
Like if you're going through a coffee line, like let's say
you're going through the drive-through, pay it forward once a month
and just pay for the car behind you, and see what that feels like.
What does that do for you for that day? For me, it's very
energizing, very inspiring, and very anonymous, which I also like
too. It's really coming from the heart, not for recognition.
Anne: I actually love that you said that. And there's a couple
of different ways when you're giving, and I love the anonymous
because I feel like when you're anonymously donating, you're really
giving for the reasons coming from your heart. Now, of course,
there are a lot of businesses who support different charities or
support different organizations, and it becomes a public part of
who they are as a business. And I don't think there's anything
necessarily wrong with that, especially if it's to the point of
they're able to contribute, and it's not a thing where it's front
and center, where it becomes like, this is who we are and this is
what we're doing for so and so. But it becomes just a side part of
what they do on a daily basis.
And I love that you said start small because it doesn't have to be
big. As a matter of fact, Lau, our sponsor 100 Voices Who Care has
a really cool idea on how you can give and really make an impact.
And basically it's a community effort where you can donate $100 a
quarter. So that means $100 a quarter, four times a year, $400
total for the year. And essentially, if you can get 100 people
together in that organization, they'll be 100 people, that can be a
total of $10,000 a year
--
Anne: — that can be given away. And so actually that's a large
amount. So for you, making your $100 contribution four times a
year, and then doing that just minimally, together with however
many members that are contributing, can actually make a real
difference. And then essentially these members get together, and
they do their pitch for their favorite charity, and they say, well,
I really like to give to this charity because I feel strongly about
how they're helping animals, or they're helping needy people in
other countries, or they're
--
whatever they might be doing. And you'll be within this group
making your pitch. And at the end, everybody votes on what charity
that will ultimately win that money. And then what's so great about
it is that, even if it doesn't go to the charity of your choice,
it's going to a charity.
Lau: Exactly. It's giving back to the world, to the people, the
animals, the children, the environment, whatever your causes are,
it's going in all of those directions. So in essence, you are
personally involved with the giving to all of those different
worlds. And to me, I'm about to actually join that organization,
100 Voices Who Care, and I'm very excited about that. Because I'll
tell you, I'll be perfectly honest, I've been trying to find
organizations to work with, and it's so hard to give money. It
sounds ridiculous. But it's hard to get people to call you back.
It's hard to find point people. It's hard to find anyone who has
information about the organization. And I was very relieved to see
this particular outfit at our conference recently that we attended.
And I was like, wow, this answered all of my prayers as a business
and also as a human being. Like, you're gonna take care of a lot of
this for me, but I also have a voice and I can pitch an
organization that I'm interested in giving a voice to.
Anne: And who's leading the organization, who was there at the
conference, if you guys were there and didn't get a chance to stop
by and see her, is Claire Dinsdale, who is a voice actor herself,
and who is fronting that organization to help be able to give to
charities. And it's just wonderful because it's something where I
wanna feel like I can make a big impact, but I don't necessarily
have a lot of money to give. But together we can really make a huge
impact. And I think one of the things I thought long ago was the
fact that if I was able to have an organization, let's say like my
VO Peeps and my VO BOSSes, that now that I've formed this
organization, there is this segment of it that I do want to be able
to give back if I'm able to give back.
And so it's one of the reasons I formed the VO Peeps Scholarship
Fund and have been giving scholarships away for, gosh, close to 11
years. And again, it really is a matter of the community because I
accept donations from the community as well as in-kind gifts. So it
doesn't always have to be money either. It can be your time, it can
be coaching time, it can be equipment, it can be all sorts of
different things that you can donate that can really mean something
to a person's career. And so that became a very integral part of
the VO Peeps business model. And so I really encourage all of you
BOSSes out there that if it is possible to either join an
organization and get that feeling of being able to contribute to
that organization, to give back, I truly believe it makes the world
go round. Right? I mean…
Anne: Even if you're giving anonymously, I think it's just,
everything comes back. I believe in good karma. I truly believe
that it helps in the growth and positive reinforcement of the world
and our humanness to each other.
Lau: Hmm. So true. I mean, the karma of that, if you believe in
karma, if you believe in that boomerang energy that what you put
out into the world will come back to you — I mean, we wouldn't do
it for that reason. But I do deeply believe in that. I absolutely
believe in that. And I did wanna just give a super quicky anecdote,
Anne, about a moment in time that's running through my head right
now, where my daughter — and I hope she's not listening because she
likes to be anonymous in everything she does — my daughter, about a
year ago or two years ago, young kid, she was a young kid,
teenager, she saw that one of the customers that came into a store
she was working at desperately needed a walker and did not have the
funds to get a walker, and was really, really struggling. And on
her birthday, I
--
this kind of blew me away — on her birthday, on my daughter's
birthday, she decided to take the money that we gave her on her
birthday and buy her a walker, which was a very expensive walker in
the store.
Lau: And give it to her. And her and my son delivered it to their
door. And I said, that's amazing. Are you sure you wanna do that?
They didn't have any money saved, and that was good money for her
to do something with. She said, yeah, I can't think of anything I
really want or need, but this woman Sarah, needs to walk. And I
would feel better giving it to her. Anne, she did that. Long story
short, I was amazed. I'm trying not, not to get verklempt about
it.
Anne: What a wonderful story.
Lau: I drive up the street now, Anne, and I see this woman, she
lives in the area, crossing the street with the walker. And every
time I see her, I just quietly, she doesn't know me, she doesn't
know I'm the the mother.
Anne: Yeah. Yeah.
Lau: I think my daughter gave her that.
Anne: Yeah. Yeah.
Lau: And it's not about the walker, it's about freedom. And so I
always think it's not about the money. If you give a dollar, if you
give a million dollars, it's kind of the same, because symbolically
what it's really giving to a person, confidence
--
Anne: Sure.
Lau: — energy, freedom, all sorts of things that you have to think
of it in that way. Don't whittle it down to just monetary. It could
be service you do, right?
Anne: Absolutely.
Lau: It could be absolutely something you own that's precious to
you that you give to someone else. It could be anything.
Right?
Anne: Yeah. I love that story. That's such a beautiful
story.
Lau: Amazing story, right?
Anne: Yeah.
Lau: It's amazing. And that taught me a lesson.
Anne: Yeah. And there's so much to be said for when you see someone
in need, just being able to help them out, what it can do for you
internally, mentally. And I think that of course, as we, again, we
say over and over and over again, as we run our businesses, I mean,
we are all human, and our businesses are very personal. It's a very
personal and proud of our brand. So whatever we do outside of our
job, right, outside of our business, affects our business in a lot
of ways indirectly. And so I think being able to feel good about
what you're doing and feeling good — and again, we're always
talking about in our business, let's charge what we're worth. And I
still believe in that. But I also believe that if you can help
another talent out, or if you can help someone else out around you,
then that is just going to contribute to the overall good of your
business and of you personally.
Lau: And I do think some of the best times to give, Anne, are not
in dire times. I think we always connote that, oh, if someone's
starving or they're in war, whatever, of course they need help in
assistance. And of course we should assist them. But it's not the
only time. Maybe there's a zoo or an animal farm that needs
maintenance, constant daily maintenance to feed the animals, clean
the animals, keep them, whatever. Or maybe there's the trees in the
forest that need--
you know, we are big in terms of Israeli trees being planted every
year.
Anne: Sure.
Lau: And we give money to plant new trees every year. so that we
can grow that new forest. So thinking about what am I doing to
maintain, what am I doing to provide a future for populations or
for the environment? It's not absolutely only in dire, dire
circumstances. Sometimes it's in good circumstances in order to
keep it maintained and keep it healthy.
Anne: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that really it is, it's
something that I would say, if you haven't already put it into your
business plan or into your daily life, really take some time to
consider what can I do? What can I do to help give back? And again,
as Lau mentions, it doesn't have to be monetary. I mean, it could
be your time, it could be some other service that you can provide.
If you don't have the money to donate, it could be your service.
And that could mean just as much, if not even more. I mean, be a
tutor for a child that might need help reading or there's just so
many, so many things that we can do.
I have to say, take a part of your workday. I wouldn't feel bad.
You know what I mean? If we're busy and we're like, okay, we're
focused on our work
--
I think you should set aside a part of your workday to consider
what am I gonna do to help give back? Maybe even it's something as
simple as contributing to, I'm gonna say a Facebook forum in a
positive way where you might be helping other talent. Gosh, I know,
Lau, this has been going back and forth about people who ask
questions in the forums. And some people get really angry about
having to answer the same question multiple times. They're trying
to pick my brain. And yes, I get that whole thing. But I do believe
that as a good service towards people coming into the industry, you
can give a little bit and give some helpful advice without
sacrificing, giving away the farm. I mean, gosh, the VO BOSS
podcast over and over I've said, it was something that I wanted to
do to give back to the community, to just have a resource that
people could go to.
Lau: Exactly. Right.
Anne: And so, a lot of my stuff that I do, I have that whole series
on teachable moments that I put on YouTube.
'cause
I love teaching, I love sharing. And yes, I will be the first
person to say that. Yes. Some people, when they come to me for
coaching, they say, well, I saw you on your videos, or I listened
to your VO BOSS podcast. Gosh, Lau. I'm sure people talk to you
about that too. I am so grateful for the people that come to me
that say, I listen to your podcast religiously, or thank you for
what you're doing. And yes, I wanna work together. So that's the
bonus.
Lau: I'm blown away. Bonus, bonus, bonus.
Anne: That's just a bonus. Yeah. It wasn't the original intent. And
I think that that is obvious too. Right?
Lau: I'm blown away by that. Yeah. We get comments all the time
about this wonderful podcast and it's like, woo! I feel like
superheroes, we're spending our time together on a Saturday and
doing our thing. But then when you hear and you see how it lands,
how it affects people, how it has the potential to change someone's
life — well, in essence, I mean, that's giving too. You're not
giving physical money, but you're giving time. Time is energy. Time
is value. Time is money. Right?
And I do wanna mention too, another thing I tend to do, which is
hard, I'm not gonna say it's easy. I take as many surveys as I can.
And that's the thing that everyone hates and doesn't wanna do. And
they get the survey from every hotel and every whatever. And I
literally sit there and I think, okay, I have to do this for them.
I have to do this. And then if it goes too many windows, too many
pages, I can lose my patience. But if it can be done in five
minutes, I will do it for them. Because I say, I know they need
that feedback, and I'm the person to give it to them in a really
constructive way. And that's giving of yourself
too.
Anne: And you know what? That's so funny cause you just reminded me
because of VO Atlanta
--
I'm just gonna say VO Atlanta is one example where the staff, I'm
going to say the staff just ran their tushes off and bent over
backwards trying to help me. And Lau, if you remember, you were a
part of that one night when I was starving to death. And so the
staff really went above and beyond. And I said to them, give me the
email address of your manager. I will write an email saying how
wonderful you were for me tonight. Please, I want to do that for
you. And I'm
--
Lau: I love that. I love that.
Anne: — very much willing to do that because it helps. It
does.
Lau: It totally helps. You don't see it. You don't hear it, but you
have to believe it's there. It's like if the tree's falling, do you
hear it? Is it happening? Yes, it's happening. Yes, it makes
impact. And yes, you don't always need the accolades, you just need
the knowledge of knowing it's happening. And I noticed you
neglected to mention that I had to threaten the whole staff at that
Marriott to get you like some turkey sticks or whatever we got you.
And that was my charity for that night.
Anne: Yeah, you had to threaten everybody. But the person that came
through, the person that came through for me, they bent over
backwards.
Lau: They did. They sure did.
Anne: To help me. Yeah. They really did.
Lau: They did.
Anne: To get me that turkey sandwich.
Lau: They went beyond, they went beyond customer service, beyond
hotel service. That happened to me one time up in the Berkshires
and it was a hotel, I think it was a Marriott. It was great. It was
super great. And I needed baby powder one night. You know, maybe
they thought I had a baby, which I didn't, but I needed baby
powder. And my husband goes to the front desk and it's like 11 at
night. Do you happen to have any baby powder? And the woman who has
babies, young children who works at the desks said, we don't sell
it here, but hold on, let me run to my car. She runs to her car and
gets it from her baby in the car. This is a hotel
rep.
Anne: Yeah.
Lau: And gives it to my husband and said, here, give it to your
wife. I know sometimes when you need certain things, it's just good
to have them. And I never forgot that.
Anne: Yeah.
Lau: I never forgot. That was so above and beyond to
me.
Anne: Yeah.
Lau: Was so personal, so personalized
--
Anne: Right.
Lau: — to do something like that, you know, whether it's shoe
polish or a toothbrush, or baby powder, whatever it is, it's the
humanness of the connection and relationships we have together. Was
that an extreme need for me? No, I could've lived without it. But
the humanity of the honest connection between people is what builds
the good juju in the world. Not always, here, let me give you
physical cash. Let me help you and do something to make your life
easier and it'll connect us for a moment. To me, that's worth
everything. I love that. I love those moments.
Anne: And it makes me think of our clients,
right?
Lau: Yeah.
Anne: Sometimes can we extend a little bit to our clients once in a
while? Do you know what I mean? Like if they need a favor or you
know, gosh, they need a pickup like yesterday and is it three
words, and they're ready and willing and able to pay, and you're
like, you know what? No, it's okay. Like you're just building that
good relationship. As a matter of fact, I'm the type of person, oh
gosh, I don't even charge. I mean, unless they have completely new
scripts, I don't charge. I embed in my price, I embed a certain
amount of pickups to it. And if it's a company that I've worked
with for a while and I've got a good relationship with them, I'm
happy to extend a freebie here and there in a pinch for them,
absolutely. Because honestly, the time it would take me to draw up
the invoice and charge them and worry about all that, just,
it
wasn't
even worth the time. So I do think that also in your businesses,
you can extend goodwill towards your clients as well and not be
threatened that you're not charging what you're
worth.
Lau: We used to call that in the olden days, don't nickel and dime
people.
Anne: Yes.
Lau: And that means not just getting the pennies from someone, but
also the bother, the energy, the exhaustion, the
stress.
Anne: Yes. That's what it is.
Lau: Everything that surrounds that transaction. And you have to
know intuitively, is it worth it quickly to do that or not? Is it
better to just say, hey, let's not worry about that right now.
Let's worry about the bigger picture right now of things,
versus
--
Anne: Let me get you your job on time. Yeah.
Lau: That’s a huge gift.
Anne: Let me give this job to you on time. And I think
--
yeah, absolutely. And I think that it's something that you can
consider every once in a while. Especially if you've developed a
great relationship with a client. Now, clients that nickel and dime
you, well that's a different story.
Lau: That's a different story.
Anne: Yeah. That's a different story. So I think we have to make
wise decisions, but I think for the most part, if you know your
client, you're gonna know what the right decision is. You're gonna
know if they're nickel and diming you, but I truly believe that a
little goodwill can really, really go a long way. And that's
personally in your business all the way around. And so, yeah. I
like how you associate it with the stress that's wrapped around the
request or the stress that's wrapped around the transaction. And I
think alleviating as much stress as possible, I'll tell you that's
my goal lately, Lau
(laughs).
Lau: And that's a great goal to have.
Anne: I don't want stress. I don’t want stress in my
business.
Lau: No, no one does.
Anne: And I think stress or pain or
--
I don't want any of that. I just want joy. I want joy surrounding
my job. And sometimes that's tough to do, but I'll tell you what,
it's so much easier when you are a BOSS yourself and you're in
control of it, because you realize that you have control of those
things. You have control over your goodwill towards your clients,
your goodwill towards humankind, how you feel on a daily basis and
how that translates into your performance, and how it translates
into your business. It is absolutely up to you. And it's one of the
things that I'm so grateful. I just love the fact that I'm working
for myself. And I mentioned this to you just recently, Lau, that I
don't wanna go through the stress of if I'm working for someone,
why did I work so hard to build my own business? If I wanna
experience stress like that? I don't. So anything that causes
stress like that, basically I've gotta figure out what I can do to
wipe that stress away.
Lau: That's right. And to circle that back with that idea of
giving
--
and by the way, we have a great term. Most people know that I'm
Jewish. We have a great Yiddish term called mitzvah. When you do
a mitzvah, when a boy or girl turns 13, we have a bar or bat
mitzvah. it means they are now an adult, and they really need to
start thinking about giving, give, give, give, give back. Don't
take, take, take, take, give, give, give, give. And that's the
whole purpose of a bar or bat mitzvah. So the mitzvah of the giving
is to de-stress, to relax, rejuvenate. Give someone the joy, the
pleasure, the peace of mind that what they're doing is a life worth
living, is goals worth having, and that you're there in their
community to support them. I mean, I'd love to see that in the
world at large. We'd have a better world if everyone could think in
the way in which you are thinking. And as like, to de-stress
someone is to give them a huge gift, whether it's a smile. It could
be an emoji. It could even be like
--
Anne: A compliment.
Lau: A compliment. Like pay attention to someone else for a moment
and call attention to something that they're doing really well or
something that impresses you or something that delights you.
'Cause
a lot of times someone might be thinking it and not articulate
it.
Anne: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Lau: So kind of motivate yourself to articulate those positives.
And when you feel the negatives coming on, and you wanna criticize,
and you wanna judge, just stop for a second. Like stop and think
and say, do I really need to give that out to this person? Is it
really necessary? Yep. Or would it be better to build them up?
That's a mitzvah.
Anne: Do I need to put that out? Do I need to put that? I love
that. Do I need to put that out into the world?
Lau: That's better than money. Honestly. Sometimes that's better
than money to say, I recognize you, you matter. You're someone and
you're doing something really awesome today. Thanks for doing that.
Ooh. Oh my gosh. No one ever, no one tells me that. You need to
tell people that.
Anne: And I say, bring that into the booth. We'll just keep going.
Lau, every time you mention something that's great. Now I'm
like,
(laughs).
Okay, so, so can we bring that feeling into the booth? And I'm
always talking to my students and I've found, I say it more and
more is that copy, you need to serve the copy. You need to serve
the person you're speaking to. Your delivery needs to come from the
heart. It needs to come from a place of service. It's not about how
good you sound doing it. It's a place of service. You're helping
someone.
And I think if you can take any script that you're doing,
commercial, corporate, medical, whatever that is, and you have that
place of service, that place of heart where what you are saying is
going to benefit and help someone in the end, I really believe that
that can be a major impact on your performance. And a good one, a
good one at that. Because I believe that the connection that is
formed when it comes from that place, right, that place in you
really makes a difference in the read. It makes difference on the
people listening to it as well.
Lau: I just know personally for myself, when I'm able to give
something whatever form it's in, I feel so good. Like right now, I
just got a little hot in my like skin and I thought, ooh, am I
having a hot flash? No, it's, I'm thinking with about all the ways
in which we give, and I'm literally sweating right now because it's
so fun to me, it's so exciting because it's not just about giving,
it's about seeing how it ripples into the world and into their
universe and ultimately your universe too is like seeing the water.
Like when you throw the stone, it's the ripple effect of
giving.
Anne: Absolutely.
Lau: I love that. That's so cool. To me, it's like a little
artistic venture. You don't know where it's gonna go and how it's
gonna land, but you just know you threw the rock out there, and you
got the ripples going. And so it kind of got me all hot and
bothered.
(laughs)
Fun stuff.
Anne: What a great conversation. What a wonderful — so yeah.
BOSSes, one more time, we're gonna talk about the
100voiceswhocare.org. Big impact. Simple mission, big impact, 100
Voices, one hour, $10,000 four times a year. So if you wanna find
out more about how this all works, make sure you visit
100voiceswhocare.org and find out more. And tell Claire we said
hello and we love her, and we love her as a sponsor of this show.
So make sure you check out 100voiceswhocare.org. And of course, as
always our sponsor ipDTL, we love them. Find out more at ipdtl.com.
So everybody, have an amazing week and we'll see you next week,
mwah. Love you, BOSSes.
Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your host
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