Aaron Ryan, Author and Voiceover Actor

[00:00:00] Sanjay Parekh: Welcome to the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast powered by Hiscox. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. Throughout my career, I've had side hustles, some of which have turned into real businesses. But first and foremost, I'm a serial technology entrepreneur. In the Creator Space, we hear plenty of advice on how to hustle harder and why you can sleep when you're dead.

On this show, we ask new questions in hopes of getting new answers. Questions like, How can small businesses work smarter? How do you achieve balance between work and family? How can we redefine success in our businesses so that we don't burn out after year three? Every week, I sit down with business founders at various stages of their side hustle to small business journey.

These entrepreneurs are pushing the envelope while keeping their values. Keep listening for conversation, context, and camaraderie.

Today's guest is Aaron Ryan, an author based in Seattle, Washington. Aaron has owned his own businesses since 2003 and has worked in many industries, including the media industry, web design, and voiceover acting to name a few. Aaron, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I'm excited to have you on.

I don't know that we've had somebody that does voiceovers yet on this podcast. and I'm sure we'll get to that in a minute, but first, give us a little bit about your background and what got you to where you are today.

[00:01:26] Aaron Ryan: Wow. Well, when the mother ship dropped me off, which was a long time ago, it's a hazy memory anymore. One of those self starters. I'm one of the people that really likes to be creative and create and leave a legacy behind you. So whether it's been video production or, videography, storytelling, creative arts, songs, production, just, I love to create. So I've always been a storyteller.

If you look back on my career track, every single one of the past, I don't know, 20 careers that I've had, because I've jumped, I bounced have all been about storytelling. And so right now I'm on parallel tracks of being a voiceover artist, telling other people's stories and a, an author telling my own. Now I greatly prefer this one over here, but I really enjoy being a storyteller for both. And it's, just, they're both fantastic pursuits. I'm really super grateful.

[00:02:18] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, so it sounds like you've done just multiple entrepreneurial things throughout your career is this so what was the first thing like was there something as a kid? And also was there entrepreneurs in the family?

What's the thing that drove you into doing this yourself?

[00:02:36] Aaron Ryan: I don't think there was any precedent, but there were definitely as far as entrepreneurial pursuits as a kid kool aid stands definitely did the Kool Aid stance. Although here's a little funny anecdote. I was a kid who didn't quite understand the essence of a bargain.

So I was doing my own little garage sale. I'm not kidding. Call mom. She'll verify. I sold, I was selling one transformer toy for 5, two for four.

And my mom came out and my brother came out and they looked at the sign and he went, Huh? What do you, are you, huh? And so I obviously didn't have a grasp on business back then, but I knew how to lure him in. So that was my entrepreneurial pursuit claim to fame from age eight or nine, whatever.

[00:03:22] Sanjay Parekh: It's a good tactic if you really just want to move the equipment and get it out of there, right? if this is we need to get this stuff out of the house.

[00:03:32] Aaron Ryan: Yeah. They call me when they want to move inventory. They call moi.

[00:03:35] Sanjay Parekh: Exactly. What's interesting too is that you mentioned a Kool Aid stand. I don't know that I've ever had anybody say Kool Aid stand.

Everybody says lemonade stand, Kool Aid stand, which I, is that even a thing nowadays? Do kids drink Kool Aid anymore?

[00:03:50] Aaron Ryan: Yes, but I want to be clear. It's not Jim Jones Kool Aid. It's actual Kool Aid. Drinkable Kool Aid. There was no cult around this or anything.

[00:04:01] Sanjay Parekh: No, no cultist behavior. Regular for sale. Okay.

[00:04:03] Aaron Ryan: It wasn't, I didn't time my Kool Aid sales, in tandem with an, like a meteorite passing by that we were supposed to rendezvous.

It was not, nothing psychotic about it. I just, I basically, I'm sure I sold lemonade. I just remember in my head selling Kool Aid and maybe that was me distinguishing myself from the pack early on. I don't know.

[00:04:22] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. I, like that as a different, differentiator from all the other lemonade stands. See, there you go. That makes it, different and unique. And maybe, hopefully you charge more for that. It didn't do it as a bargain, just like the transformers.

[00:04:38] Aaron Ryan: 5 for one glass, four for two. Yeah.

[00:04:45] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. So when you started down this path, how is it that you started your first business and decided to, hey, I want to just keep it doing it this way?

[00:04:54] Aaron Ryan: Yeah, in all sincerity, I just don't like working for other people. It's not that I don't play nicely in the sandbox with others.

I can get along with others, as long as they do what I say. No, I'm kidding. I can get along with others, but it's boy, working for someone else's dream is eventually for some, for self starters is so deflating. And I couldn't marry myself to this drywall guy's dream. It's his company. I couldn't marry myself to these, this marine diesel engine company.

That's their dream. I was, I'm a self starter and I'm a creator furthermore. So the arts, literature, writing, music, production, dance, drama, all of those, I'm very right brained. And so those appeal to me. And I just thought early on, man, I want to do something. That's my own thing. That's arts related. So I've been pursuing this for a really long time.

It's just, it's taken a lot of different forms and a lot of side routes.

[00:05:50] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So what is it that you decided to make this jump and become an author kind of full-time and let some of these other things go?

[00:05:57] Aaron Ryan: Yeah, well, it wasn't really a jump, it was a second grade assignment by my teacher where we were thrown overboard. It wasn't a jump. It were, it was thrown off the plank, into the, waters of wherever, of the waters of creativity. It was basically an assignment in 1981. shows you how old I am and, we were given an assignment to write, construction paper and write our own little novella with, three, three hole punch college rule paper.

And I wrote a, pencil number two pencil stick figure drawings. Story was called electric boy. And I thought, wow. This was really cool. Look at this, the story at mom, look, it's up on the fridge and, still, but I remember reading the Lord of the Rings in my, prepubescent years.

And I just remember that was the first thing that really struck me. As a massively creative work that had me spellbound. And I thought it was one of those, if Tolkien can do it, why not me? And so I really wanted to be a storyteller, but that storytelling, that bob didn't weave throughout my life.

It took the form storytelling took the form of music production and CDs and touring. It took the form of drama and acting. It took the form of poetry. It took the form of music for many years. And then it took the form of voiceovers, but here I'm telling other people's stories. Now I just happened to have returned to authoring and I'm, it's the most satisfying thing I've ever done. So glad I came back full circle.

[00:07:30] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So when was it that you decided to go all in, I know you're still doing the voiceover thing, but all in on being an author and let go of some of these other things, what was the thing that made you make that decision?

[00:07:41] Aaron Ryan: Last year, it was only last year and it's not even a year ago.

So I am an anomaly in many ways. I understand that and stuff, and I'm totally okay with that. I, this is the one thing I'm probably going to always have to defend as a voiceover artist. There were a number of critical negative factors affecting the industry last year, the SAG after strike, low balling colleagues, underbidding clients or underbidding colleagues, low balling clients, the economy.

If I didn't already say that. And, AI, AI really came to the fore with chat GPT and open AI. And we are seeing an industry pay scale erosion, the likes of which we've never experienced. I'm sitting here in the fall, early November, last year going, I have got to pivot, I'm having a great year, but the future does not look right for voiceovers.

So I said, I have to pivot. What can I do? And I just, it wasn't, it didn't take me long. I'm a storyteller. I've written stories before. I wrote and published six voiceover books as a voiceover artist. I wrote a fictional novel in the nineties, which I ultimately abandoned. It's always regret that wrote the stories as a kid.

I thought, I'd like to make a return foray. Into authoring again, what could I write and then I just sat down and started writing the first words to dissonance volume one reality November 21st last year. I am working on the 6th book right now in that series and that's going to that will equate to roughly 2000 pages 6 by 9 books and this one is going to publish November 20th.

This year, six books in one entire year. It's just, I am, I have never pursued anything with such passion and the voiceover, industry, the crumbling of the voiceover industry was really the impetus that pushed me back into it.

[00:09:35] Sanjay Parekh: That is a, impressive pace. That's essentially two books or a book every two months.

Yeah. How do you keep up, with that pace of writing?

[00:09:45] Aaron Ryan: Well, the voiceover industry again, slowing down and seeing some adverse react, reactions, happening to that, the, the quality of jobs, has decreased the quality of jobs has decreased. So I have a lot more time, there's a lot less jobs being awarded.

There's a lot, the quality of jobs again has dropped. These are jobs I don't want to audition for because the industry pay scale has just been eroded so much that should pay 3000. They want to pay 500. I'm not going to audition for that, right? So it's been more of a selection process in the voiceover industry, which has given me a lot of time to type.

So I do auditions all day long. I record the jobs when they come in. But in between those jobs, I am fingers flying on the keyboard. I'm researching like crazy, right? I put the kids to bed at eight o'clock with my wife. And then as soon as they're done, okay. All right. Love you. Okay. Kisses. It's right back to the keyboard again.

We hours in the morning.

[00:10:49] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. But, my question is more around, how do you sustain that level of writing and that focus on something like that? For most people that have thought about writing a book, fiction or nonfiction, it seems like a daunting task. And it seems like it'll take a long time to do that.

You're cranking them out every two months. So every 60 days, you've got a, roughly on average, we're talking about here, you're cranking out a book. And so that's, that level of kind of focus and determination is something that most people don't have. And so I'm trying to figure out how did you unlock that for yourself?

[00:11:29] Aaron Ryan: It's drive number one, and you have to answer the drive is the big solution there. So everyone has drive to a certain extent. I want to do this. I, need to do that. And you have responsibilities and self-imposed onuses for, whatever's in your life. For me, my onus and my self-imposed, requirement for doing this is the fact that I need to provide for my family.

What I want to do to provide for my family for the rest of my life is authoring absolutely clear, of that. It's always been a deep seated desire. I thought that it would be storytelling through voiceovers, but I see what's happening in the industry. My, my commitment is to write a certain amount per day, certain amount of pages per day.

Right now it's five pages per day. The word count is always going to vary, but at least five pages per day. And I'm currently sitting at, 258 pages on volume four, which it's a weird numbering convention, but it's the sixth installment in my series. I know four, six, it's confusing, but, that is my drive.

This is my drive. And this is my exit strategy and off ramp from a perhaps failing voiceover career. There's an urgency there. That drives me to write and I love this story. Every time I try to get away from it and write the other story that i've been working on dissonance just sucks me right back in.

[00:12:50] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, I love it so so tell us a little bit about kind of the style of story that you're working on And the characters that you're working with.

[00:12:58] Aaron Ryan: I would love to. Yeah. Thank you. So this is the best thing I've ever written. I'm deeply proud of it. It's loaded with thematic depth, justice versus revenge, cynicism versus trust, snarkiness versus maturity.

He goes on a wide character arc, in 2026, these things silently drift down out of the sky. We don't know what they are. They're not pods, crafts, ships, drones, they're beings. And they hover down out of the sky and they're 50 feet above the ground, all over the planet by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands.

We're going, friend or foe, what is this? They wait there for 90 days, so we think, well, maybe they're angelic messengers. They're not hurting us. They haven't attacked us. September 3rd, 2026 rolls around. They all wake up at the same time all over the planet. They hiss at us. Everything goes south from there.

We call them Gorgons because like Medusa, the Gorgon, you cannot under any circumstances lock eyes with them. One look and it's all over. They have a telepathic paralytic. They're going to freeze you where you stand. Eat you at their leisure. You're going to feel every single bite and it's going to be awful.

So don't take pictures of aliens. Run, just run. I don't know why we do that. So this, it's a story of two brothers and, finding out that something much bigger than what they have always known in the 16 years since the alien invasion. Something bigger is going on. What culminates in a massive counter strike and, and we kick them off the planet finally, but they go through a big journey on the process.

Yeah. Very proud of it.

[00:14:27] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, so I, I'm a sci fi, guy myself. Your story a little bit reminds me of V. I don't know if you remember that series from a long time ago.

[00:14:37] Aaron Ryan: The 80s one.

[00:14:38] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. The 80s version. Not the remake. I, well, I would say the comic book version because I actually have all the comic books from the original 80s version

of the show. So yeah, so that's how much of a sci fi nerd I am. So I am out nerded. Well, one day if we're ever together and, I have my comic collection, I'll let you flip through some of the issues I've got here. Let's, talk about, your drive and kind of the reasoning, of the books.

Is there something that you're, like, hoping to convey to your readers or, something that you're trying to get them to think about and, understand about the world or about themselves?

[00:15:24] Aaron Ryan: No. No, absolutely. And it's funny because I've been asked that question and I never have the right answer. Ultimately, it is not a referendum. The word is, the series is called Dissonance. Dissonance is the very lack of harmony. It's two notes clashing. As a musician, I understand that and dissonance though is the very lack of harmony. Sixteen years after an alien invasion, you see what people are saying, still doing to each other. You see what people are, still willing to do to, put themselves ahead and throw their competition under the bus and, self preservation at all costs. So it is not a referendum on current society, although that argument could be made, and I believe has been made.

It is, and it's not conversely a Rodney King. Can we all get along plea?

It just, the message, the central message is that the worst enemy of mankind. Is really always mankind. So the aliens at that point just are rendered to little more than a nuisance, you know spotting a fly. They're just terribly deadly flies but we need to do better to get along and boy, I think i've released it in the right year.

Because I don't know. Everyone seems pretty harmonious this year. I don't know. What do you think? It

[00:16:43] Sanjay Parekh: seems like it's going to be fine so I got to ask you then. Being that we're both science fiction guys. What do you think? Do you think aliens actually exist?

[00:16:55] Aaron Ryan: You would not believe the number of people who come up to my trade show and craft fair booths when I'm selling my books there.

And they're like, I was abducted. And, the real, I'd want to tell you, and I'm like, alien invasion, not abduction, invasion, attack, predatory, not.

[00:17:14] Sanjay Parekh: They're trying to give you a new storyline, that actually started out as an abduction first.

[00:17:19] Aaron Ryan: I don't know. It's already been done. I think that God is bigger than any of us and that if, these creatures somewhere exist, I hope they don't exist.

These ones in particular, because they're terrifying. And I wrote them that way. You can't even look at them. You're just, it's all over, right? If they do exist, I believe that it's somewhere off. Somewhere way over there. And if we ever connect and meet, that would be interesting, but I'm not entirely sure. I think we have way too much work to do on ourselves and too much work to be done on us right here.

[00:17:53] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. I find it hard to imagine that there is not other intelligent life in the universe, given how many stars, how many planets, how many, everything else, like, how could we be. So special to be the only planet, only beings in the world in the universe.

[00:18:11] Aaron Ryan: So the movie contact, love the movie contact Jodie Foster. Her dad said, well, if we are the only ones, it seems like a tremendous waste of space, and I love that line. It's a great, that is a great line.

[00:18:24] Sanjay Parekh: And, if you ever get to go to, oh gosh, down there in New Mexico, why can I not remember the man, the name of the place at 51?

No, not every 50, the place with the satellite dishes that are from the movie.

[00:18:37] Aaron Ryan: Yeah.

[00:18:38] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. It's fantastic. I, we got to visit there, years ago and it is, super interesting. All the work that they're doing there. Okay, last question on the author book front before we move on to other things.

Are there any authors that kind of stick out to you that have really influenced you in your work?

[00:18:57] Aaron Ryan: Big breath. So J. R. Tolkien, number one, first and foremost, I'm a huge geek and this is where I out nerd you. This is my ring. It's not the one ring I want to clarify. See, I'm still here. I'm still here, but I have my family's names engraved on this ring quintessential work of fantasy fiction of all time.

Lord of the Rings, undisputed heavyweight. So Tolkien love Tom Clancy, Marie Lu, Suzanne Collins, Hunger Games, John Grisham, Michael Crichton, James S. A. Corey, Stephen King, and, somewhere all the way to the other side of the spectrum, Dave Barry with satire. The fictional satire that he employs, genius. It's absolute genius. So I read a wide spectrum, but it is mostly sci fi.

[00:19:42] Sanjay Parekh: I am shocked, absolutely shocked. You did not mention Isaac Asimov.

[00:19:46] Aaron Ryan: Oh, Asimov, of course. Yes. Yes. It's been a really long time though. I've been reading, honestly, this is where I outdork everyone on the planet is. I'm an aliens. I like aliens. I don't know why it's a gene or something floating around in there somewhere, but I like aliens. 1986 Sigourney Weaver movie, greatest movie of all time. It's a great movie. It's a great movie. Yeah. The, sub, the little sub books that are by, other offers authors in the alien Canon. That's what I'm reading right now. And there's so many of them.

[00:20:18] Sanjay Parekh: Oh, really? Okay.

[00:20:19] Aaron Ryan: Tim Levin's, alien out of the shadows, fantastic book, spin off book, and I get stuck in those and I read them over and over again.

[00:20:29] Adam Walker: Support for this podcast comes from Hiscox, committed to helping small businesses protect their dreams since 1901.

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[00:20:50] Sanjay Parekh: Okay, let's, change, gears here a little bit and talk about, health and wellness and, doing all that in terms of this, because of the things that you're working on. Just like the things that I work on. It's about a bunch of sitting around, right? You're sitting around typing on a computer or you're sitting in a booth behind you there, doing voiceover.

There's not a lot of activity standing. Okay. Standing, not sitting in the booth standing. So you get a little bit of uptime there, but how do you manage like the stress of running these things yourself? And then life and all of these other things that are important.

[00:21:26] Aaron Ryan: It's, I go to a men's group on Tuesday mornings with my church. And we were just talking about this morning is, men are not supposed to look pear shaped. And it's just, we weren't created that way. Like an inverted pair, maybe, and I, do have a very sedentary job, editing is brief because I'm, when I was just doing voiceovers in and out of the studio all the time, up and down, recording, I stand all the time because I'm sitting here.

I stand deliberately in the studio, but it is bad, up and down, up and up, but I never get the ping from my Apple, Apple watch time to stand. I never get that because I'm already doing it with writing. However, sitting and writing and crafting out story after story at my desk. And sitting here, that has been, that's an adverse effect of writing.

So I really have let exercise go and there is a, I'm not kidding. Less than five feet away. There is a recumbent bike that is right there. It's right there. I have to pass it to get in here. There's a treadmill and I just, I need to get back into gear to do it. I have been good at it. I need to get good again.

[00:22:37] Sanjay Parekh: So I got to ask the voice or say you're standing. is that just because you normally sit or I, would have thought it's for you, expanding your diaphragm and being able to, get the sound and volume that you'd want.

[00:22:50] Aaron Ryan: No, it's, just definitely balanced. I'm sitting here and my entire bottom half of my body is not moving at all, except the nervous, bouncing leg thing.

But I, that's too many Cheerios in my bowl of sugar. That's what that is from. But I, liked, I think I expressed better. I can move around and gesticulate a little bit more in the studio way. I can do my best in a world where blah, blah, blah, I can do that. And you can't, you don't get as much of that from a seated position.

So also when you sit, like you, you need something comfortable. I have a nice, booth. I have a nice, stool that, retracts up and down, but it squeaks. And so anytime I do anything that where I've got some movement, you're going to hear that in the recording clients don't want that.

So signing is the best solution.

[00:23:38] Sanjay Parekh: For a voiceover session that you're going in there, that could be a long time, potentially saying like, how long are you in there for?

[00:23:44] Aaron Ryan: How to stretch? Well for e-learning projects that are self directed and they're, I'm not being directed by a client, thus the word self, anyway, that was redundant.

Strike that. When I'm in there. They can be lengthy. It depends on the module that I'm being asked to record for the e-learning project. I'm the voice of United Healthcare, for example, and I've recorded all of their spots for open enrollment and the United Healthcare, you card, those sessions are lengthy and they are multiple hours long, but the advantages that very comfy chair that you see right there in the case, this is audio.

Just if you're just, patching in audio, just imagine the most comfortable chair ever that was literally dropped down here from heaven. That's it. And so when I've recorded everything that they need, they'll go review it. And I get to sit in the chair and just wait to be called, wait to hear my name.

Oh, it's super. Oh, I love that chair.

[00:24:41] Sanjay Parekh: It sounds like you've got it well planned out there in the booth, so that's that's a good thing for you. So here's the here's another kind of question that i've got for you that you know for a lot of us as entrepreneurs. It's easy to have these things that we work on blend into all parts of life and for you, I think maybe even more so because randomly, you could be thinking about the books and thinking about plot lines and characters and all those kinds of things.

How do you set boundaries for yourself? And do you set boundaries? And if you do, how do you maintain them?

[00:25:14] Aaron Ryan: As a writer? This is something I had not anticipated. It's very easy to blur the lines. I want these stories to be real. I've lived in here for a year. I've, these pages have jumped out at me and I just loved immersing myself in the world building.

I love it. However. It is a creative pursuit that is this important to me and my family is this important to me. So I, at five, I start work at actually at 5 a. m. Come back out here, start catching up on auditions, voiceover auditions, or writing or marketing or whatever. Come back in, hot tub at six, never miss that.

And then, 7 a.m. The kids get up, they get ready for school, send them off. I go shower and get ready for the day. Come back out here at nine. I'm done at five. Every day it's religious. It's like clockwork. Because they deserve that. And, I deserve that with my boys. I have an eight and a five year old boy.

They're right there and there, and they're my life. They're my world. My wife is my life and world. She's right. And I just, yeah, I need that time and, I need the fellowship with them. And I just, I love them so much.

[00:26:26] Sanjay Parekh: So thinking back to all your time and doing these entrepreneurial and bet endeavors.

Is there, if you could go back in time and do something differently, is there something that kind of comes to mind and why, and how would you do it differently?

[00:26:41] Aaron Ryan: I wish that I would have listened to my voice. My inner voice is as cliche as that sounds early on. And I would have kept with writing because, it is such, a fulfilling pursuit to create these worlds and these stories and then, it wrecks you when you kill somebody off. I hate playing God in that capacity. And then, you write a prequel and you get to resurrect them. They're back to life again. It's a power. It's an amazing ability and an immersive experience with every single book that I write. I started down that path in the early nineties.

It did not. I felt represent where I wanted to go in my life at the time. So I abandoned it ultimately, and I hit the delete button. I don't even remember what kind of crappy computer it was. It was like one that if you delete something, no, it's gone. There is no recycle bin. It's gone, and so there's just no way you can't go back again.

I wish that I would have stuck with it though. Because I, look at the, John Grisham's and the, the, Tom Clancy's and the Michael Crichton's and the everybody else, Suzanne Collins, JK Rowling, I look at all of them and just go, what if I was there at that level?

Because this is what, this is. How I want to put bread on my table for my family is through the creation of these worlds and these stories and these characters. Had I stayed on that path and not been wayward and, SQUIRREL! Maybe I'd be, further down that path. but you live and learn and hindsight's 2020.

It's fine.

[00:28:14] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything that you, use in terms of technology or apps that help you along this process?

[00:28:23] Aaron Ryan: So I'm a dinosaur roar. I really do. I know what I know. I use Microsoft word and I have an editor. She uses word and it's, that's what we use. I don't use any of the fancy tools.

I sometimes I can't even remember their names. I only just, I still use Microsoft money for my finances. Don't laugh. Okay. You laugh.

[00:28:43] Sanjay Parekh: I used to, this is going to make that anymore. I think they stopped making that right.

[00:28:49] Aaron Ryan: Discontinued in 95. Get this though.

[00:28:51] Sanjay Parekh: I was going to say I used to use money and it's been a minute since I've used it.

It's do you remember Microsoft?

[00:28:59] Aaron Ryan: No, I don't remember that one. I just migrated from photo draw last year. Like that one, was, I don't even remember it. Like it can't open any file size larger than, I don't know, three bites. So I moved, finally migrated to affinity designer, which is very much like illustrator, right?

Just without the subscription that you pay until Jesus returns. It's affinity designer is great. And I'm getting the hang of it. So I use that for design. I use, word for writing and I use reaper, Microsoft reaper, reaper for, audio voiceovers and editing. Yeah.

[00:29:38] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's awesome.

Okay. Last question for you. If you were talking to one of our listeners that is thinking about, going from essentially what was a side hustle for you into a full time business, what kind of advice would you give them?

[00:29:53] Aaron Ryan: So I can't, I have a plaque here. That's the, the advice, the phrase, the mantra, if you will, is, emblazoned on, but it's not going to show up well in camera.

I was given this advice by a voiceover agent slash entrepreneur. A few years ago, I'll never forget it. As an author, man, we want people to buy our books. We want good reviews. We want, the books to go viral. We want people to say nice things about it. We want it to be adapted to the screen. We want it to be made into a movie.

It's that's our dream, right? But it's thriving on affirmation, which is really dangerous. So you have to, at the onset of your career, separate this desire for affirmation from your trajectory. The phrase that I got was someone's endorsement of you or lack thereof has very little to do with your trajectory.

Said, wait, say that again. And I was on the phone with her. She said it again. It was like, dang, that's absolutely what I needed to hear because of the voiceover industry. I was really trying to climb the corporate voiceover ladder with all the mucky bucks and be well regarded so that I could speak at, conventions and all that stuff.

Little did I know they already have their handpicked, flock from the people that they want to teach. So I was beating my head against the wall, but I complained and my agent friends said, Hey, they don't need to endorse you. Someone's endorsement of you or lack thereof has very little to do with your trajectory.

My trajectory is forward. I'm a, writer and a damn good one, regardless of whether people buy my books, regardless of whether I get good reviews, regardless of whether it's turned into a movie. All those are true. They are true. And I do have great reviews and I have great books that sell, but I don't need to hang my hat on that.

It's just go forward. Okay. Enjoy be you do what you do. It'll happen. Eventually. Don't worry about it.

[00:31:52] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Well on that note. Where can our listeners find and connect with you online?

[00:31:58] Aaron Ryan: Favorite question of all questions in any interview. Thank you. You can go to authorAaronRyan.com and that's not awfulaaronRyan.com. I have to clarify that authorAaronRyan.com. And that has a list of all my works and books and, all my works. Or you can go to dissonancetheseries.com. But because Dissonance is a hard word to remember, it's spell people think I'm saying dissonance. Just simply go to getthesebooks.com and that will forward you to dissonance, the series. You like that? I couldn't believe it was available. So I like that. That's really good. AuthorAaronRyan.com or getthesebooks.com. We'll connect. And I love mail. I love talking to readers. So please email me. I'd love to hear from you.

[00:32:41] Sanjay Parekh: Awesome, Aaron. Thanks so much for being on the podcast today.

[00:32:44] Aaron Ryan: Thank you for having me. My pleasure.

[00:32:48] Sanjay Parekh: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast, powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligent insurance solutions, visit Hiscox.com. And to hear more Side Hustle to Small Business stories, or share your own story, please visit Hiscox.com/side-hustle-to-small-business. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. You can find out more about me at my website, SanjayParekh.com.