February 15, 2025 • 49 mins
"When I realised how much joy there was to be had in life, full stop, in your job and in people paying you to do something you actually enjoy, blew my mind. After 20 years of office work, I was like, wait, wait, I get to have fun and they pay me. I was really surprised by that." Ana Clements
Ana Clements and I explore the journey of rediscovering passion, pursuing creativity and embracing reinvention at any stage of life. She shares how reaching midlife made her reflect on what she truly wanted - bringing her back to music, voice work and ultimately, audiobook narration. Ana also shares the impact of late diagnosis of ADHD on her life and discusses the significance of self-compassion, continuous learning, and the art of performing while staying true to oneself. Whether you're considering a career shift or simply need encouragement to take that next step, Ana’s story will leave you inspired to trust your own path and embrace what makes you come alive.
Award-nominated Ana Clements is a passionate speaker, coach, and professional voice artist. With over a decade in the industry, she has narrated audiobooks for major publishers, bringing a wealth of character voices to her performances in both British and Spanish. As the founder of Audiobooks on Clubhouse, Ana has built a thriving community where narrators and creatives connect and share insights. Since 2021, she has hosted weekly sessions, deepening her understanding of the challenges and lived experiences of a creative career. Ana has spoken at industry-leading events, including VO Atlanta, MexicoAudio, MAVO, One Voice Conference, and at many writers groups and workshops. A qualified coach since 2022, she works with narrators and authors, offering practical, insightful guidance that empowers them to push past self-limitations with actionable direction. Her creative coaching has been described as “helping others reach a point of clarity on who they are as creative professionals.”
Connect with Ana:
All of Ana's social media (LinkedIn, Instagram, FaceBook, Threads, etc.) are @AnaClements and her website is https://www.anaclements.co.uk
Resources Mentioned:
MOOC - Massive Open Online Courses https://www.mooc.org/
Personality Isn’t Permanent by Benjamin Hardy
The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hello, and welcome to life beyondthe numbers, the podcast, for those curious about creating a more fulfilling work life.
Every business boils down totwo basics people and money.
Here we focus on the human side.
Numbers masher, but people matter most.
(00:23):
And people drive performance.
I'm Susan On your host, a coachconsultant, facilitator, and author of leading beyond the numbers.
It brings me joy to speak to peopleand explore together how, although we share many similarities as humans each of us navigates the world through our own unique lens.
(00:51):
This adds intricacy to ourinteractions and contributes to both the depth and difficulties of interpersonal relationships.
Join us for stories, strategies,and insights to help you lead your life beyond the numbers.
(01:15):
Well, today I am delighted to welcomeAna Clements to Life Beyond the Numbers.
Ana, you're so welcome.
It's an absolute pleasure to be here.
Thank you very much.
And Ana, I think you might be thefirst person who is sitting in what looks like a little recording studio.
It is indeed a, a acousticallytreated soundproofed booth.
(01:36):
a Studio Bricks booth it's called, andit is specifically for recording audio.
Wow.
And we will come to why a bit later on.
I've had all sorts of guestson this podcast over the years.
And when I started the podcastfirst, it was originally to talk to people who'd had careers in finance and had moved beyond that.
(01:59):
And I moved beyond that myself andchanged it more to numbers and things.
But anyway, now it's just the name.
Your career change, beyond thenumbers, is quite fascinating.
So maybe you would tell us a little bitabout what you do and how you got there.
(02:21):
Wow.
so, long story short, I guess, at 19,I thought I wanted to be a singer.
I was aware that I enjoyed using my voice.
I sang in the school choir.
I sang at church.
not, non professionally,but it was my happy space.
And I, I took myself up to centralLondon at 18 and I did a, a half day course about voice work.
(02:43):
And at the time it was when youwould record your voice on a tape.
And they said, if you give us 400pounds, we'll create a demo for you.
this is the, late eighties.
I didn't have 400 pounds.
and so I went home and I told myparents, I said, I think I want to be a singer, not, not to be famous or a pop star, but to like professionally go into a studio and create harmonies or sing radio jingles.
(03:04):
I'm not sure, but I don't knowwhat to do or how to do it.
And they said, Oh, you haveto be really good to do that.
And I went, Oh.
And so I went to university andstudied economics, which I liked.
And I worked at the Spanishembassy in the finance department.
And then I did, several yearsof, temping work in the city.
(03:28):
which was interesting and, and fulfilledmy natural inclination to always want to be doing something different.
So from one week to the next, I was ina different department, whether it was insurance or, mergers and acquisitions or some corporate corporation where I was just answering the phone.
It was always differentand often bilingual.
I'm Spanish by birth.
so often I was employed for my, abilityto translate contracts or whatever.
(03:52):
Long story short, fell in love, movedto North Devon, which isn't London and doesn't have much call for either Spanish or finance and basically got into sort of computing, programming, organizing, systems within companies,
and then sort of back into finance,paying checks, wages, those sorts of the, the ordinary things you do once you become a mother and a homeowner and you're just looking to pay the bills.
(04:16):
and.
I, I hit midlife and went, this isn'thow this was supposed to turn out.
I was supposed to do the singing thing.
So at this point, my kids are sortof mid primary school, and they're starting to do trumpet lessons and piano lessons and violin.
And, and everything'sjust an optional extra.
(04:36):
they only ever did the free lessonsor the, the, the initial excitement.
My youngest particularly wasreally good at starting something and then starting something else.
and often I paid for fourlessons and she went to two.
And so I would turn up and go, I knowit's not me it's her you're expecting, but she won't come and I've paid.
So could I, could I just talk toyou about trumpet or about music or about, and I realized I was the one who was excited about the lessons.
(05:02):
And so I started taking piano lessonsand my piano teacher at about grade three realized that it was actually singing I was after, but I was too afraid to say.
So I started taking singing lessons, gotright through to ABRSM grade five, took music theory grade five, because you have to, to be able to progress and then went, it's actually performing I'm after.
So I got into a musical theater.
(05:22):
I'd been doing a lot of sort ofclassical, charity work and, concerts and things, got into musical theater, got the lead in several shows.
The North Devon has a really goodtheater, where a lot of traveling companies come through and a professional company came through, lost their female lead, auditioned for the part.
And I got it.
and I'm like, You can be paid for this?
(05:43):
So it, it just started thiswhole rollercoaster of realizing I lived in North Devon.
The choice was to move backto London or Bristol, perhaps.
But I had, a ten and an eight year old.
wasn't going to happen.
So I bought a microphone and gotfascinated by Acoustics, sound engineering, did lots of online courses.
There's a lovely thing calledMOOC, Massive Online Open Courses.
(06:06):
All the universities of theworld offer free courses.
I did an eight week, vocal intensivething and then a sound engineering.
And then another one all through,Berkeley College of Music.
and just became obsessed with soundand this idea that actually, as most voice artists will tell you, I began with two ironing boards and a duvet.
to work through the acoustics andthe sound engineering, I started thinking I wanted to get into sort of video games and radio commercials.
(06:33):
Pretty quickly discovered myvoice was suited for corporate narration and e learning.
all of which are much more long form andrequire a more articulate, articulate voice, less of a character voice.
It was Freudian slipon that word, I'm sure.
and, and then discovered audio books.
And that was eight years ago.
(06:54):
so, for about probably about eightyears, I'd been doing this whole process of kind of rediscovering myself.
And then eight years ago, discovered audiobooks and haven't really looked back.
Audio books have become my way to connectto a performance side of me while.
Still needing the kind of business sideand the requirements for marketing and self promotion and all of the things that go with the creative life that, that is slightly unexpected, I think sometimes.
(07:21):
so it's been joyful to find aspace where I'm able to go beyond the numbers and still have it be part and parcel of my life,
Absolutely.
Wow, there is so much inAna, thank you so much.
Questions
pinging all over the place.
I want to go right back to whenyou were 18, 19, because you said something that really struck me.
(07:43):
that singing was your happy spaceand then in a blog or something you said, I sometimes think that I left it too late to find my bliss.
So listening to you now, it all soundslike it happened as it was meant to or supposed to, but I wonder if you would talk about that a little bit more.
(08:07):
I think early on, particularlywhen I realized how much joy there was to be had in life, full stop, you know, in, in your job and in people paying you to do something you actually enjoy, blew my mind.
after 20 years of office work,I was like, wait, wait, I get to have fun and they pay me.
I was really surprised by that.
and I was asked by a lot of people,why didn't you do this sooner?
(08:29):
people will often say, I onlywish I'd started 10 years ago.
And actually, I'm aware now that Icoach now narrators and authors who want to narrate their own books.
And I'm aware that what we bring to themicrophone, the reason we sound the way we do is because of who we are and who we are is constantly changing, thank goodness.
And so, although I thought I wantedto get into voice work at 19.
(08:53):
I didn't have the life experience,the steel determination required, I didn't have any of those things.
hence the reason I didn'tdo it then kind of thing.
And I think sometimes youhave to recognize that things happen when they're ready,
I obsess, I'm, I'm very intoself help and, all the, reasons why we do and don't do things.
And I worry a lot about self doubt andprocrastination and all those things, but I don't think this was that.
(09:16):
I don't think it was mewishing it but putting it off.
It was actually that I didn't, Ididn't have the capacity to understand how much I didn't know and the willingness to undertake it so that I could know it and get better at it, which I've now dedicated myself to.
And I suppose in a way, Many of us havethat spark, Ana, from that childhood passion, and I know we talk about that, what you're passionate about and things you loved and tell us when you were six years old what you were obsessed with, da da da da, that kind of stuff, but
(09:52):
it's interesting, isn't it, how theexpression of who we are can become something that we use to make money or to survive in this world, however you want to say it, or, and actually thrive.
So we're not surviving any longer.
We're thriving.
And I suppose.
(10:13):
If there are people listening to this now,who this is reminding them of their own spark, what would you say to somebody?
I think maybe 15, 20 years ago, Iwas under the impression that it was obviously not meant for me.
I was aware of it being somethingthat I enjoyed and wanted to do, but I wasn't one of those people.
(10:38):
And, I'm reminded of a lovely,one of those, apocryphal stories that probably isn't a true story, about, two women, short version, I'll give you the punchline.
the idea is that the first thoughtthat we have when, something occurs and we think something is actually the one we're socially, programmed to think our immediate reaction is the one that's acceptable.
The one that everybody else says,I'm not made to be a singer.
(11:00):
I'm not supposed to be on stage.
It isn't what my family does.
It isn't what we do.
Just stop it.
You know, your secondthought is actually your own.
And I think sometimes it's reallydifficult to break away from either the awareness of that or just your upbringing.
the tradition that is your familyand the people you hang with, the people you socialize with.
(11:21):
If those people go to an officeevery day, work nine to five Monday to Friday, so do you.
And you don't think twice about it.
And it's difficult sometimes to breakaway from that space or to become a person that doesn't fulfill That criteria almost,
my mother still thinks it's a hobby,despite the fact that I've paid my mortgage for the last 10 years on it, and every time I get a new book, she'll say, and they're paying you for that, but, but I've had to go, I've had to go beyond the, it's not even hurt anymore, actually.
(11:50):
it's her disbelief, and the awarenessthat actually that's her own limitation about how far she feels she could go and it doesn't necessarily have to be mine and discovering that was my saving grace.
Well, that's fascinating and yes, we dohave so many views of how life is supposed to be or should be and I don't know if you've heard of the Zanders, Benjamin Zander, and he was the conductor of one of the philharmonics, I think Boston or New York, one of the big orchestras.
(12:24):
And he's written a book with hiswife called The Art of Possibility.
Yeah, and it's a fabulous book and,and, and one of the things he tells you throughout the book is basically everything's you know, everything is made up but we get fixated on how things show up in a societal structure and it just seems like it's the way things are meant to be.
(12:49):
So what is it like, Ana, to live lifeoutside of that structure as such?
It's not easy actually,thank you for asking.
that's a question I'venot been asked before.
Sorry, I must just, the thought that'soccurring to me is not unlike that book, the one that changed things for me was a book by Benjamin Hardy called Personality Isn't Permanent.
(13:10):
And the idea of possibility, as youdescribed in that title, I think made me suddenly go Oh, there are other options and I think what I'm grateful for is having been able to do it, having been able to continue to take small steps.
You know, originally the firstfour or five years, I still had a job while I was doing all of this.
So it's not like it wasan overnight wonder.
(13:32):
I only went full time in 2017, havingbeen doing it Consciously since 2009, but before that music and a consciousness and an awareness of wanting to shift.
so, you know, this overnightexcitement takes time.
but I think all the fantastic thingsaside, the wonderful consciousness and awareness of, being able to support yourself with a thing that you absolutely love comes an idea that actually you almost don't fit the mold that you were supposedly given.
(14:01):
there is this kind of feeling of,particularly with my parents, confusion on their part and worry, I guess, that, I've entered into this, what my family always saw as a, a creative endeavor where there is no money to be made and no life to be had.
And you'll only end up, sad and crying,which doesn't have to be true, you know.
perhaps what I haven't enjoyed isthe, the feeling of being an outsider.
(14:23):
The having to kind of break awayfrom the feeling of, being the good daughter and doing as I'm supposed to and thereby disappointing people.
quite literally, but the consciousnessand awareness of the fact that it's their disappointment, their limitations, their issues, none of which actually were holding me back.
It was only me holding me backby believing what they believed.
(14:46):
So I, I really needed to just try things.
And that's actually, that's apersonality thing on my part.
It got me into a lot of troubleas a child, but the trying new things and going, yes, I might fall over or I might fail.
But.
I wonder what it feels like, or I wonderwhat it tastes like, or I wonder what sensations it brings up, and that for me has always been a, an ongoing life ideal, and so that curiosity once I allowed it to come to fruition, it's led me down very exciting and wonderful paths, you 10 years that 15 years ago, I would have gone Who's that?
(15:22):
What are you talking about?
so it's, it's been an incrediblejourney and long may it continue,
And you're absolutely beaming because Idon't put the video out, Ana, for this.
So for everybody listening, Ana hasthe biggest smile on her face and she's all lit up and it's such a pleasure to see that in somebody as well.
(15:43):
and I wish all our workplaces in theworld that people were like this, but that's for another conversation.
reading some of your blogs andyour LinkedIn profile I guess the thing that stands out as well is language and the sound of language.
Sound is something I think about a lotbecause I'm not, music isn't all that important to me and I've had debates with people about whether I could live without it and so on, but I think sound is.
(16:15):
So I'm curious about language,sound, growing up bilingual.
I'm throwing everything intothis question as you can tell.
and then how that broughtyou to audiobooks.
Because of course, I like to read.
And I'm sure a lot of ourlisteners like to read.
And the experience of the sound ofthe book as opposed to reading a book.
(16:40):
Wow.
What a question.
I'm the youngest of four.
And what I've been fascinated by is thefact that although, I, I was actually born in London, my brothers and sisters were all born in Spain and my mother was pregnant with me when the whole family moved to London in the sixties.
so I grew up in a householdwhere we all spoke Spanish, but I went to school in English and.
(17:00):
Curiously, as brothers and sisters,we all spoke to each other in English because that's how we lived our lives at school, but our parents spoke Spanish and we spoke Spanish with them.
So there was this ongoing kind of,back and forth my father would say something in Spanish, we might reply in English and vice versa, but there was a huge mix of language always at home.
But a fascination with the fact thatthere were certain words we used.
(17:22):
in both languages where despitewhich language you were speaking in, the word would come out in the language that it was used in.
I don't know if that makes sense.
And so sometimes we grew up as teenagersand would suddenly go, how do you actually say a particular word in English?
I've never used that wordin that circumstance.
at 18, I was fascinated by the factthat I was Spanish, I have a Spanish passport, I have Spanish parents, but.
(17:48):
I had never lived in Spain.
And so I moved to Madrid for two years andI thought I spoke Spanish fluently until I tried to open a bank account and get a job and buy groceries and suddenly realized that what I knew was holiday Spanish.
I could speak with mycousins about school.
I could tell my parents about my day.
(18:08):
But I had no concept and no vocabularyfor actual forms and, you know, filling out things or receipts or buying in a shop, it was, it was a really interesting kind of immersion.
And because I have no accent inSpanish, people had no expectation of me not understanding or not knowing what they were saying.
And so it became this ongoing kindof, fascination, yes, with words and, things that you can interpret with your face and your body without saying the word if you don't know what it is.
(18:35):
I then went to university and studiedeconomics and my third year was actually spent in Italy, in Milan doing economics in Italian, which as you can imagine, yes, it was a lot.
Again, because I thought I spoke Spanish,therefore how hard can Italian be?
But actually once you get past howold are you and what's your name?
It's not the same at all.
so we did an eight week, intensiveItalian course, and then, four months of Italian, economics lessons.
(19:01):
And it was fascinating.
And again, the ability to describe whatyou mean because you don't have the word for it, and then hear the word and learn it, the learning process behind learning languages just fascinated me.
done French all the way through school.
So I was throwing in anything I coulduse to attempt to get myself, understood.
And it, developed into this,awareness of how people use their voices, accents, intonation.
(19:28):
How people say one thing but meananother, which is a very British trait, doesn't happen at all in Spain, doesn't happen at all in America.
people are very straight with their words.
If they say it, that's what they mean.
Whereas in Britain, you cansay, Do you want a cup of tea?
Oh, that'd be lovely.
Meaning, and you're not offeringme wine because But other countries don't hear that, that suggestion.
(19:48):
and so again, audiobooks has allowedme to play with all of those things.
Not just the obvious very Britisholder men, who all have these voices in the historical fiction, and, all those kinds of things.
But the fascination between genders, howpeople speak differently, and it isn't just about all the women speaking up here, and all the men speaking down here.
And it's much more about our voices.
(20:09):
Physical presence, our views onlife actually affect how we phrase our sentences, how many words we use in a sentence, whether we have very clipped short sentences because we're actually very insular.
all of those things just fascinate me.
I am, I am fascinatedby people and language.
And I mentioned the being the youngestof four because of the four of us, we've all turned out really differently.
(20:34):
we obviously all speak Spanish fluently,but my brother, who was three when they moved here, spent most of my child life refusing to speak Spanish because at school he was told off for it.
And so he would onlyever answer in English.
my sister really struggled.
She was eight, nearlynine when she got here.
didn't speak any English, so she hadto go to kindergarten to learn her ABCs and was mortified at having to sit with the four and five year olds.
(21:00):
And so all of us had reallydifferent experiences of what it means to know another language or to understand another culture.
And so I've been lucky in that mybrain, I have ADHD, I am very curious about life, I'm very Fascinated by all sorts of different things all the time.
and that has never gone away.
And for that, I'm really grateful.
(21:20):
And it's led me here, which is wonderful.
And again, there's so much in that answerand it reminds me a little bit, cause I grew up in the Southwest of Ireland and I did all of my schooling through Irish.
So I was bilingual.
Now we didn't speak Irish at home butit is fascinating because some people did, it was their first language and,
(21:44):
There are words, I know exactly what youmean, there are words that there isn't a word for it in the other language and sometimes that can be quite frustrating.
and it's fascinating as well whenyou start to learn other cultures and the words that they have for things.
it can really broaden howyou can express yourself.
(22:06):
And, one of the things yousaid about being bilingual is you have twice as much to say.
I was accused, accused my, my schoolreports all said, if Ana only spoke a little less and spent a little more time focusing on her work, it's the kind of typical, artist story of, usually sticking my foot in it, usually saying far too much, but what I think made me is actually, just very friendly, it's just really easy for me to make other people feel at ease.
(22:37):
And so in doing that, I tend to have touse lots of words to work out whether the other person wants to be chatted with, whether they're okay, whether, the situation is too complicated.
And so I'm constantly putting myselfin places where, I'm possibly outside of my comfort zone and my antidote for feeling uncomfortable is to be chatty.
(22:58):
I've heard of worse ones.
And as you're talking and I'mthinking about breath as well because I guess breath and how we breathe has a lot to do with how we sound.
Very much so.
I was really grateful that I did fiveyears of classical singing before I got into musical theatre and the stage, and then had to learn how different the stage is to the microphone.
(23:22):
but the, the breathing, as you say, it'scurious as I mentioned, I coach early narrators and often they do a thing which we call the catch breath, which is they'll get to the end of a sentence and then they'll start another sentence.
And there's this sense of I must takein a lot of breath because now I have to read an entire sentence when actually when we're speaking in conversation, our brains mostly don't think about how much breath we're using and you certainly don't take a large inhalation in anticipation of a large thought.
(23:51):
It just happens and you just keep going,
and so sometimes in audiobooks, there is a sense of.
Making sure that you're aware of thesense of the paragraph, rather than being afraid of the full stops or how far away they are, because often people will see two or three lines of words and go, Oh, here comes a big sentence.
and that's not how we speak when we speak.
(24:13):
audiobooks when I began were kindof about articulate and eloquent, but now they're very much about conversational and easy on the ear and as if a friend were chatting with you.
And so it's very much become thisidea of a conversational read.
And as you're talking I'm alsothinking about an interview situation in a workplace or Something like that where people maybe are feeling a bit anxious and because that their breathing has become more shallow and they are struggling maybe a little bit to say what it is they have to say.
(24:45):
So how much does it impact ourday to day representation of ourselves when we're a bit stressed?
Again, my fascination with all thingshuman and the nervous system, as it were, began with, with music.
So when I'd done two or three years ofclassical singing, my singing teacher said, you need to start performing, you need to start doing charity concerts and anything people will, let you do, go out and perform and, and discover.
(25:09):
And I went to my very first concertand after spending 25 minutes outside, unwilling to go in, I, I was convinced by a lady at a bus stop because I was about to get the bus home to go in.
And, I was third up in thelist of, of people singing.
And, I went up and my piano teacher wasthere and she played the opening bars.
And I went to take a breath and my entirebody was frozen in fright, 200 people looking at me and my ribs didn't move.
(25:36):
And I was aware that I hadeight seconds to decide whether or not my mother was right.
And luckily, it's giving me heebiejeebies just thinking about it.
Luckily, I remembered thatthis was where I wanted to be.
This is what I want to do.
And I relaxed enough for mybody to go and take a breath because breathing is what we do.
(25:57):
it's a very natural thing.
So actually you have tostop yourself breathing.
You have to freeze your muscles andtell your body not to breathe, which is also a very natural state, but usually when you're afraid for your life.
And so the consciousness of that,what it takes to remind your body that you're okay, the relaxation required to be ordinary as it were.
(26:19):
is, is a lot, and a conscious lot.
And then you have to lose theconsciousness so that it sounds natural.
So it's an ongoing kind of, I mean,it sounds more complicated than it is, but, but there is a, a technique to it.
And an awareness of body and ofself is all part and parcel of that.
And, and the practice like, Ithink what the person said to you is go out and discover.
(26:41):
So that's effectively what you were doing.
And.
giving your body the sense thatyou were safe on the stage, opening your mouth to 200 people.
that is quite a discovery.
So yeah, and quite a story, itreminded me of something that you have in one of your blogs as well.
And in bold and capital lettersis like, Oh, I couldn't do that.
(27:05):
And how many of us think, so peopleare probably listening, going, I could never do what Ana's just done.
I talk about the, the concert as if itwas my very first time and obviously it wasn't, you know, I was, I don't know, on the Parents Association, so at some point I had to stand up and do the raffle at school I called bingo when I was young, you know, at the, at the
events and stuff, so I think sometimesthere's a, a sense that There are smaller steps you can take that will get you to the point, even if it's just sitting your family down and saying, I need you all to listen to me for a second.
(27:35):
those are people you arecomfortable with, you're accustomed to them not listening to you.
Getting control of that crowd is astart if that's where you have to start.
So I think sometimes it's about workingyour way up to and also working out what it is you're actually afraid of.
You know, what will happen if you fail.
my kids used to do, those, littlefestivals that come around where a child reads poetry and then six other children read poetry and everybody claps says, you're all incredible.
(28:00):
and, I like it and I encouraged my kidsto do it because it's a life experience, standing up in front of a crowd and going, Why are they all looking at me?
is an experience in and of itself.
My youngest, who I think was abouteight at the time, had practiced this poem over and over ad nauseum at home.
we all knew it backwards and the daycomes and it's her turn and she's third in the queue and she's sat at the front and she walks up on stage and she turns and she looks at the audience.
(28:28):
And I saw her freeze and this poem cameout of her in a stilted, disorganized fashion because she knew it off by heart, but she was so conscious of the crowd.
And she finished and everybodyapplauded and she came and sat down and she said, I was so scared.
Can I do it again?
And I went, what?
(28:49):
And so we came back.
Luckily, we'd entered her in two things.
The next day, she cameback and did it again.
and we had these ongoing conversationsabout the fact that the audience doesn't actually care how good you are so long as they don't feel worried for you.
So if you have a cold, they don't mind.
They assume that's how you sound.
If you forget a line, they forgiveyou so long as you keep going.
(29:09):
And so we would have theseongoing conversations about.
Ultimately, how do you make otherpeople feel comfortable and therefore how do you make yourself relax knowing that you're in charge of making these people feel comfortable?
And suddenly performing becomes asharing of information that you've done nothing but practice ahead of time.
You're prepared, you're ready.
(29:31):
What's not to enjoy?
And so suddenly it stops being about,what if they all point and laugh?
What if I forget my costume?
What if, my glasses fall off my head?
You know, all the things that we worryabout, actually, if you are relaxed and confident about what you're feeling, it becomes part of the show.
You know, Oh, there go my glassesagain, people don't mind so long as you're in control and, by, being up on the stage or in front of a class or at the front of a meeting, people are already ready to listen to you.
(30:02):
And so suddenly there's this feelingwhereby it's not a performance as such.
It's just your turn.
and I think sometimes makingless of it allows you to get out there and take action.
the biggest antidote for fear is action.
we can sit at home and worry and be upsetand, and anticipate and have anxiety.
And I still do have anxiety when Ido public speaking and stuff, but the minute I get on the stage, I'm there to reassure the crowd that I've got this and they mustn't worry.
(30:28):
And that's how I deal with it.
Yeah, and I always think aswell, the people, like you said, because you're there they're already willing to listen to you.
They want you to do well.
And they're also probablyquite relieved it's not them.
Absolutely, absolutely.
So I think you've gotquite a lot of leeway.
(30:48):
it's when things start to fall apart.
then they, you will lose themquite quickly if there's too much of an expectation gap there.
But yeah, it's quite, yeah.
so, audiobooks
have just, like, grown in popularityin the last number of years, Ana, and did you foresee that happening?
(31:14):
No.
I can't claim that.
I can't claim that at all.
I think I was just, not so muchin the right place at the right time, I just happened to like the right thing at the right time.
And I, have got better and better at itand therefore more aware and more excited about the industry and where things are, you know, where to find work, how to actually get into it, what to do.
(31:36):
And now sharing that information bringsme just as much joy as the narration itself, the, the being able to.
Tell good stories and read booksand then be able to narrate them.
I mean, what's not tolove and then they pay me.
I I'm still shocked, you know, eightyears in and I'm still shocked.
but thrilled that, I get todo this and it's wonderful.
(31:57):
It really is.
is there a, was there a standoutbook that you have narrated?
like what, what typically thegenre, I mean, you talked about, e-learning and corporate, but obviously there's audio books as well.
So have you had a book that, youenjoyed above all others, or you learned something that you never knew?
You know what I mean?
Like, because you'vegot a privileged place
(32:18):
yes, very much.
So my, genres of, I was going to sayof choice, but they're not, they're The genres that the industry has dictated, that according to the sound I make, these are the books that my voice suits.
And it tends to be historicalfiction and non fiction.
And, the historical fiction tend to besort of 1800s, usually women empowerment.
So, some spinster who's anarchaeology, professor who is also a murder mystery, detective.
(32:45):
the nonfiction ones I really enjoyactually are, are usually about politics or law or how society changes over time.
I just did one about how to get yourteenager out of their bedroom and about talking to teenagers as a parent, which, I'd gone through, my girls are in their twenties now, but they're all life experiences, particularly the nonfiction book that are really fascinating to, just witness really, which is all we're doing.
(33:07):
And.
There's a real difference betweeninterpreting the narrative of a fiction book and the characters within it, which is all about kind of discovering their backstory, their personalities, why they want to, travel to Australia and live there instead, or be a serial murderer, whatever it happens to be.
and the non fiction books,which tend to be about getting into the passion of the author.
(33:30):
which ultimately is also a character,so you're really living the dream of why they are fascinated by how toothbrushes are produced or whatever the thing is somebody has bothered to spend several years writing about, there's a reason why they were so excited.
And often, if you're well cast, thepassion transcends the book, the reason, Macmillan cast me in the last book I did for them was actually more to do with my experience of having lived in Devon, and that was where this came from.
(33:56):
horror was taking place, and so Iwas able to understand and therefore express the views of the characters and the places they were living and the things they were going through.
So casting is really important too,whereas we're all, very good narrators and very good at what we do, we do tend to sit within particular genres, certain voices.
Do particular genres well,which is interesting again,
(34:19):
and.
Is there a reason that the authordoesn't narrate their own book?
a lot of authors do and, and do it verywell, nonfiction, particularly people will write their own nonfiction books and they will then go and give talks on it.
Often they've written the bookbecause that's what they do.
And so often their fan basewill expect to hear their voice.
(34:40):
And, there's very famous, Can't thinkof anybody now, but Brene Brown, for example, who is famous for all her talks, you expect to hear her voice when you turn on her book.
and there are some authors who wishthey could and want to, but writing and narrating are really different, careers, they're really different jobs and some people can and some people go, Oh, this is harder than I or I'm not getting the juice out of the words that I wrote.
(35:06):
Which when they then hear somebody elsenarrate go, that's the voice I was after.
One thing I always say to authors whodon't want to narrate their own book is don't produce an audio book with a voice just to have an audio book.
Be in love with that voice, Know thatthat is the voice that represents you and the characters in your book.
make sure that thatmatchmaking has worked for you.
(35:27):
It isn't just a business partnership.
For me, it's really about a team effortthat the narrator has understood your book and really is bringing it to life for you.
And it's funny, isn't it?
I think a lot of the time, stuffthat goes on behind the scenes, we never really think about it.
Like even in a movie, you tend notto think about who cast the people and why they were perfect for things.
(35:51):
And, and with all, I think anything thatwe can consume the way we do, because we just press a button, we forget about the world that goes on behind it because you're not the only audio book narrator.
You're the first person Iever met that narrated audio books, but you're not alone.
I can assure you, yes,yes, there are lots of us.
(36:12):
And there's a fascinationfor the industry as well.
So I run a weekly session on anapp called Clubhouse, which is an audio only app, where all we do is talk about audiobook narration.
from one week to the next, it might beabout, authors looking for narrators or narrators going, how do I spend four hours in the booth without wishing I was somewhere else kind of thing.
so the conversation is always varied, butit's a curious thing when, for example, on reviews for books, I got a review recently that said, I think I might've preferred to have read this and then listened to it, but both narrators did really well.
(36:44):
And it was just me, so I'm not overlysure what that person was hearing, or if my character voices were that good, she thought it was another person.
and then I'll get reviews that say, thisbook would have been better as a dual narration, which is where either the chapters are written alternately, and men, women, or whatever, you know, two people will narrate their own chapters.
Or duet narration, whereby themale character, for example, will read his lines of dialogue.
(37:09):
And then the narratorwill narrate their part.
What people don't realize is that theminute you introduce a second narrator, you're paying twice as much because the production of that, of having two narrators in two different places, either bringing them together in a studio or trying to collate that and edit and master that audio, is much more expensive.
I go around to writers groups as welland talk through this whole process because people are often just curious, they don't have audio books because they don't know they can, and, and are curious about how it works.
(37:37):
So, it, it is, the whole thing is,is fascinating to me and I love talking about it all the time.
Luckily.
Luckily.
And do you need to protect your voice Ana?
Very much so.
So things like, going out to partiesor going out drinking or, being hungover, can't do that anymore.
I need to be conscious of what I'mdoing the following day always.
(38:00):
funny things like going to concertswhere you find yourself singing along to, whoever you're seeing.
the next day will affect your voice too.
going to a party where you don'tthink you're raising your voice, but you're having to raise it just that little bit to be heard above the noise of everybody else talking.
It's lovely to be here.
Suddenly when you get home, yourealize you've lost your voice.
(38:21):
the ringing in your ears from beingat a concert or in a place with loud music, all of those things affect the levels on the microphone, how well you can hear yourself within your own head.
health, general colds and coughs.
you have to be really consciousof being around germs.
people talk a lot about sort ofspicy foods and coffee and tea.
I'm not as affected bythose as other people might.
And I think there's a lot more feararound kind of, dairy products and so on.
(38:45):
But if you ordinarily dothat and you speak all day.
then just don't do anything you don'tnormally do, and hydration is key, you know, hydration is always your friend, drink lots of water, but don't drink it in the moment, you have to drink it the night before, or, before the session at some point.
and again, it's an awareness of how you'rebody personally works, how long you are willing to sit still for a length of time.
(39:07):
the sessions of audio book recording,particularly if you go to a studio, run 9.
30 to 5.
30, you take an hour for lunch andthere's a 15 minute break halfway through the morning, so you're sat for an hour and a half, two hours at a time.
just reading from a book.
I don't know if to say it'sa personality trait, but it's certainly a personality type.
We are all of a similar willingnessto be alone for lengths of time, extroverts and introverts alike.
(39:32):
But we do enjoy our own company and welike working our way through a book.
a 12 hour book might take30 hours to complete and 30 hours on your own in a box.
It's a long time.
As long as that box isn'tunder the ground, it's like
I have visions of a coffin therefor some reason and it's like
(39:58):
You referenced this earlier Ana thatyou have ADHD and you said in your notes to me quite some time ago that this was a late diagnosis and I think there's a lot at the moment about people having late diagnoses and indeed my sister had one in her late 30s.
Has that had an impact onwho you are in the world?
(40:23):
I think it's actually given me morepermission than I thought I had, I was under the impression that I was too loud and too much and tolerated in spaces, which always made me inhibit myself and doubt myself and actually giving myself permission to just be me.
(40:43):
also allowed me not to beratemyself for not ticking the boxes I was supposed to tick.
And by supposed to, of course,what does that even mean?
You know, it's the societalexpectation, isn't it?
so for me, perimenopause,menopause, ADHD all came together.
And, I spent three NHS tryingto get a diagnosis, during which time I did nothing because I have ADHD, nothing but research it.
(41:09):
So there wasn't anythingI didn't already know.
And I spent a lot of my time,as a lot of people do, trying to convince myself I didn't have it.
Trying to say, who am I to, fit intothis group of poor people who, obviously haven't done well in school or have been ostracized their lives, and I, Was trying to excuse other people's behavior around me and that there was a lot of grief
(41:31):
when the diagnosis came through, a lot ofgrief about what might have been or how much easier things might have been for me if I had realized, and more importantly, if the people around me had realized.
But having said that, two yearson, I'm now going, nobody's making excuses for anybody.
ultimately nobody is making allowancesfor anyone, regardless of your gender, your skin type, your whatever, people have to get through life.
(41:57):
You have to keep going.
And so what it has done for me is givenme permission to allow myself grace.
And that's been a really big deal forme, the compassion for myself, which initially felt a bit like self pity and I was trying to get rid of it, but actually it's compassion and awareness that nothing lasts, if I'm rubbish today, I might be better tomorrow.
(42:21):
and that's okay and that happens alot and has always happened a lot, but in previous years I've been, angry and, frustrated and, you know, the whole, more haste, less speed.
I tend to mess things up more just becauseI'm trying so hard to make it happen when actually when I'm ready and it's going to happen, it happens with ease.
And so I'm all about relaxingand ease and trying to remember that it's all going to be okay.
(42:45):
we're doing the best we canhere and that's all we can ask.
So, but, but I was never ableto say that phrase without it feeling insincere or feeling like I shouldn't just be trying harder.
and I think what it did forme was just give me permission to be me, which has been nice.
And not a permission any of us need.
(43:07):
It shouldn't be,
Yeah, but it is definitelysomething that I think a lot of us tussle with or struggle with to understand, well, who are we?
And I guess our normal is our normal.
So normal for me may not be normal foryou or for the next person and so on.
(43:30):
And I think We reallyunderestimate that in the world.
And it really opens your mind and yourlife when you have that realisation.
Very much so.
yeah, and actually being true to yourself.
People might say it's selfish oryou're having self pity or whatever, self absorption, all of these things.
(43:53):
But actually You get to be,like, beaming, like you are.
It is lovely.
And I think, again, teachinghas really helped me.
again, because I've done so many thingsin my life, I taught Spanish for a while and I, I got a, a certificate of education and I taught in adult education and I taught Spanish, obviously.
And I loved it.
(44:14):
Absolutely loved it.
Loved meeting people, finding out their,their life stories and their reasons for wanting to learn Spanish and so on.
And what I realized when I wasdoing audio books was that I was missing meeting people.
And so I started this weekly group, butthen I also started coaching narrators.
And one of the things that is a verypopular class I give, which is, I call it elevator pitch, but ultimately it's about learning who you are.
(44:38):
And where you fit within theindustry, because as a creative, we'd often come in going, I've trained, there's nothing I can't do.
Give me a job, justpay me to do something.
I'll do anything.
And that kind of desperation shows,whereas when you come at it from a point of I know who I am and what I offer.
And if that's a match with you,then we'd make a great team.
And it's a much more relaxed andan easier process to go through.
(45:02):
And one of my favorite phrases thatI always say is that we are all underwhelmed by our own abilities.
We look outside ourselves and go, she'sso great at French accents and he does female voices so well and she gets to read, mystery thrillers and she works for whatever company and we're always comparing, which is great for aspiration, but does nothing if you're already
(45:24):
doubting yourself or you have ADHD andyou're under the impression that maybe it's not really where you're supposed to be at and you can't tell, it makes it difficult to know whether you're fitting in or whether they're about to pull the rug out from under you.
And that precarious emotionalstate isn't pleasant at all.
So it's important, I think, toground yourself in your own knowledge and awareness of yourself and go, this is why I'm good at this.
(45:48):
This is what I'm training to be better at.
If I don't feel good at French accents,then I'm going to go take classes.
we do need.
external validation with regards toyes, you're good at this, now try this.
But I think we forget sometimes tokind of take a look at ourselves and go, look how far I've come.
we always look to what we haven't yetachieved or what we're not good at.
(46:09):
And we forget to list the thingswe're actually really good at.
And we take them for granted and weassume everybody can do that, you know?
That's exactly what I was thinkingof, is how we take ourselves for granted, and have that, well if I can do it, I guess anyone can do it.
And, that, it's not boasting, either,to talk about stuff that you can do.
(46:32):
Because actually, many people would givetheir right arm to be able to do it.
Maybe not their right arm,but you know what I mean.
But it's, it's almost alsobecause of social media, we're all now having to talk about it.
Particularly if you're looking toget people to employ you to read their book, you have to tell them how good you are at this thing.
And people find that reallydifficult, but actually I always say there's a difference between self promotion and self aggrandizement.
(46:57):
Nobody likes somebody who says, Oh, I canwater ski off the back of two boats, you know, my daughter always says, it's like when you tell someone you're going to Tenerife and they're going to Elevenerife,
Oh yeah.
which I think is hysterical.
and nobody likes, that kind of, inflatedsense of self, but to be able to list the reasons, and I, I think it's one of the reasons that I am so, educated, for want of a better word, I have certificates in everything, and it's mostly because I need to be able to say the reason I'm standing up here today is because I spent eight weeks on a course telling me about this so I can tell you about that.
(47:35):
and it's my way of not excusing,but justifying my presence and I need that it's, it's who I am.
And so I think you have to find the thingthat makes you feel good about yourself.
The thing that allows you to be ableto say, I do this because I love it.
I do this because I'm really good at it.
and it's great to do.
and I found it, which is lovely.
It is Ana and thank you for sharingall of that with me today and with anyone who listens to this episode.
(48:01):
And I think the thing I would say foryou, if you've listened, you can obviously apply this to any part of your life.
I know we've been talking about the workthat you do Ana in the world, but it applies in so many ways to who we are and how we go about our day to day life.
Ana, I am so glad to talk to youabout your life beyond the numbers.
(48:23):
Thank you for being a guest.
Thank you very much for having me.
And if people would like toknow more, Ana, what's the best way of connecting with you?
I'm, I'm on all social media.
My name's spelt with one N, so it's justA N A Clements, Ana Clements, and I'm at Ana Clements on all social media.
And my website is AnaClements.
co. uk.
So I'd be thrilled to hear from anyoneby email, by messenger, by Instagram message, whatever your, poison of choice.
(48:50):
And I'll put details of all ofthose in the show notes as well.
So thank you, Ana.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining me todayon life, beyond the numbers.
If something in this episode resonatedwith you, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
And if you've enjoyed this conversation,Please take a moment to leave a review.
(49:17):
It helps others like us.
I discover this podcast andjoin in our conversation.
Until next time.
Keep exploring thehuman side of work life.
Hello, and welcome to life beyondthe numbers, the podcast, for those curious about creating a more fulfilling work life.
Every business boils down totwo basics people and money.
Here we focus on the human side.
Numbers masher, but people matter most.
(00:23):
And people drive performance.
I'm Susan On your host, a coachconsultant, facilitator, and author of leading beyond the numbers.
It brings me joy to speak to peopleand explore together how, although we share many similarities as humans each of us navigates the world through our own unique lens.
(00:51):
This adds intricacy to ourinteractions and contributes to both the depth and difficulties of interpersonal relationships.
Join us for stories, strategies,and insights to help you lead your life beyond the numbers.
(01:15):
Well, today I am delighted to welcomeAna Clements to Life Beyond the Numbers.
Ana, you're so welcome.
It's an absolute pleasure to be here.
Thank you very much.
And Ana, I think you might be thefirst person who is sitting in what looks like a little recording studio.
It is indeed a, a acousticallytreated soundproofed booth.
(01:36):
a Studio Bricks booth it's called, andit is specifically for recording audio.
Wow.
And we will come to why a bit later on.
I've had all sorts of guestson this podcast over the years.
And when I started the podcastfirst, it was originally to talk to people who'd had careers in finance and had moved beyond that.
(01:59):
And I moved beyond that myself andchanged it more to numbers and things.
But anyway, now it's just the name.
Your career change, beyond thenumbers, is quite fascinating.
So maybe you would tell us a little bitabout what you do and how you got there.
(02:21):
Wow.
so, long story short, I guess, at 19,I thought I wanted to be a singer.
I was aware that I enjoyed using my voice.
I sang in the school choir.
I sang at church.
not, non professionally,but it was my happy space.
And I, I took myself up to centralLondon at 18 and I did a, a half day course about voice work.
(02:43):
And at the time it was when youwould record your voice on a tape.
And they said, if you give us 400pounds, we'll create a demo for you.
this is the, late eighties.
I didn't have 400 pounds.
and so I went home and I told myparents, I said, I think I want to be a singer, not, not to be famous or a pop star, but to like professionally go into a studio and create harmonies or sing radio jingles.
(03:04):
I'm not sure, but I don't knowwhat to do or how to do it.
And they said, Oh, you haveto be really good to do that.
And I went, Oh.
And so I went to university andstudied economics, which I liked.
And I worked at the Spanishembassy in the finance department.
And then I did, several yearsof, temping work in the city.
(03:28):
which was interesting and, and fulfilledmy natural inclination to always want to be doing something different.
So from one week to the next, I was ina different department, whether it was insurance or, mergers and acquisitions or some corporate corporation where I was just answering the phone.
It was always differentand often bilingual.
I'm Spanish by birth.
so often I was employed for my, abilityto translate contracts or whatever.
(03:52):
Long story short, fell in love, movedto North Devon, which isn't London and doesn't have much call for either Spanish or finance and basically got into sort of computing, programming, organizing, systems within companies,
and then sort of back into finance,paying checks, wages, those sorts of the, the ordinary things you do once you become a mother and a homeowner and you're just looking to pay the bills.
(04:16):
and.
I, I hit midlife and went, this isn'thow this was supposed to turn out.
I was supposed to do the singing thing.
So at this point, my kids are sortof mid primary school, and they're starting to do trumpet lessons and piano lessons and violin.
And, and everything'sjust an optional extra.
(04:36):
they only ever did the free lessonsor the, the, the initial excitement.
My youngest particularly wasreally good at starting something and then starting something else.
and often I paid for fourlessons and she went to two.
And so I would turn up and go, I knowit's not me it's her you're expecting, but she won't come and I've paid.
So could I, could I just talk toyou about trumpet or about music or about, and I realized I was the one who was excited about the lessons.
(05:02):
And so I started taking piano lessonsand my piano teacher at about grade three realized that it was actually singing I was after, but I was too afraid to say.
So I started taking singing lessons, gotright through to ABRSM grade five, took music theory grade five, because you have to, to be able to progress and then went, it's actually performing I'm after.
So I got into a musical theater.
(05:22):
I'd been doing a lot of sort ofclassical, charity work and, concerts and things, got into musical theater, got the lead in several shows.
The North Devon has a really goodtheater, where a lot of traveling companies come through and a professional company came through, lost their female lead, auditioned for the part.
And I got it.
and I'm like, You can be paid for this?
(05:43):
So it, it just started thiswhole rollercoaster of realizing I lived in North Devon.
The choice was to move backto London or Bristol, perhaps.
But I had, a ten and an eight year old.
wasn't going to happen.
So I bought a microphone and gotfascinated by Acoustics, sound engineering, did lots of online courses.
There's a lovely thing calledMOOC, Massive Online Open Courses.
(06:06):
All the universities of theworld offer free courses.
I did an eight week, vocal intensivething and then a sound engineering.
And then another one all through,Berkeley College of Music.
and just became obsessed with soundand this idea that actually, as most voice artists will tell you, I began with two ironing boards and a duvet.
to work through the acoustics andthe sound engineering, I started thinking I wanted to get into sort of video games and radio commercials.
(06:33):
Pretty quickly discovered myvoice was suited for corporate narration and e learning.
all of which are much more long form andrequire a more articulate, articulate voice, less of a character voice.
It was Freudian slipon that word, I'm sure.
and, and then discovered audio books.
And that was eight years ago.
(06:54):
so, for about probably about eightyears, I'd been doing this whole process of kind of rediscovering myself.
And then eight years ago, discovered audiobooks and haven't really looked back.
Audio books have become my way to connectto a performance side of me while.
Still needing the kind of business sideand the requirements for marketing and self promotion and all of the things that go with the creative life that, that is slightly unexpected, I think sometimes.
(07:21):
so it's been joyful to find aspace where I'm able to go beyond the numbers and still have it be part and parcel of my life,
Absolutely.
Wow, there is so much inAna, thank you so much.
Questions
pinging all over the place.
I want to go right back to whenyou were 18, 19, because you said something that really struck me.
(07:43):
that singing was your happy spaceand then in a blog or something you said, I sometimes think that I left it too late to find my bliss.
So listening to you now, it all soundslike it happened as it was meant to or supposed to, but I wonder if you would talk about that a little bit more.
(08:07):
I think early on, particularlywhen I realized how much joy there was to be had in life, full stop, you know, in, in your job and in people paying you to do something you actually enjoy, blew my mind.
after 20 years of office work,I was like, wait, wait, I get to have fun and they pay me.
I was really surprised by that.
and I was asked by a lot of people,why didn't you do this sooner?
(08:29):
people will often say, I onlywish I'd started 10 years ago.
And actually, I'm aware now that Icoach now narrators and authors who want to narrate their own books.
And I'm aware that what we bring to themicrophone, the reason we sound the way we do is because of who we are and who we are is constantly changing, thank goodness.
And so, although I thought I wantedto get into voice work at 19.
(08:53):
I didn't have the life experience,the steel determination required, I didn't have any of those things.
hence the reason I didn'tdo it then kind of thing.
And I think sometimes youhave to recognize that things happen when they're ready,
I obsess, I'm, I'm very intoself help and, all the, reasons why we do and don't do things.
And I worry a lot about self doubt andprocrastination and all those things, but I don't think this was that.
(09:16):
I don't think it was mewishing it but putting it off.
It was actually that I didn't, Ididn't have the capacity to understand how much I didn't know and the willingness to undertake it so that I could know it and get better at it, which I've now dedicated myself to.
And I suppose in a way, Many of us havethat spark, Ana, from that childhood passion, and I know we talk about that, what you're passionate about and things you loved and tell us when you were six years old what you were obsessed with, da da da da, that kind of stuff, but
(09:52):
it's interesting, isn't it, how theexpression of who we are can become something that we use to make money or to survive in this world, however you want to say it, or, and actually thrive.
So we're not surviving any longer.
We're thriving.
And I suppose.
(10:13):
If there are people listening to this now,who this is reminding them of their own spark, what would you say to somebody?
I think maybe 15, 20 years ago, Iwas under the impression that it was obviously not meant for me.
I was aware of it being somethingthat I enjoyed and wanted to do, but I wasn't one of those people.
(10:38):
And, I'm reminded of a lovely,one of those, apocryphal stories that probably isn't a true story, about, two women, short version, I'll give you the punchline.
the idea is that the first thoughtthat we have when, something occurs and we think something is actually the one we're socially, programmed to think our immediate reaction is the one that's acceptable.
The one that everybody else says,I'm not made to be a singer.
(11:00):
I'm not supposed to be on stage.
It isn't what my family does.
It isn't what we do.
Just stop it.
You know, your secondthought is actually your own.
And I think sometimes it's reallydifficult to break away from either the awareness of that or just your upbringing.
the tradition that is your familyand the people you hang with, the people you socialize with.
(11:21):
If those people go to an officeevery day, work nine to five Monday to Friday, so do you.
And you don't think twice about it.
And it's difficult sometimes to breakaway from that space or to become a person that doesn't fulfill That criteria almost,
my mother still thinks it's a hobby,despite the fact that I've paid my mortgage for the last 10 years on it, and every time I get a new book, she'll say, and they're paying you for that, but, but I've had to go, I've had to go beyond the, it's not even hurt anymore, actually.
(11:50):
it's her disbelief, and the awarenessthat actually that's her own limitation about how far she feels she could go and it doesn't necessarily have to be mine and discovering that was my saving grace.
Well, that's fascinating and yes, we dohave so many views of how life is supposed to be or should be and I don't know if you've heard of the Zanders, Benjamin Zander, and he was the conductor of one of the philharmonics, I think Boston or New York, one of the big orchestras.
(12:24):
And he's written a book with hiswife called The Art of Possibility.
Yeah, and it's a fabulous book and,and, and one of the things he tells you throughout the book is basically everything's you know, everything is made up but we get fixated on how things show up in a societal structure and it just seems like it's the way things are meant to be.
(12:49):
So what is it like, Ana, to live lifeoutside of that structure as such?
It's not easy actually,thank you for asking.
that's a question I'venot been asked before.
Sorry, I must just, the thought that'soccurring to me is not unlike that book, the one that changed things for me was a book by Benjamin Hardy called Personality Isn't Permanent.
(13:10):
And the idea of possibility, as youdescribed in that title, I think made me suddenly go Oh, there are other options and I think what I'm grateful for is having been able to do it, having been able to continue to take small steps.
You know, originally the firstfour or five years, I still had a job while I was doing all of this.
So it's not like it wasan overnight wonder.
(13:32):
I only went full time in 2017, havingbeen doing it Consciously since 2009, but before that music and a consciousness and an awareness of wanting to shift.
so, you know, this overnightexcitement takes time.
but I think all the fantastic thingsaside, the wonderful consciousness and awareness of, being able to support yourself with a thing that you absolutely love comes an idea that actually you almost don't fit the mold that you were supposedly given.
(14:01):
there is this kind of feeling of,particularly with my parents, confusion on their part and worry, I guess, that, I've entered into this, what my family always saw as a, a creative endeavor where there is no money to be made and no life to be had.
And you'll only end up, sad and crying,which doesn't have to be true, you know.
perhaps what I haven't enjoyed isthe, the feeling of being an outsider.
(14:23):
The having to kind of break awayfrom the feeling of, being the good daughter and doing as I'm supposed to and thereby disappointing people.
quite literally, but the consciousnessand awareness of the fact that it's their disappointment, their limitations, their issues, none of which actually were holding me back.
It was only me holding me backby believing what they believed.
(14:46):
So I, I really needed to just try things.
And that's actually, that's apersonality thing on my part.
It got me into a lot of troubleas a child, but the trying new things and going, yes, I might fall over or I might fail.
But.
I wonder what it feels like, or I wonderwhat it tastes like, or I wonder what sensations it brings up, and that for me has always been a, an ongoing life ideal, and so that curiosity once I allowed it to come to fruition, it's led me down very exciting and wonderful paths, you 10 years that 15 years ago, I would have gone Who's that?
(15:22):
What are you talking about?
so it's, it's been an incrediblejourney and long may it continue,
And you're absolutely beaming because Idon't put the video out, Ana, for this.
So for everybody listening, Ana hasthe biggest smile on her face and she's all lit up and it's such a pleasure to see that in somebody as well.
(15:43):
and I wish all our workplaces in theworld that people were like this, but that's for another conversation.
reading some of your blogs andyour LinkedIn profile I guess the thing that stands out as well is language and the sound of language.
Sound is something I think about a lotbecause I'm not, music isn't all that important to me and I've had debates with people about whether I could live without it and so on, but I think sound is.
(16:15):
So I'm curious about language,sound, growing up bilingual.
I'm throwing everything intothis question as you can tell.
and then how that broughtyou to audiobooks.
Because of course, I like to read.
And I'm sure a lot of ourlisteners like to read.
And the experience of the sound ofthe book as opposed to reading a book.
(16:40):
Wow.
What a question.
I'm the youngest of four.
And what I've been fascinated by is thefact that although, I, I was actually born in London, my brothers and sisters were all born in Spain and my mother was pregnant with me when the whole family moved to London in the sixties.
so I grew up in a householdwhere we all spoke Spanish, but I went to school in English and.
(17:00):
Curiously, as brothers and sisters,we all spoke to each other in English because that's how we lived our lives at school, but our parents spoke Spanish and we spoke Spanish with them.
So there was this ongoing kind of,back and forth my father would say something in Spanish, we might reply in English and vice versa, but there was a huge mix of language always at home.
But a fascination with the fact thatthere were certain words we used.
(17:22):
in both languages where despitewhich language you were speaking in, the word would come out in the language that it was used in.
I don't know if that makes sense.
And so sometimes we grew up as teenagersand would suddenly go, how do you actually say a particular word in English?
I've never used that wordin that circumstance.
at 18, I was fascinated by the factthat I was Spanish, I have a Spanish passport, I have Spanish parents, but.
(17:48):
I had never lived in Spain.
And so I moved to Madrid for two years andI thought I spoke Spanish fluently until I tried to open a bank account and get a job and buy groceries and suddenly realized that what I knew was holiday Spanish.
I could speak with mycousins about school.
I could tell my parents about my day.
(18:08):
But I had no concept and no vocabularyfor actual forms and, you know, filling out things or receipts or buying in a shop, it was, it was a really interesting kind of immersion.
And because I have no accent inSpanish, people had no expectation of me not understanding or not knowing what they were saying.
And so it became this ongoing kindof, fascination, yes, with words and, things that you can interpret with your face and your body without saying the word if you don't know what it is.
(18:35):
I then went to university and studiedeconomics and my third year was actually spent in Italy, in Milan doing economics in Italian, which as you can imagine, yes, it was a lot.
Again, because I thought I spoke Spanish,therefore how hard can Italian be?
But actually once you get past howold are you and what's your name?
It's not the same at all.
so we did an eight week, intensiveItalian course, and then, four months of Italian, economics lessons.
(19:01):
And it was fascinating.
And again, the ability to describe whatyou mean because you don't have the word for it, and then hear the word and learn it, the learning process behind learning languages just fascinated me.
done French all the way through school.
So I was throwing in anything I coulduse to attempt to get myself, understood.
And it, developed into this,awareness of how people use their voices, accents, intonation.
(19:28):
How people say one thing but meananother, which is a very British trait, doesn't happen at all in Spain, doesn't happen at all in America.
people are very straight with their words.
If they say it, that's what they mean.
Whereas in Britain, you cansay, Do you want a cup of tea?
Oh, that'd be lovely.
Meaning, and you're not offeringme wine because But other countries don't hear that, that suggestion.
(19:48):
and so again, audiobooks has allowedme to play with all of those things.
Not just the obvious very Britisholder men, who all have these voices in the historical fiction, and, all those kinds of things.
But the fascination between genders, howpeople speak differently, and it isn't just about all the women speaking up here, and all the men speaking down here.
And it's much more about our voices.
(20:09):
Physical presence, our views onlife actually affect how we phrase our sentences, how many words we use in a sentence, whether we have very clipped short sentences because we're actually very insular.
all of those things just fascinate me.
I am, I am fascinatedby people and language.
And I mentioned the being the youngestof four because of the four of us, we've all turned out really differently.
(20:34):
we obviously all speak Spanish fluently,but my brother, who was three when they moved here, spent most of my child life refusing to speak Spanish because at school he was told off for it.
And so he would onlyever answer in English.
my sister really struggled.
She was eight, nearlynine when she got here.
didn't speak any English, so she hadto go to kindergarten to learn her ABCs and was mortified at having to sit with the four and five year olds.
(21:00):
And so all of us had reallydifferent experiences of what it means to know another language or to understand another culture.
And so I've been lucky in that mybrain, I have ADHD, I am very curious about life, I'm very Fascinated by all sorts of different things all the time.
and that has never gone away.
And for that, I'm really grateful.
(21:20):
And it's led me here, which is wonderful.
And again, there's so much in that answerand it reminds me a little bit, cause I grew up in the Southwest of Ireland and I did all of my schooling through Irish.
So I was bilingual.
Now we didn't speak Irish at home butit is fascinating because some people did, it was their first language and,
(21:44):
There are words, I know exactly what youmean, there are words that there isn't a word for it in the other language and sometimes that can be quite frustrating.
and it's fascinating as well whenyou start to learn other cultures and the words that they have for things.
it can really broaden howyou can express yourself.
(22:06):
And, one of the things yousaid about being bilingual is you have twice as much to say.
I was accused, accused my, my schoolreports all said, if Ana only spoke a little less and spent a little more time focusing on her work, it's the kind of typical, artist story of, usually sticking my foot in it, usually saying far too much, but what I think made me is actually, just very friendly, it's just really easy for me to make other people feel at ease.
(22:37):
And so in doing that, I tend to have touse lots of words to work out whether the other person wants to be chatted with, whether they're okay, whether, the situation is too complicated.
And so I'm constantly putting myselfin places where, I'm possibly outside of my comfort zone and my antidote for feeling uncomfortable is to be chatty.
(22:58):
I've heard of worse ones.
And as you're talking and I'mthinking about breath as well because I guess breath and how we breathe has a lot to do with how we sound.
Very much so.
I was really grateful that I did fiveyears of classical singing before I got into musical theatre and the stage, and then had to learn how different the stage is to the microphone.
(23:22):
but the, the breathing, as you say, it'scurious as I mentioned, I coach early narrators and often they do a thing which we call the catch breath, which is they'll get to the end of a sentence and then they'll start another sentence.
And there's this sense of I must takein a lot of breath because now I have to read an entire sentence when actually when we're speaking in conversation, our brains mostly don't think about how much breath we're using and you certainly don't take a large inhalation in anticipation of a large thought.
(23:51):
It just happens and you just keep going,
and so sometimes in audiobooks, there is a sense of.
Making sure that you're aware of thesense of the paragraph, rather than being afraid of the full stops or how far away they are, because often people will see two or three lines of words and go, Oh, here comes a big sentence.
and that's not how we speak when we speak.
(24:13):
audiobooks when I began were kindof about articulate and eloquent, but now they're very much about conversational and easy on the ear and as if a friend were chatting with you.
And so it's very much become thisidea of a conversational read.
And as you're talking I'm alsothinking about an interview situation in a workplace or Something like that where people maybe are feeling a bit anxious and because that their breathing has become more shallow and they are struggling maybe a little bit to say what it is they have to say.
(24:45):
So how much does it impact ourday to day representation of ourselves when we're a bit stressed?
Again, my fascination with all thingshuman and the nervous system, as it were, began with, with music.
So when I'd done two or three years ofclassical singing, my singing teacher said, you need to start performing, you need to start doing charity concerts and anything people will, let you do, go out and perform and, and discover.
(25:09):
And I went to my very first concertand after spending 25 minutes outside, unwilling to go in, I, I was convinced by a lady at a bus stop because I was about to get the bus home to go in.
And, I was third up in thelist of, of people singing.
And, I went up and my piano teacher wasthere and she played the opening bars.
And I went to take a breath and my entirebody was frozen in fright, 200 people looking at me and my ribs didn't move.
(25:36):
And I was aware that I hadeight seconds to decide whether or not my mother was right.
And luckily, it's giving me heebiejeebies just thinking about it.
Luckily, I remembered thatthis was where I wanted to be.
This is what I want to do.
And I relaxed enough for mybody to go and take a breath because breathing is what we do.
(25:57):
it's a very natural thing.
So actually you have tostop yourself breathing.
You have to freeze your muscles andtell your body not to breathe, which is also a very natural state, but usually when you're afraid for your life.
And so the consciousness of that,what it takes to remind your body that you're okay, the relaxation required to be ordinary as it were.
(26:19):
is, is a lot, and a conscious lot.
And then you have to lose theconsciousness so that it sounds natural.
So it's an ongoing kind of, I mean,it sounds more complicated than it is, but, but there is a, a technique to it.
And an awareness of body and ofself is all part and parcel of that.
And, and the practice like, Ithink what the person said to you is go out and discover.
(26:41):
So that's effectively what you were doing.
And.
giving your body the sense thatyou were safe on the stage, opening your mouth to 200 people.
that is quite a discovery.
So yeah, and quite a story, itreminded me of something that you have in one of your blogs as well.
And in bold and capital lettersis like, Oh, I couldn't do that.
(27:05):
And how many of us think, so peopleare probably listening, going, I could never do what Ana's just done.
I talk about the, the concert as if itwas my very first time and obviously it wasn't, you know, I was, I don't know, on the Parents Association, so at some point I had to stand up and do the raffle at school I called bingo when I was young, you know, at the, at the
events and stuff, so I think sometimesthere's a, a sense that There are smaller steps you can take that will get you to the point, even if it's just sitting your family down and saying, I need you all to listen to me for a second.
(27:35):
those are people you arecomfortable with, you're accustomed to them not listening to you.
Getting control of that crowd is astart if that's where you have to start.
So I think sometimes it's about workingyour way up to and also working out what it is you're actually afraid of.
You know, what will happen if you fail.
my kids used to do, those, littlefestivals that come around where a child reads poetry and then six other children read poetry and everybody claps says, you're all incredible.
(28:00):
and, I like it and I encouraged my kidsto do it because it's a life experience, standing up in front of a crowd and going, Why are they all looking at me?
is an experience in and of itself.
My youngest, who I think was abouteight at the time, had practiced this poem over and over ad nauseum at home.
we all knew it backwards and the daycomes and it's her turn and she's third in the queue and she's sat at the front and she walks up on stage and she turns and she looks at the audience.
(28:28):
And I saw her freeze and this poem cameout of her in a stilted, disorganized fashion because she knew it off by heart, but she was so conscious of the crowd.
And she finished and everybodyapplauded and she came and sat down and she said, I was so scared.
Can I do it again?
And I went, what?
(28:49):
And so we came back.
Luckily, we'd entered her in two things.
The next day, she cameback and did it again.
and we had these ongoing conversationsabout the fact that the audience doesn't actually care how good you are so long as they don't feel worried for you.
So if you have a cold, they don't mind.
They assume that's how you sound.
If you forget a line, they forgiveyou so long as you keep going.
(29:09):
And so we would have theseongoing conversations about.
Ultimately, how do you make otherpeople feel comfortable and therefore how do you make yourself relax knowing that you're in charge of making these people feel comfortable?
And suddenly performing becomes asharing of information that you've done nothing but practice ahead of time.
You're prepared, you're ready.
(29:31):
What's not to enjoy?
And so suddenly it stops being about,what if they all point and laugh?
What if I forget my costume?
What if, my glasses fall off my head?
You know, all the things that we worryabout, actually, if you are relaxed and confident about what you're feeling, it becomes part of the show.
You know, Oh, there go my glassesagain, people don't mind so long as you're in control and, by, being up on the stage or in front of a class or at the front of a meeting, people are already ready to listen to you.
(30:02):
And so suddenly there's this feelingwhereby it's not a performance as such.
It's just your turn.
and I think sometimes makingless of it allows you to get out there and take action.
the biggest antidote for fear is action.
we can sit at home and worry and be upsetand, and anticipate and have anxiety.
And I still do have anxiety when Ido public speaking and stuff, but the minute I get on the stage, I'm there to reassure the crowd that I've got this and they mustn't worry.
(30:28):
And that's how I deal with it.
Yeah, and I always think aswell, the people, like you said, because you're there they're already willing to listen to you.
They want you to do well.
And they're also probablyquite relieved it's not them.
Absolutely, absolutely.
So I think you've gotquite a lot of leeway.
(30:48):
it's when things start to fall apart.
then they, you will lose themquite quickly if there's too much of an expectation gap there.
But yeah, it's quite, yeah.
so, audiobooks
have just, like, grown in popularityin the last number of years, Ana, and did you foresee that happening?
(31:14):
No.
I can't claim that.
I can't claim that at all.
I think I was just, not so muchin the right place at the right time, I just happened to like the right thing at the right time.
And I, have got better and better at itand therefore more aware and more excited about the industry and where things are, you know, where to find work, how to actually get into it, what to do.
(31:36):
And now sharing that information bringsme just as much joy as the narration itself, the, the being able to.
Tell good stories and read booksand then be able to narrate them.
I mean, what's not tolove and then they pay me.
I I'm still shocked, you know, eightyears in and I'm still shocked.
but thrilled that, I get todo this and it's wonderful.
(31:57):
It really is.
is there a, was there a standoutbook that you have narrated?
like what, what typically thegenre, I mean, you talked about, e-learning and corporate, but obviously there's audio books as well.
So have you had a book that, youenjoyed above all others, or you learned something that you never knew?
You know what I mean?
Like, because you'vegot a privileged place
(32:18):
yes, very much.
So my, genres of, I was going to sayof choice, but they're not, they're The genres that the industry has dictated, that according to the sound I make, these are the books that my voice suits.
And it tends to be historicalfiction and non fiction.
And, the historical fiction tend to besort of 1800s, usually women empowerment.
So, some spinster who's anarchaeology, professor who is also a murder mystery, detective.
(32:45):
the nonfiction ones I really enjoyactually are, are usually about politics or law or how society changes over time.
I just did one about how to get yourteenager out of their bedroom and about talking to teenagers as a parent, which, I'd gone through, my girls are in their twenties now, but they're all life experiences, particularly the nonfiction book that are really fascinating to, just witness really, which is all we're doing.
(33:07):
And.
There's a real difference betweeninterpreting the narrative of a fiction book and the characters within it, which is all about kind of discovering their backstory, their personalities, why they want to, travel to Australia and live there instead, or be a serial murderer, whatever it happens to be.
and the non fiction books,which tend to be about getting into the passion of the author.
(33:30):
which ultimately is also a character,so you're really living the dream of why they are fascinated by how toothbrushes are produced or whatever the thing is somebody has bothered to spend several years writing about, there's a reason why they were so excited.
And often, if you're well cast, thepassion transcends the book, the reason, Macmillan cast me in the last book I did for them was actually more to do with my experience of having lived in Devon, and that was where this came from.
(33:56):
horror was taking place, and so Iwas able to understand and therefore express the views of the characters and the places they were living and the things they were going through.
So casting is really important too,whereas we're all, very good narrators and very good at what we do, we do tend to sit within particular genres, certain voices.
Do particular genres well,which is interesting again,
(34:19):
and.
Is there a reason that the authordoesn't narrate their own book?
a lot of authors do and, and do it verywell, nonfiction, particularly people will write their own nonfiction books and they will then go and give talks on it.
Often they've written the bookbecause that's what they do.
And so often their fan basewill expect to hear their voice.
(34:40):
And, there's very famous, Can't thinkof anybody now, but Brene Brown, for example, who is famous for all her talks, you expect to hear her voice when you turn on her book.
and there are some authors who wishthey could and want to, but writing and narrating are really different, careers, they're really different jobs and some people can and some people go, Oh, this is harder than I or I'm not getting the juice out of the words that I wrote.
(35:06):
Which when they then hear somebody elsenarrate go, that's the voice I was after.
One thing I always say to authors whodon't want to narrate their own book is don't produce an audio book with a voice just to have an audio book.
Be in love with that voice, Know thatthat is the voice that represents you and the characters in your book.
make sure that thatmatchmaking has worked for you.
(35:27):
It isn't just a business partnership.
For me, it's really about a team effortthat the narrator has understood your book and really is bringing it to life for you.
And it's funny, isn't it?
I think a lot of the time, stuffthat goes on behind the scenes, we never really think about it.
Like even in a movie, you tend notto think about who cast the people and why they were perfect for things.
(35:51):
And, and with all, I think anything thatwe can consume the way we do, because we just press a button, we forget about the world that goes on behind it because you're not the only audio book narrator.
You're the first person Iever met that narrated audio books, but you're not alone.
I can assure you, yes,yes, there are lots of us.
(36:12):
And there's a fascinationfor the industry as well.
So I run a weekly session on anapp called Clubhouse, which is an audio only app, where all we do is talk about audiobook narration.
from one week to the next, it might beabout, authors looking for narrators or narrators going, how do I spend four hours in the booth without wishing I was somewhere else kind of thing.
so the conversation is always varied, butit's a curious thing when, for example, on reviews for books, I got a review recently that said, I think I might've preferred to have read this and then listened to it, but both narrators did really well.
(36:44):
And it was just me, so I'm not overlysure what that person was hearing, or if my character voices were that good, she thought it was another person.
and then I'll get reviews that say, thisbook would have been better as a dual narration, which is where either the chapters are written alternately, and men, women, or whatever, you know, two people will narrate their own chapters.
Or duet narration, whereby themale character, for example, will read his lines of dialogue.
(37:09):
And then the narratorwill narrate their part.
What people don't realize is that theminute you introduce a second narrator, you're paying twice as much because the production of that, of having two narrators in two different places, either bringing them together in a studio or trying to collate that and edit and master that audio, is much more expensive.
I go around to writers groups as welland talk through this whole process because people are often just curious, they don't have audio books because they don't know they can, and, and are curious about how it works.
(37:37):
So, it, it is, the whole thing is,is fascinating to me and I love talking about it all the time.
Luckily.
Luckily.
And do you need to protect your voice Ana?
Very much so.
So things like, going out to partiesor going out drinking or, being hungover, can't do that anymore.
I need to be conscious of what I'mdoing the following day always.
(38:00):
funny things like going to concertswhere you find yourself singing along to, whoever you're seeing.
the next day will affect your voice too.
going to a party where you don'tthink you're raising your voice, but you're having to raise it just that little bit to be heard above the noise of everybody else talking.
It's lovely to be here.
Suddenly when you get home, yourealize you've lost your voice.
(38:21):
the ringing in your ears from beingat a concert or in a place with loud music, all of those things affect the levels on the microphone, how well you can hear yourself within your own head.
health, general colds and coughs.
you have to be really consciousof being around germs.
people talk a lot about sort ofspicy foods and coffee and tea.
I'm not as affected bythose as other people might.
And I think there's a lot more feararound kind of, dairy products and so on.
(38:45):
But if you ordinarily dothat and you speak all day.
then just don't do anything you don'tnormally do, and hydration is key, you know, hydration is always your friend, drink lots of water, but don't drink it in the moment, you have to drink it the night before, or, before the session at some point.
and again, it's an awareness of how you'rebody personally works, how long you are willing to sit still for a length of time.
(39:07):
the sessions of audio book recording,particularly if you go to a studio, run 9.
30 to 5.
30, you take an hour for lunch andthere's a 15 minute break halfway through the morning, so you're sat for an hour and a half, two hours at a time.
just reading from a book.
I don't know if to say it'sa personality trait, but it's certainly a personality type.
We are all of a similar willingnessto be alone for lengths of time, extroverts and introverts alike.
(39:32):
But we do enjoy our own company and welike working our way through a book.
a 12 hour book might take30 hours to complete and 30 hours on your own in a box.
It's a long time.
As long as that box isn'tunder the ground, it's like
I have visions of a coffin therefor some reason and it's like
(39:58):
You referenced this earlier Ana thatyou have ADHD and you said in your notes to me quite some time ago that this was a late diagnosis and I think there's a lot at the moment about people having late diagnoses and indeed my sister had one in her late 30s.
Has that had an impact onwho you are in the world?
(40:23):
I think it's actually given me morepermission than I thought I had, I was under the impression that I was too loud and too much and tolerated in spaces, which always made me inhibit myself and doubt myself and actually giving myself permission to just be me.
(40:43):
also allowed me not to beratemyself for not ticking the boxes I was supposed to tick.
And by supposed to, of course,what does that even mean?
You know, it's the societalexpectation, isn't it?
so for me, perimenopause,menopause, ADHD all came together.
And, I spent three NHS tryingto get a diagnosis, during which time I did nothing because I have ADHD, nothing but research it.
(41:09):
So there wasn't anythingI didn't already know.
And I spent a lot of my time,as a lot of people do, trying to convince myself I didn't have it.
Trying to say, who am I to, fit intothis group of poor people who, obviously haven't done well in school or have been ostracized their lives, and I, Was trying to excuse other people's behavior around me and that there was a lot of grief
(41:31):
when the diagnosis came through, a lot ofgrief about what might have been or how much easier things might have been for me if I had realized, and more importantly, if the people around me had realized.
But having said that, two yearson, I'm now going, nobody's making excuses for anybody.
ultimately nobody is making allowancesfor anyone, regardless of your gender, your skin type, your whatever, people have to get through life.
(41:57):
You have to keep going.
And so what it has done for me is givenme permission to allow myself grace.
And that's been a really big deal forme, the compassion for myself, which initially felt a bit like self pity and I was trying to get rid of it, but actually it's compassion and awareness that nothing lasts, if I'm rubbish today, I might be better tomorrow.
(42:21):
and that's okay and that happens alot and has always happened a lot, but in previous years I've been, angry and, frustrated and, you know, the whole, more haste, less speed.
I tend to mess things up more just becauseI'm trying so hard to make it happen when actually when I'm ready and it's going to happen, it happens with ease.
And so I'm all about relaxingand ease and trying to remember that it's all going to be okay.
(42:45):
we're doing the best we canhere and that's all we can ask.
So, but, but I was never ableto say that phrase without it feeling insincere or feeling like I shouldn't just be trying harder.
and I think what it did forme was just give me permission to be me, which has been nice.
And not a permission any of us need.
(43:07):
It shouldn't be,
Yeah, but it is definitelysomething that I think a lot of us tussle with or struggle with to understand, well, who are we?
And I guess our normal is our normal.
So normal for me may not be normal foryou or for the next person and so on.
(43:30):
And I think We reallyunderestimate that in the world.
And it really opens your mind and yourlife when you have that realisation.
Very much so.
yeah, and actually being true to yourself.
People might say it's selfish oryou're having self pity or whatever, self absorption, all of these things.
(43:53):
But actually You get to be,like, beaming, like you are.
It is lovely.
And I think, again, teachinghas really helped me.
again, because I've done so many thingsin my life, I taught Spanish for a while and I, I got a, a certificate of education and I taught in adult education and I taught Spanish, obviously.
And I loved it.
(44:14):
Absolutely loved it.
Loved meeting people, finding out their,their life stories and their reasons for wanting to learn Spanish and so on.
And what I realized when I wasdoing audio books was that I was missing meeting people.
And so I started this weekly group, butthen I also started coaching narrators.
And one of the things that is a verypopular class I give, which is, I call it elevator pitch, but ultimately it's about learning who you are.
(44:38):
And where you fit within theindustry, because as a creative, we'd often come in going, I've trained, there's nothing I can't do.
Give me a job, justpay me to do something.
I'll do anything.
And that kind of desperation shows,whereas when you come at it from a point of I know who I am and what I offer.
And if that's a match with you,then we'd make a great team.
And it's a much more relaxed andan easier process to go through.
(45:02):
And one of my favorite phrases thatI always say is that we are all underwhelmed by our own abilities.
We look outside ourselves and go, she'sso great at French accents and he does female voices so well and she gets to read, mystery thrillers and she works for whatever company and we're always comparing, which is great for aspiration, but does nothing if you're already
(45:24):
doubting yourself or you have ADHD andyou're under the impression that maybe it's not really where you're supposed to be at and you can't tell, it makes it difficult to know whether you're fitting in or whether they're about to pull the rug out from under you.
And that precarious emotionalstate isn't pleasant at all.
So it's important, I think, toground yourself in your own knowledge and awareness of yourself and go, this is why I'm good at this.
(45:48):
This is what I'm training to be better at.
If I don't feel good at French accents,then I'm going to go take classes.
we do need.
external validation with regards toyes, you're good at this, now try this.
But I think we forget sometimes tokind of take a look at ourselves and go, look how far I've come.
we always look to what we haven't yetachieved or what we're not good at.
(46:09):
And we forget to list the thingswe're actually really good at.
And we take them for granted and weassume everybody can do that, you know?
That's exactly what I was thinkingof, is how we take ourselves for granted, and have that, well if I can do it, I guess anyone can do it.
And, that, it's not boasting, either,to talk about stuff that you can do.
(46:32):
Because actually, many people would givetheir right arm to be able to do it.
Maybe not their right arm,but you know what I mean.
But it's, it's almost alsobecause of social media, we're all now having to talk about it.
Particularly if you're looking toget people to employ you to read their book, you have to tell them how good you are at this thing.
And people find that reallydifficult, but actually I always say there's a difference between self promotion and self aggrandizement.
(46:57):
Nobody likes somebody who says, Oh, I canwater ski off the back of two boats, you know, my daughter always says, it's like when you tell someone you're going to Tenerife and they're going to Elevenerife,
Oh yeah.
which I think is hysterical.
and nobody likes, that kind of, inflatedsense of self, but to be able to list the reasons, and I, I think it's one of the reasons that I am so, educated, for want of a better word, I have certificates in everything, and it's mostly because I need to be able to say the reason I'm standing up here today is because I spent eight weeks on a course telling me about this so I can tell you about that.
(47:35):
and it's my way of not excusing,but justifying my presence and I need that it's, it's who I am.
And so I think you have to find the thingthat makes you feel good about yourself.
The thing that allows you to be ableto say, I do this because I love it.
I do this because I'm really good at it.
and it's great to do.
and I found it, which is lovely.
It is Ana and thank you for sharingall of that with me today and with anyone who listens to this episode.
(48:01):
And I think the thing I would say foryou, if you've listened, you can obviously apply this to any part of your life.
I know we've been talking about the workthat you do Ana in the world, but it applies in so many ways to who we are and how we go about our day to day life.
Ana, I am so glad to talk to youabout your life beyond the numbers.
(48:23):
Thank you for being a guest.
Thank you very much for having me.
And if people would like toknow more, Ana, what's the best way of connecting with you?
I'm, I'm on all social media.
My name's spelt with one N, so it's justA N A Clements, Ana Clements, and I'm at Ana Clements on all social media.
And my website is AnaClements.
co. uk.
So I'd be thrilled to hear from anyoneby email, by messenger, by Instagram message, whatever your, poison of choice.
(48:50):
And I'll put details of all ofthose in the show notes as well.
So thank you, Ana.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining me todayon life, beyond the numbers.
If something in this episode resonatedwith you, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
And if you've enjoyed this conversation,Please take a moment to leave a review.
(49:17):
It helps others like us.
I discover this podcast andjoin in our conversation.
Until next time.
Keep exploring thehuman side of work life.
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