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To What Is, not What Might Have Been

Unanswered prayers. Twists of fate. Unfulfilled desires. Foiled plans. Typically, phrases like these evoke negative images for us. Our minds conjure thoughts of “the one that got away,” be it a person, a job, an opportunity, or something entirely different. We kind of enjoy torturing ourselves this way because the idea of “what might have been” can make for a very compelling story. There are movies, books, and songs written in lamentation about what was lost. It’s also a common storytelling trope to have the protagonist revisit the missed opportunity years later.

But isn’t that all just imagination? That’s literally what “wishful thinking” is. We concoct our own little story about what could have happened if circumstances had unfolded differently, and it just so happens that >gasp< it would have been SO wonderful, if only… Today I say: Hogwash. Fiddlesticks. Malarkey. Poppycock. Baloney. [Insert your favorite old-timey dismissive phrase here.] Twists of fate are a part of life, whether you believe God has a hand in what happens to you or not. That’s why there’s an adage that “if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” We’re like kids at Christmas. Make our list of gifts, talk to Santa, hint to our parents, and cross our fingers that we’ll get what we want. And remember, we also make choices all the time, every day. And sometimes a single choice has a significant effect, creating a chain of proverbial dominos that fall to produce our circumstances – sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Remember, too, that we are also often affected by other people’s choices, so even when we’ve planned and prepared and prayed and chosen wisely – some other choice, some other circumstance, some other event impacts us and throws off our proverbial path. And while it may seem crushing to us in the moment, I’m here to tell you it’s often for the best.

Last week, I wrote about the choice I made with my wife to marry each other 31 years ago. It’s a choice that feeds me positively each day, but a mere 5-6 years earlier, things could have been different. I had dated a young lady for a couple of years going back to high school. We broke up after she left for college, but one summer we reconnected and began to get kind of serious, even discussing whether we might be interested in marrying. Then she went back to school and met someone else – the man who would ultimately become her husband. (They’ve been happily married for 35 years.) After that second breakup, I immersed myself in school, embarking on my first semester since high school where I made straight A’s. I also worked a lot, did some traveling, and eventually met my future wife. Time for a pop culture reference – Ted Lasso: “It may not work out how you think it will or how you hope it does. But believe me, it will all work out, exactly as it’s supposed to.” And for both myself and my old girlfriend from high school, it absolutely did.

Fast forward to 2025, when I finally completed the steps need to retire from K-12 public education. I wrote about how I had actually applied for one more administrative role in a nearby district, and I honestly believe I was on the cusp of getting hired. Then I received the dreaded “we’ve selected a different candidate e-mail.” Curses! Foiled again! Or was I? Ironically, I read that e-mail on my phone in a medical center waiting room while my wife underwent a scan for breast cancer tissue. That test eventually came back positive for “cancerous material” — not really cells, more like particles. So she had to undergo more tests and a surgical procedure, along with follow-up appointments. Guess who was by her side every minute? This guy…without ever having to give a thought to whatever work I was missing or would have to catch up on at my new job. I truly consider it a blessing that I could have zero other concerns during that time. Just her. And shortly after that situation was resolved, along came a part-time opening working in the office at my church parish. So instead of more potentially soul-crushing work in education, I landed in a calmer job that supplements my retirement income while allowing me time and flexibility to continue to build my voiceover career. The plan didn’t go off the rails; it just shifted to some different rails that, in the end, have followed a better path.

See, I’ve already had career plans go off-kilter in the past, and learned hard lessons from trying to “reset the plan.” It actually wasn’t all that long ago – a mere 8 years. I was working in Mansfield ISD at the time, under Dr. Teresa Stegall’s leadership in the Department of Research, Assessment, and Accountability. I’ve spoken fondly of Dr. Stegall’s leadership before. Right around this time in 2018, she retired from public education, receiving a well-deserved fond farewell from many in the district. She had previously informed me that she hoped for me to take over as Director of the department and had involved me in several tasks in preparation for the role. I had worked with central administrators and principals on a variety of projects, and I felt poised to step into the job. Trouble is, in the month after her retirement, the rest of us in the department heard nothing about the future – the Director position was never posted, and we were simply carrying on without a director. We heard rumors, but nothing definitive. Until the last Friday of February 2018, when Dr. Stegall’s supervisor met with us to inform us that the district was not, in fact, replacing her as Director. They were instead dissolving the position, using the money from that salary for other purposes, and placing our department under the supervision of a different Director in central administration. What’s more, we were charged with revising our duties to absorb the tasks of the Director, AND we had to take the department’s budget and devise our plan for the 2018-19 school year. Rug, yanked. Gut, punched. What the heck, I’ll even go there: Nuts, kicked. My plan had been to transition into a promotion, ramp up the VO career a little more, then retire from MISD – the only district where I had ever worked – after 30-35 years, then move into VO full-time. Instead, throughout my 25th year in the district, I found myself a little overworked, a little bitter, and a little bit off the rails.

So when I tried to regain control of the plan by bolting for Birdville ISD in the Spring of 2019, my hope was to get back onto my rails, albeit elsewhere. But it was a brutally failed effort that I’ve talked about briefly before. I don’t really want to relive it or recount details of how awful it was; it was mainly a year I’d like to forget. I suppose the most powerful thing I could say is that, when the COVID pandemic shut us down in March 2020, I was actually a little relieved. For the final six weeks of that year, I didn’t have to make the drive to Haltom City each day for a job that was slowly driving me insane. Work-from-home agreed with me, even if I had to conduct a job search for 2019-20 via Zoom. And even then, after my attempt at restoring the rails to a previous career path flamed out, there was yet another twist of fate that delivered me to Grand Prairie High School, working with a group of people who were mostly doing their absolute best to serve a student population that needed it. I made many lifelong friends there and encountered colleagues who I admired greatly. I learned from them, and I was able to teach them some things while keeping them entertained; and keeping them sane amidst the insanity that TEA and the district expected me to bring them as the testing coordinator. That is, until I finally had the wherewithal to bring my education career to a close and pursue voiceover full-time.

Do I regret my choice to leave Mansfield for Birdville? Not really. Given the events of February 2018, chances are that there might have been more potential gut punches along the way. The precedent had been set, and staying there could have sent a message that I would simply solider on, regardless of the circumstances. I’ve said before – central administration in education can be a little soul-crushing. That’s the nature of it. One of my colleagues in that department had a Ph.D in Statistics, and there’s a good chance that he might’ve been selected over me for the Director position. A choice to remain in MISD could have definitely produced some other twist, possibly worse than what I had already experienced. That year of misery in Birdville was at least instructive. I learned from it, as we often do from a painful experience. And just like Ted Lasso said, it did work out exactly as it was supposed to. I’ll take the exploits that I had and the friends I made at GP, thank you very much. And I’ll take the time supporting my wife instead of another central office job, as well. I have landed where I wanted to be – escaped from what had become an increasingly insane and stressful world of education, engaged more fully in the world of voiceover, and most of all, available more completely to my wife and family. Unanswered prayers? No, just different answers than I expected. Foiled plans? No, just slightly altered plans. Unfulfilled desires? No, As the great Sheryl Crow sang: “It’s not getting what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got.” As it turns out, what I’ve got IS what I wanted. The path to get there is just not what I envisioned at one time.

The path can vary for many of us. I have two friends who have had similar experiences recently, where their intended professional plans have been altered by circumstances. One of them is currently teaching in New Mexico and had actually interviewed for the same position in the DFW area twice, finishing second both times. His current situation in NM isn’t the greatest, but it’s also not the worst, so his goal is simply to carve a different path back to DFW, and possibly back to New Mexico another time. Meanwhile, one of my friends from GPHS was passed over for that campus’ Principal position when it was open in 2024. She’s having to toil at another campus – again, not the greatest job – but her personal life has thrived even though she’s not where she wants to be professionally, and those personal developments wouldn’t have been possible at all if she was Principal of a 6A high school. There’s still plenty of time for her to achieve her professional goals. Again, it’s just going to be a different path, and there’s nothing wrong with that. We all live and learn along the way, carrying whatever knowledge, experience, and growth that are gained.

In the world of voiceover, “rejection” is a natural part of the process, a way of life. My friends in the VO world are used to hearing “No” in the face of grand plans. Really, they’re prepared for “No” after every audition. Except that it’s not necessarily “No,” it’s just “Not Right Now,” as they say. Just because someone else is booked for a given VO job doesn’t mean you weren’t good, or worthy; it just means that whoever made the casting decision selected a different voice for this project, for a reason that could be very specific or very ambiguous. And that’s really the point of this post: Unanswered prayers, unfulfilled desires, twists of fate, foiled plans don’t necessarily reflect on us as individuals. They don’t mean we’re not valuable as people, or professionals, or artists. They just mean that this isn’t the right match, the right time or place, the right circumstances. Not Right Now. But we keep at it, working toward what we seek. Enjoy the journey. Learn what you can. Value the good things and the good times. Seek, and you will find. Right Now will eventually come along, and What Is will outshine What Might Have Been.

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Festivus 2025 – Commence the Airing of Grievances

Happy Festivus! I’ve previously confessed to being a big Seinfeld fan. If you haven’t seen the episode, you’re looking for Season 9, episode 10, available on Netflix. (Fun fact: this episode includes the great Bryan Cranston and Tracy Letts.) Some may recall that I even created a variant on the holiday called Testivus in my previous role coordinating campus assessment, as described in a previous post. And any proper Seinfeld aficionado will tell you Festivus hasn’t really begun without The Airing of Grievances. I’ve got a lot of problems with you people, and now you’re gonna hear about it!

College Football: I’ll begin with what is perhaps a controversial take, in keeping with the tradition of Festivus: College football in 2025 is stupid. Full disclosure – I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Arlington, which cancelled their football program literally the year before I enrolled. I was drum major of UTA’s band during its initial years without football, and we didn’t miss the sport one bit, mainly because UTA football, despite producing some quality players who had productive NFL careers, was collectively mired in mediocrity for nearly two decades prior to its cancellation in 1985. So I will allow that my perspective is biased, and I completely understand when people who attend or have attended other schools tell me stories about how fun it is/was to attend football games on Saturdays. And I’ve observed video evidence of many cool traditions at a variety of schools. So despite my background and bias, I get that college football can be a very cool experience, as it should be. I wish it was so simple, and I congratulate schools like the University of North Texas, where it is, for the most part.

But as with many cool phenomena in this world, there’s a line that can be crossed, and when it is, the cool factor is ruined. College football, as an institution, has crossed that line, maybe even obliterated it. The primary impetus is money. The primary evidence of this is seen across the sport – NIL, the transfer portal, the College Football Playoff, the bowl system. None of those things are inherently bad. NIL is actually a positive idea in theory, allowing athletes a chance to earn money from their own skills instead of just reserving it for the schools, and NIL works across many sports. The transfer portal (also active in multiple sports) is also a good idea in theory, because the old rule where a transfer had to miss a season was kind of stupid. The College Football Playoff – another great idea in theory. The bowl system was hugely entertaining for years, although the aforementioned developments in the sport have all but killed them.

Honestly, money has corrupted college football for decades. It is no secret that boosters have dropped millions of dollars under-the-table in years past to entice recruits…all in the name of winning. Because a good football team helps your school?!? The rationale escapes me, particularly when the best schools in the USA aren’t football powerhouses. One wonders if those funds could better serve society by actually helping people, but either way, big spending in the name of school pride is nothing new. And it has rightfully led to scandals, although only SMU has ever experienced true justice for its dealings. What’s happened in recent years, though, is comical. Through well-intended measures ostensibly designed to improve the game, college football is headed toward a winner-take-all cliff. NIL and the transfer portal have expanded the financial resources needed just to field a team at all while simultaneously reducing the game to a literal root-for-the-laundry festival of one-and-done rental players. The Playoff, which was supposed to mirror how basketball champions are determined, I suppose, has just led to teams getting upset when they’re left out. They literally take their ball and go home, refusing to play in any bowls. Eventually the lack of entertaining matchups threatens to derail the bowls altogether. The game has essentially become a race to see who can spend the most, on head coaches and players. And those players are basically untouchable on a human level because of the money. The concept of the student-athlete has died. There are people out there who can say they literally attended classes with Earl Campbell or Joe Montana. Not anymore. College football has long been the proverbial minor league for the NFL, but now it carries NFL-level financial commitments and NFL-level boundaries. Literal teenagers are making pro-level money, given to them by loosely regulated groups – no franchises, no true governing body, no commissioner. No one actually looking out for the good and integrity of the game. And certainly no one pondering the consequences of handing that much money to a kid who just turned old enough to vote or perhaps to purchase alcohol.

In the meantime, college football fans have arguably become the worst part of the institution. They rush to defend every single action of their highly-paid players, no matter how indefensible. “Sure, he’s an a**hole, but he’s our a**hole” is not the argument you think it is. Nor is “everybody does it.” Shame has died. Fans expect nothing of their team’s players as people. They don’t care about what will happen to these guys after football at all. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that those players will only be around this season. Fans also desperately seek excuses for including their team in the playoff, or for their team refusing to play in a bowl. They don’t really love the game; they don’t even truly love their team. They care only about their team winning, not how, even if it’s to the detriment of the game. Even if it’s to the detriment of the school whose students pay fees to help underwrite the program. That kind of attitude will eventually, ultimately, lead to the demise of the sport. If college football truly is a fun, tradition-filled good time on a Saturday afternoon, then it’s time the fandom stop worrying so much about polls and committees, and just enjoy the experience. Support the team, win or lose, and be honest with yourselves about your team, its players, and where all of this should fit in your lives.

Obsession with Politics: Speaking of attitude ultimately leading to demise, next on my list of grievances is politics – specifically, obsession with politics. And granted, this topic could turn into a screed about a consummate narcissist who seeks to make everything about him, but I don’t want to talk about a**holes. Griping about a**holes is like complaining about bad weather – it’s (they’re) always going to be there, so the best response is honestly to just put on a coat, carry an umbrella, or otherwise take measures to cope with it (them) and get on with your life. And frankly, I don’t even want to talk about the media’s obsession with a specific a**hole, allowing him to dominate the news cycle with his narcissism and grift. Maybe another time.

No, I’m talking about someone you know…maybe someone you know well. Could be a relative. Could be a friend. This person is constantly obsessed with a political ideology, party, figure, or narrative, much like the worst college football fan is constantly obsessed with their team’s record or stats. Moreover, this person views literally everything in life through an imaginary litmus test born of that political obsession. They don’t want to watch that particular TV show because it has that actor who offended their political sensibilities 20 years ago. They won’t listen to that music because that singer said something mean about “their president” at some point. They won’t eat that food because some ingredient is primarily produced in some nation whose prime minister doesn’t like their favorite politician or share their political viewpoint. They announce to the world that they hereby refuse to visit this city or that state because they’ve elected a particular person or approved a particular policy. They view themselves as constantly under attack – because they’re Christian, because they’re not Christian, because they’re a Republican, because they’re a Democrat, because they work in [insert industry name here], because they’re part of some minority, because they’re a bald white overweight incel, because…, because…, because… And since they’re constantly under attack, they are constantly a victim of…something. And because they are constantly a victim, there’s always something dramatic to address, to discuss, to obsess over, centered solely on their politics. It is exhausting, much like it’s exhausting to hear a college football fan gripe about how the refs hate their team, or the committee hates their school, or how horrible the players from that other team are, and on and on.

And you know what ought to be exhausting? Living your life against a perpetual political backdrop. Pulling out your proverbial litmus test for EVERYTHING. Living life this way makes it impossible to enjoy anything, and for the people truly in your life, it makes it impossible for them to enjoy being around you. You can’t just watch TV or listen to music. You can’t even go to church, lest the priest or preacher say something that offends your political sensibilities. You can’t just have a conversation and be happy that a college student enjoys a class. No, you’ve got to wonder how the class is “indoctrinating” the student. You’ve got to wonder whether the singer supports “your guy.” You watch that movie and complain that the hero(es) were or were not from a particular demographic. You’ve got to assume that somehow this president or that congressman has somehow harmed your life this week, this month, this year. You’ve got to decide if this religious figure, or pop cultural personality, or even family member in front of you shows appropriate fealty to your political icon or ideology. Politics is your religion, and that’s just sad.

If you’re reading the last two paragraphs and nodding your head with someone’s face and demeanor in your head, a word of advice: Let them go. Cut ties. Walk away. Maybe you can’t do it immediately, cold-turkey-style. But you have to get away from it. I know I do, and I am. Life is too short to be forced into vicarious drama driven by someone else’s obsession with their own political fantasies as they offer fealty to people who care not one bit about them or to ideology that is counter to what they need or desire. Sometime I will write a post about the absurdity of politics, but the bottom line is that government is a means to an end, political ideology is mostly nonsense, and none of it should dominate your life.

Terrible Social Media: And speaking of “vicarious drama,” I’ve got news for you about your social media feed – it is every bit as terrible as you think it is, unless you’ve worked hard to prune it and cultivate the content you actually desire to see. Why is it so bad? Because social media, as opposed to traditional media, has basically no barrier to entry. In the golden age of traditional media – we’re talking the days of only 3-5 TV channels and robust terrestrial radio on both AM and FM – content was vetted. Granted, there was a particular profile to the powerbrokers vetting that content, but still. Someone actually took the time to say “This can go on TV/radio; this cannot.” Granted further, not all of the people and content that actually made it to air were high-quality, but the vast majority that got airtime was better than what didn’t. Easily.

The proliferation of cable TV loosened the restrictions on what aired, but there still were, and are, people who vet the content. Journalism has suffered severely from this development because 24-hour news on cable means that so-called “news outlets” are constantly looking to fill airtime, and they’ve resorted to less-than-stellar methods. Giants like Walter Cronkite, Frank Reynolds, and Barbara Walters have given way to hacks that used to be relegated to syndicated late-night shows like A Current Affair. That’s what typically happens when the pool expands. More teams in a league dilutes the talent a bit, so players who might not really deserve to see the field end up playing. Sometimes the talent pool improves or reveals untapped sources that are worthwhile. Sometimes content rises to the occasion – after all, cable networks gave us The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, and Homeland. Streaming services have given us Ted Lasso, Stranger Things, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Severance. All was not lost with the advent of cable, because someone was still attempting to filter out the proverbial wheat from the chaff.

What has social media content given us? Chaff, and lots of it. Reaction videos. Videos claiming to show “the greatest {fill-in-blank] of all time” featuring something that occurred last week. Guys trying to explain movies from years ago that everyone’s already seen and understand. (Seriously, who on this planet needed to see a YouTube video breaking down the “Lone Pine Mall” joke from Back to the Future? Is anyone watching this movie that clueless?) People desperately seeking attention as influencers, and frankly, hopeful that they can earn a spot in legitimate, vetted media by getting noticed on a social media platform. Usually, they’re pretenders. Wannabes. Or maybe they seek to emulate Mr. Beast by generating more extravagant stuff that is still every bit as banal – but hey, they’ve maximized their revenue using the algorithm, so who cares what it is as long as it gets attention? Eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs. Subscribers. Views. Clicks. Feeding a financial bottom line, regardless of quality. Welcome to the 21st century. Yes, you can find some entertaining content from the likes of The Holderness Family and certain others, and occasionally there is a proverbial diamond-in-the-rough that might develop into something bigger, but the content you’ll find on social media is, for the most part…exactly what you should expect in a free, unvetted, unregulated environment. All the more reason to get annoyed when YouTube throws an ad in the middle of a video that is as awful as you suspect it is.

And yet, WE are the problem, because the algorithm will continue to feed us stuff when we click on it and linger for more than a few seconds. Sadly, watching someone cook sh**ty spaghetti on her kitchen counter using several jars of Ragu, even if you only stayed there to wonder WTF was happening, will only lead you to receive more videos like this over time. You and me – WE have to show discipline, move away, avoid clicking. It actually takes some work to show such restraint, to build and curate a feed that delivers, if not fulfilling content, at least content that isn’t excretory. The algorithm will feed you what you consume, so it’s up to you to fight the urge to consume junk content and focus on things that are actually appealing.

And that really is the key: with just about all Festivus Grievances, it comes down to one person – the one in the mirror. As much fun as it is to quote the great Jerry Stiller, issues complaints about the world, and act cantankerous at this time of year, when there seems to be so much to do in so little time, the irony of Festivus is that, at its core, it really is a response to how much society has twisted the Christmas season. The sentiment of the holiday fits the mindset of Seinfeld, which sought out comedy in shallow, self-absorbed people who were generally oblivious to the consequences of their actions. Yet instead, three decades later it seems like some people actually celebrate this shallowness and look at Seinfeld characters as a blueprint for how to live their lives. Elaine Benes famously and hilariously asked, “Is it possible I’m not as attractive as I think I am?” It was a subtle and brilliant commentary on her character, one that is lost way too often on all of us in this day and age. People don’t perceive the irony because they aren’t honest with themselves. This Festivus, maybe we should look inward, air our grievances to the mirror, and figure out over the next eight days how we’re going to resolve them in the coming year. Happy Festivus to all!

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Little Things That Matter

Next Tuesday 12/23 will be Festivus 2025 for those who celebrate, and as a longtime Seinfeld fan with a blog, I will definitely be engaging in the Airing of Grievances that day. But lest I seem like a typical curmudgeon who does nothing but grouse and complain in my blog, I want to use the space this week to express appreciation for lots of little things in the world. It’s not really a personal gratitude post like I made at Thanksgiving; this post is devoted to random good things I observe at times (and yes, I do manage to notice lots of cool things at least as much as I perceive idiocy). And it’s designed to acknowledge the benefit of such things.

Some of the items in this post may, no doubt, elicit cynical and/or negatives responses from some readers. That says more about the reader’s experience than anything else. Remember that I’m writing from the perspective of my own experience, mainly over the past year, but often over the course of several years. So if your experience is different, feel free to address it in your own Festivus Grievances next week.

Let’s dive right in—

Supportive Parents of School-Age Children: This thought actually originated in the fall when I was announcing marching band shows and witnessing multitudes of parents assisting in the parking lot and on the field. A typical marching band production costing thousands of dollars and involving hundreds of students could not happen without the service of these parents, and I wanted to acknowledge that. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that in every aspect of education, supportive parents are crucial. Much like with problem students, educators often end up devoting way too much time to dealing with problem parents – the ones who complain to the coach that their child isn’t playing enough, isn’t first chair, doesn’t make 100s on every assignment…you know the type. It’s time we acknowledge that we see the supportive parents, and we appreciate them. The parents who work with their children to reinforce good behaviors, to improve academic habits, and to practice more. The parents who always bring their children early to school and to events, and who are there on-time ready to take them home at the end. The parents who attend every game, every show, every performance, every concert, not to complain to the refs or the coaches, not to criticize the performance, but to cheer their child’s team, win or lose, to applaud the performance regardless of minor mistakes. The parents who take care of other children who need it. The parents who devote their time and energy to this school or this program because their child loves participating, and they want to help make it a good experience. These parents need to be seen and credited, and even though they can never be shown enough appreciation, they must know that there are countless teachers, coaches, directors, and other adults who value them.

City Services: I live in Arlington, Texas, and have since 1971. The city’s population has more than quadrupled in my lifetime. As much as people will recognize my hometown as the home of the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers, or the home of Six Flags Over Texas, or the “Entertainment Capital of Texas,” or “The American Dream City,” there are factions that criticize Arlington for being too big now, or for not having enough culture, or a variety of other perceived shortcomings. And I have personally experienced times when I have been unhappy with street conditions and other aspects of the city. But in the end, what I’ve grown to appreciate about Arlington are the multitude of city services available here that are top-notch. For one, this city has an amazing selection of parks. I’ve become an avid walker and runner – typically 2+ miles of one or the other each morning – and I am fortunate that this city has at least a half-dozen parks accessible to me with excellent trails to pursue, all within a 10-minute drive from my house. Additionally, although we haven’t needed them this year (thankfully), we have had need of the Arlington Police and Fire Departments in years past, and they have also been amazing in our experience. My oldest son, who has autism, has a job for which he needs transportation, and we’re able to use Arlington’s Handitran service for him on roughly 95% of his work days. It’s safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation for him. We’re grateful that it easily allows him to get to work, and it also gives him a level of independence rather than relying on his parents all the time. Speaking of transportation, I had occasion to ride the Trinity Railway Express into downtown Dallas recently for a voiceover event. TRE connects to the DART railway system in Dallas, and again – safe, reliable, cost-effective transportation. The one thing I still wonder about with Arlington is why we don’t have public transportation, and why we haven’t gotten connected to DART. It seems rather short-sighted to me that Arlington voters have denied access to service like this in the past, and I’m frankly disappointed that there are municipalities to the east who are actually considering abandoning DART. As someone who loves to visit New York, and who has no problem navigating that area’s subways and trains, I find the reliance on constant automobile transportation in Dallas-Fort Worth to be exhausting at times. So I would hope that any suburbs that break from DART pursue a different option. And I think it’s worth pursuing light rail as a city or even statewide service instead of just building another tollroad. Either way, I think Arlington’s city services are worth acknowledging, and I appreciate them daily.

Competent, Courteous Drivers: Because of the lack of public transportation options in my area, I find myself driving most of the time, as do most of the residents of the DFW area (and most of Texas, for that matter). And while it is proverbial low-hanging fruit to complain about clueless drivers (I will include a very specific grievance next week) all the time, I want to acknowledge the competent, courteous drivers, instead, in this space today. And I think there are actually more of them out there than we think. Again, we devote our energy to the problems without appreciating the level of quality actually on the road. Another recent experience: I also had to travel to downtown Dallas twice by car recently, and both times, I exited the city via the Woodall Rogers Freeway to I-35E. Anyone familiar with that area knows that the right lane entering the freeway also serves as the exit for traffic headed from I-35E to the Dallas North Tollway. So there’s a stretch of road with lots of merging – drivers like me moving one lane to the left while other drivers move one lane to the right. Let me tell you this: few things on any road are better than a dependable merging experience, where drivers are signaling, paying attention, matching speeds, and switching lanes simultaneously so that each gets where they need to be smoothly and safely. I experienced this on two consecutive days in Dallas, and both times, I waved to the drivers switching places with me to thank them. I hope they saw and appreciated this little thing as much as I did. I experience this frequently on I-20 in Arlington, as well, between Cooper St and Matlock Rd. There are far more courteous, competent drivers in those areas than there are bad ones. Sure, the bad ones going too fast and using lots of lanes draw our attention, but the good drivers need to greet each other more in solidarity. We need less honking, yelling, road rage, and all that entails on the road. We need more positive communication among the drivers for jobs well-done. Texas still has signs that say “Drive Friendly,” and we really should take more time to wave and acknowledge each other when drivers are doing things correctly.

Healthcare Professionals: I think this topic grows nearer and dearer to me as I age, but this year has been especially active for us when it comes to healthcare. I’ve already indicated the reasons why in my Thanksgiving post, and I also credited our excellent primary care physician. My wife worked with a host of healthcare professionals during her scans, biopsy, and surgery. I worked with several healthcare workers, as well. I had my first colonoscopy this fall. I realize that A) it means I’m old, and B) I probably should have had at least my second one by 57 years old. But I’m a bonafide coward who had put off the procedure, and I was quite nervous about it when the time came. Yet everyone I worked with through the process was patient and professional with me, compassionate about my trepidation and doing their best to assuage my fears. We’ve also worked with healthcare professionals who care for my mother, now 95 years old and living in hospice care in an assisted living facility. They care for her with an impressive level of integrity and grace. What I realize pondering all these experiences is just how exceptional everyone we’ve encountered has been. I’m talking every single individual – office staff, physician’s assistants, nurses, anesthesiologists, and of course, physicians…every one of these people we saw this year was terrific. Not once did we come across someone who seemed ornery, incompetent, flustered, frustrated, clueless, or even anxious. Anytime we dealt with healthcare professionals, it was clear that these people were, in fact, professionals. In retrospect, it was both astonishing and gratifying. At the same time, I’m frustrated for these people because we all know that the healthcare system in the US is, if not broken, then deeply flawed. Yet these workers continue to give excellent care within the confines of that system. That reflects a personal commitment that deserves a salute.

Event Planners: You might think, given how each of the previous items in this post seemed to imply a certain nobility, that this item seems odd. But hear me out on this. It’s easy to read the phrase “event planner” and conjure some type of pop cultural image, where the person involved is making massive sums of money managing lavish soirées. You know…the person wearing a headset to communicate with all the people under their charge as they give orders…in a movie, this person is typically a self-absorbed jerk, or the central character who’s too overworked and in need of some significant other to give life meaning, or perhaps even the comic relief. Maybe such people exist in the world, but the reality most of the time is that you’ve experienced the work of an event planner you’ve never seen, heard, or known. That person – a real person – earns a modest, nominal amount of money for the work, if any at all. Often, they’re either planning the event as an additional duty to their main job, or as a volunteer. And the goal of that individual is to craft and coordinate the best event possible for you as a member of a community. A show, a concert, a contest, a prom, a tournament, a spelling bee, a parade, a carnival, an athletic event, an awards program, a graduation. Someone is in charge of that event, trying to ensure that everyone involved knows what to do and actually does it when and how they’re supposed to. I often have the privilege of working with these people, because they need me to speak into a microphone at an appointed time to read a script, say a name, or deliver a message. I’ve talked in a previous post about how much I love contributing to a team in that role, but I also want to highlight here that we should all take opportunities to reflect on and appreciate the contributions of these people “in charge.” The vast majority are not doing it for large amounts of money; they’re doing it out of love for and commitment to the activity at hand and its participants. We, as citizens, community members, parents, family, and friends, desire to have memorable experiences for ourselves and our families, and that makes this work critical. Someone has to do it, and we should be appreciative of the people who step up and do.

Service Workers of all Types: Speaking of “someone has to do it,” let’s conclude by talking about service workers. My son, who I mentioned earlier, is one such worker. He’s one of thousands of workers in school cafeterias. For him, the work is stable and predictable, which is important for the nature of his autism; he craves routine. But from a broader perspective, I am quite proud of the work he does because anyone who’s spent time working in a school likely has an appreciation for all the work that goes into feeding the student population day-in and day-out. My own grandmother spent her career as a manager of a school cafeteria. Society often finds it easy to rag on the school lunch as something lame, but the truth is that it is extraordinary how well the system works. Heck, the general work involved in feeding the entire population of this planet, whether you’re talking about farming and ranching, fisheries, grocery stores, restaurants, food pantries, or anything else, is just this side of a miracle. And most of the people involved provide a service. And yet, for some reason American society so often looks down on them. Why? Why is it considered acceptable by some to denigrate the local barista or even the guy grilling burgers or making fries? Is it really OK to be awful to your server because the kitchen is slow? Is it acceptable to cuss out the fast food worker because they added mayo when you asked for none? Is it fathomable to look down on someone pouring your coffee when you work in an office job? Every single one of these people is a human being worthy of respect and dignity. The person changing your oil, rotating your tires, repairing your sink, replacing parts on your garage door, fixing the air conditioner, making your latte, cooking your food, bringing your food to the table, taking your garbage and recycling from your home, changing the sheets on your hotel bed, moving your baggage on and off the plane, serving your beer and hot dog. Humans. Every. Single. One. I don’t intend to get on a soapbox about living wages for all these people, but let’s at least commit to seeing them, recognizing their humanity, and showing some basic decency and respect.

The bottom line, in this post that preemptively seeks to counter the negative, albeit comedic, sentiments of Festivus, is that life is ultimately about trying to become a better person each day. Why bother getting up each morning if you’re not trying to become the best version of yourself? I think that’s why a different show, Ted Lasso, resonates so much with so many people, especially in this day and age. The central message of the show has always been to seek out the best version of us, to work constantly toward better. As someone who is acutely aware of the reality that I’m getting older and not, in fact, going to live forever, it’s all I really want now. I’m still going to have days when I falter in the quest to be a better person than I was yesterday, or last year, or last decade, or when I was only 30. But I’m still going to try. And particularly in this day and age, I think an important step in that direction is looking around and noticing the good things in this world. The little things. Noticing, acknowledging, and celebrating them.

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In Praise of Teamwork

This post, surprisingly enough, connects strongly to voiceover. Back when I started this blog in August, I intentionally and specifically stated that this is not a voiceover blog. And my posts thus far have borne out this statement. Most of them have focused on observations related on some level to my teaching career, including notes about leadership, assessment, and presentation skills. I’ve also posted on topics pertaining to my experiences in band. Naturally, I’ve mentioned my retirement from K-12 public education several times since that’s something that has dominated my life since the end of June, and it’s a major reason why I actually have time for this blog and for my voiceover career.

That career is progressing as we speak. I’ve established some leads, gotten a handful of auditions, and even booked a few jobs. I’m not where I intend to be, but every journey begins with its first steps, as they say. And what I’ve learned along those few steps is a critical lesson – one that I’ve realized applied in my education career far more than I expected, and one that I think applies to voiceover more than many of us appreciate. That lesson is the importance of teamwork – how the individual contributes to the team and how effective teamwork actually helps the individual. It’s an underrated lesson for my friends and colleagues in the voiceover industry.

Back when I began my education career, I didn’t exactly anticipate that teamwork would be terribly important. It wasn’t a clear priority in my education coursework at the collegiate level. We participated in cooperative learning, and we were coached how to use it effectively, but I don’t recall explicit instruction on the importance of teamwork within the profession as a matter of course. It was a more general “collaborate with your colleagues” theme. The trend of Professional Learning Communities (PLC) in education was not in vogue at the time. And if I’m being honest, my so-called “mentor teacher” during my first year was somewhere between ineffective and a total waste. I was teaching government that first year, and all I got from him was literally a printout of his “lesson plans” for the class (dot-matrix printout, no less), which was what he provided for administration but not nearly what he used for his actual class. I suppose it was a start, but it was hardly helpful and certainly not comprehensive. He would occasionally throw me the bone of an odd handout now and then. But this was hardly teamwork, and I was hardly a teammate. This type of thing went on for roughly three years, and I felt nearly alone as a teacher during that time. For three years, I figured things out for myself. Then I was moved to World Geography at what was then the “9th Grade Center,” where I spent two years, and my perspective changed dramatically. World Geography teachers operated as a true team. There were projects that all the teachers assigned. There was collaboration. I was actually valued as a colleague, and I was free to offer my own ideas and create activities to share with my peers just as much as I could borrow and absorb from them.

Those two years altered the trajectory of my teaching career. After three years feeling like a solitary soul marooned on an island, I experienced two incredible years as a valued member of a viable team. When I returned to the senior level teaching government and economics (the old “mentor” had retired), I was assertive and proactive in establishing teamwork, collaborated more, and genuinely improved as an instructor. It helped that there was some turnover in the staff, and the newer teachers were also more willing to engage with each other. And I believe the process helped all of us excel, not just as subject-area teams, but also as a department. By the time I had advanced to teaching AP Macroeconomics, I had established strong rapport with my colleagues who taught AP US Government. We taught these students on an A/B schedule, so they alternated these classes daily, and we as instructors worked so that our teaching connected with each other’s, reinforcing what students were learning in both classes. The result was better learning for all of those AP students in both courses. It was educational teamwork at some of the highest level I ever experienced.

As my career in education continued, the benefits of teamwork were consistently apparent, especially when I worked in central administration. We had a small department in Research & Assessment, but the tasks each of us worked on connected well enough that our team was always moving forward impressively for the district. All in all, I think I experienced a solid 22 straight years of effective teamwork. The actual level of effectiveness varied at times, but it was always there, and I probably took it for granted. Then I left Mansfield ISD for what I thought was a better opportunity, and better salary. A higher salary was nice, but it was not a collaborative environment. Teamwork was replaced by top-down micromanagement, headed up by someone who was simply not equipped or ready to lead effectively. She thought she had all the answers, and the other three of us were basically expected to do her bidding, even if she wasn’t clear what that was. I was not valued for the ideas I brought to my job; I was basically expected to read the mind of my supervisor and maintain the status quo in 100% detail. And when I didn’t, when I had the temerity to show initiative and originality, I was diminished and even demeaned. It was a negative environment, plain and simple, bereft of any teamwork.

So when I interviewed for what would become my final position in education, I had one answer for the question, “What do you hope to accomplish in this role?” My response: “I want to become a viable member of a high-functioning team.” I had experienced that feeling, and I had experienced what it was like to lose it and feel like I was expected to be a mindless, boring cog. I just wanted to contribute to a team again. And fortunately, I got that experience again. Yes, there were issues at the district level that ultimately led me to retire from the profession, but I can honestly and definitively say that my time at Grand Prairie High School was a positive experience as part of a high-functioning, well-managed team. I learned so much from my colleagues, and they learned from me. We collaborated on a multitude of projects, and our students benefited. We had each other’s backs. Maybe it’s coincidence, but I believe many of us became lifelong friends, as well. Quite a team, and I will always look back on that place, and so many of those colleagues, fondly.

So what does this have to do with voiceover? It comes down to how we as VO artists see ourselves. There’s a common idea (and joke) in the industry that we’re all a little strange because we spend all day talking to ourselves in a padded room. And it can definitely feel that way. But my own experience has taught me that this idea really isn’t the case. Granted, my background is primarily Live Announce, so I often find myself in an environment where there are people around me. Many of my gigs throughout the year have people in the stands, and on the field or floor, and I’m even in charge of running all the audio at times. I’m also my own roadie for a lot of jobs. And you know what? It’s exhilarating, and I love it.

As I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post, I had the chance to work NCAA Division I college basketball recently – three games so far at the University of Texas at Arlington (which is also my alma mater). And even though PA folks often see ourselves as “the voice above the crowd,” the truth I’ve gleaned from these experiences is that whoever is on PA is not simply in an environment “with other people around.” No, they are…you guessed it…part of a team. The team consists of everyone involved in the game presentation – production director, production assistants, band, cheerleaders, dance team, on-court entertainment, etc. Two hours before tipoff, we go over the run-of-show, which outlines every activity of the day or night, including pregame, timeouts, halftime, and postgame. There are a variety of PA reads, but there are also a multitude of other happenings, and the objective is to time everything out right down to the second whenever possible. The goal is to provide a high-quality game experience for the fans while at the same time recognizing all the sponsors involved with UTA Athletics, and above all, respecting and featuring the game on the floor. It is its own a machine with video, graphics, live music, recorded music, and a true cast of characters, all layered on top of and designed to support the performance of the team. As the PA guy, I am simply one part of the experience. And I will emphasize again, I love it. And it’s really not about my voice, although I truly think my pipes were made to resonate in a stadium or an arena just as much as others’ were made to feature trucks or food or Disney movies. I love being part of the event, fulfilling my role, and adding to the ambience that’s being created. Being a viable part of a high-functioning team.

For my VO friends, that’s something that I think is critical to your, my, and our success as VO professionals, no matter what genre we’re working in. It is way too easy to record an audition or a job listening solely to our own performance. It is way too enticing to get caught up in our own voices. If you want to understand what creative professionals hear – REALLY hear – you have to imagine yourself in the arena, if you will. You have to hear yourself with other aspects of the entire production in mind: the images and/or video that your voice will be used to enhance, the music and other sounds that will be layered with your voice, the objective(s) and goal underlying what the creative team is trying to accomplish. Get out of your own head and away from your own voice. Listen. Take direction. Take a broader perspective, then figure out how your voice fits it and adds to the larger mix. And contribute.

For my education friends, and for anyone else reading this post, “teamwork makes the dream work.” “Be a team player.” “There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team.’” (Although you can’t spell team without an “m” and an “e.”) <Cue groans> Sorry. Just kidding. That all sounds kind of trite and silly, much like most bumper-sticker philosophy. But teamwork really does make you better. If you’re in an educational leadership role, that means you have to involve your team members. Seek their input. Accept their ideas and figure out how to integrate them into the larger plan whenever possible. Don’t micromanage. You don’t have all the answers, nor should you. If you’re in a rank-and-file team member role, step up! Know what your role is, and do your part. Contribute. At the same time, Speak Up! If you have ideas, state them in an organized and appropriate manner.

The bottom line is that, no matter your industry or profession, life isn’t meant to be lived in isolation. Each of us can grow individually, but we advance further by working with each other, sharing ideas and activities, sometimes disagreeing, but ultimately learning and developing as both individuals and a group. In a world that seems to value individualism and “I’m gonna get mine” greed way too much, the benefits of collaboration and cooperation through teamwork have gained importance. It’s a lesson for educators, for voiceover pros, and for society at large.

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Modern Marching Band: The Magical, the Mundane, and the Remarkable – Part 2

Yesterday, I posted Part 1 on this topic and attempted to scratch the surface of what goes into a given marching band season and why it’s awesome, why it’s magical. Read that post here. TLDR: When you consider everything that goes into learning to play an instrument, spin a flag, march, dance, execute drill design, perfect it, and do it all together…you will find few things that are more satisfying and personally fulfilling.

But guess what? Marching band can also be rather mundane. Consider the following:

  • There’s a football game every week, and at least half of those (more for some schools) involve travel. Riding a bus back to school at 11:00pm on a Friday night when you’re exhausted is not exactly anyone’s definition of fun.
  • There’s a drill team song to learn and perform every week. Don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing wrong with drill team, per se; they work hard just like bands and accomplish impressive things. But that stop-down every Thursday to rehearse with them plus the Friday performance also gets tedious over 10 weeks.
  • Stand tunes can be cool, but they can also wear mighty thin. Seriously, how many times can anyone play “The ‘Hey’ Song” and “Seven Nation Army” without going a little bit crazy? (Although to be fair, “Land of 1,000 Dances” never gets old, IMO.)
  • There are times during the marching season that become an enormous grind. Look at the calendar – we are literally in one of those times today, 9/17/25. When I taught drum major camps, I used to teach everyone this: The DM’s leadership isn’t that essential on the first day of band camp, or at the first performance, or at any contest. Everybody’s pumped for those times. It’s easy. No, the DM is most critical in mid-September, when the temperature is still in the 90s, the band hasn’t performed at any contests yet, the show is mostly learned by now but you’re working on all the parts where the ensemble is struggling, tempers are on-edge, and enthusiasm is low. THAT is when the drum major needs to be at their best, helping the group power through those grinding times.
  • If you have a good football team, marching season can seem to last forever because the season then goes more than 10 weeks.
  • Contests are cool, but they can also be a grind. It’s an entire Saturday gone, and you might have important assignments to complete for classes. Imagine working on homework in the stands while other bands perform because otherwise, it won’t get done. Plus, it might still be warm outside, so you’re sweating almost the entire day. Now imagine doing that every weekend for an entire month.
  • October often features weather that is windy and possibly rainy. This poses many challenges as you’re trying to perfect your show and losing rehearsal time to rain and possibly lightning, or simply struggling in high winds.
  • In all honesty, sometimes the shows themselves are really mundane. Marching band often relies heavily on imitation; everybody wants to do stuff that’s popular in DCI or among the top-tier bands at UIL and BOA competitions. The activity is beholden to trends, sometimes to its detriment. There was a period several years ago, for instance, where it seemed like every show was “Title: Subtitle, in four movements – I. Noun II. Noun III. Noun IV. Noun and Noun.” I would joke that I could simply announce everyone with “Please welcome the Average Suburban High School Marching Band,” and no one would even notice. Thankfully, we’ve moved beyond that phase, and the shows are a bit more imaginative these days.

I could delve into a bit of an old-man rant from this point forward because there are certainly other things that are frustrating about the activity: People often question whether marching band is valuable as music education because so much time is spent working on a limited amount of music rather than expanding students’ repertoire. (There’s an old adage that marching band could be called “Learning to Hate Music, Three Songs at a Time.”) Sometimes what judges reward is more style and less substance, which incentivizes schools to spend more resources on props and other extraneous aspects of the show. There are definitely socioeconomic disparities in marching band. By and large, you will find a strong correlation between the wealthiest schools and the bands that score highest at UIL and non-UIL contests alike. Marching band is awesome, but the activity is far from perfect.

But here’s the thing: In this activity, perfection, in the end, is a goal but not actually an objective. Every band will strive to perfect what they’re performing. None of them will achieve it at a 100% level for 100% of the time. And that’s OK. The act of striving for perfection in a safe and healthy environment, with people you grow to love, in service to music and a product that requires everyone’s involvement, IS the point. Each ensemble begins its season at a certain beginning place and works toward “the perfect place” for 3-4 months, and then it’s over. The journey and the work involved matters more than any result. Some groups will need a new trophy case to hold all their hardware. Good for them. Some groups will just be happy to advance to finals at an invitational, or to UIL Area, or to UIL State. Good for them. Some groups will expect trophies but be unable to capture them, or expect to advance to State and finish as alternates, or not make Area Finals. All for reasons they may not grasp because the judging system is inherently subjective, and their show didn’t receive sufficient points in the right places. It is not the same as losing an athletic contest, because you cannot necessarily watch the film or examine the stats and say “we would’ve won if only…” It’s the nature of competition in competitive marching band, and sometimes it leaves ensembles wondering what-if. There is no shame in that as long as they can look back at how their performance progressed through the season and how the members connected with one another – if you can look back at those things with satisfaction, then the scores do not matter. Sure, it’s disappointing; everyone likes to achieve high scores and win. But years from now you’ll think about the joy of the experience, not tab sheets or trophies.

And the experience should be joyful, because it is remarkable. Regardless of what anyone in their 40s or older may think about the music, the choreography, the props, the amplification, the costumes, or any other aspect of a modern marching band production, what the students accomplish is astounding. I’m in my 50s and marched in the 1980s and 90s. In high school, we primarily marching symmetrical drill on a fairly rudimentary level. In college, the drill was more advanced, and we added basic choreography in places, but none of it was like what you see today. The music, drill, and choreography an audience member will witness at a typical marching band contest these days should boggle their minds. I knew guys 40 years ago who would’ve gotten physically injured trying to do what bands do today. Who couldn’t produce a sound on their instrument marching modern drill. Who would cramp up, seize up, or fold up trying to play the music of the caliber that students perform today.

Music education has advanced, to its credit. The “marching arts,” as many like to call the activity, have also advanced. These are good things. Students get an opportunity to do amazing things and perform on an elite level. “But it’s not like it used to be.” Okay. Whatever. People used to teach band members to “pound the ground” when marking time. “Kill the grass!” They used to teach techniques that are now suspect. They used to haze new members and make them feel terrible and unwanted. Does anyone really think it would be productive or educational to return to those days? And while there are people who live for old-school military bands marching 6-to-5 from end zone to end zone and despise props and microphones and speakers and dance movements, a person’s preference for the kind of show should not detract from the remarkable work the students are accomplishing. Modern military bands are also great. Bands that perform HBCU-style shows are also amazing. Those styles have advanced, as well. Honestly, no matter the particular style of show, the challenge of any marching show from the 20th century pales in comparison to the demands of a modern show, where students might be flying across 40 different spots on the field while doing choreography and maintaining sufficient body control to play with incredible musicality. Complain about the shows, if you want. Respect the performers. Celebrate them. Band students are awesome. Band is still awesome. It’s remarkable.

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Ode to Presentation Skills

Let’s talk Presentation Skills. You should probably get some if you will present something to a group of people. Or at least if you ever intend to do so. Even if you won’t give any formal presentations, there still may be some value in knowing how to present something – a topic, a philosophy, an argument, even your career or life story. You never know when the moment will arise where it’s necessary to convey a message in a coherent, organized manner.

I attended a voiceover conference this past weekend and sat in on several presentations. It was pretty much all “sit-and-get” with opportunities for questions. As you might expect, it was a mixed bag. But then, these were primarily voiceover artists whose profession regularly calls for them to interpret and deliver the words given to them, not necessarily write their own stuff, so I took a forgiving mindset into the presentations. One presenter eschewed any slides on-screen altogether (quiet hallelujah) and just talked through his points and ideas. That was admittedly a risky approach, but he was knowledgeable enough that he could proceed in this way and help everyone in the room gain useful information. Others committed some proverbial cardinal sins of presentations. Clearly they were not quite polished enough, but that was fine for this particular conference.

The experience reminded me that I have given hundreds of presentations. I’m good at it, maybe even great. Last year, one of my colleagues, after a presentation I made to our faculty, suggested I should become a professional presenter (not sure there is such a thing besides emcee work; there’s usually an area of expertise as a foundation). It’s definitely a skill I’ve cultivated, but I had to get good at it: I taught government and economics for 19 years, classes that were required for graduation but were not exactly at the top of any student’s  wish list. Then when I moved toward administration, I specialized in testing for another 12 years. Testing, where the topics really got mind-numbing…I mean, “challenging” – mostly compliance-oriented training on such wildly popular topics as test security & confidentiality, testing irregularities, testing procedures, student accommodations, and so forth. No one was ever busting down my door begging for a presentation. Sometimes I did get requests from specific groups needing specific training on specific topics that I understood and they didn’t. But even then, the topics were Sahara-desert dry. The point is, I developed strong presentation skills because I knew that if I Ben-Stein-ed my way through it (you know Ben Stein, don’t you? “Anyone…anyone…Bueller?”), my audience is gone almost immediately. I had to be engaging, energetic, and focused on what the takeaway of this nonsense I’m talking about is. Otherwise it’s just boring political and bureaucratic talk, or “the dismal science,” or that awful testing stuff we have to do every year.

I have also attended hundreds of presentations, many of which were excellent, but most of which, honestly, were somewhere between mediocre and brutally bad. Some even seemed impressive but were actually terrible, like the time a curriculum supervisor was supposed to be talking about her district’s correlation between its curriculum development and assessment, but she A) talked so fast and B) spent so much time lavishing praise on her own district and its leadership, I wonder how anyone was supposed to decipher any kind of point from it, let alone glean ways that their own district could use this information. I found myself just wanting the PowerPoint in PDF format so I could try to figure out anything I could actually use. Just stop talking already and please let me read instead.

Did you see that dreaded word in the previous paragraph? PowerPoint. Insert your own shuddering reaction here. Don’t get me wrong – PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, Canva, Prezi – they’re all wonderful, powerful tools capable of enhancing your presentation. But they are tools. At the end of the day, no one cares how impressive the builder’s hammer was; they care about what the builder actually built. And set of PowerPoint slides is only as effective as the message the presenter delivers with them. Transitions, animations, little GIFs embedded in Canva, etc. – they’re all nerdy and sometimes cool things in the programming, but they don’t make the presentation itself any more interesting. Sometimes they actually distract.

By now, you’re probably asking, “Okay, since you’re such a pro at presentations, what should everyone be doing to be like you, smart guy? HUH?!?” The answers are simpler than you might think. From my experience, a good presentation comes down to 5 core ideas:

  1. The old adage, “Begin with the End in Mind.” Don’t just start making slides or writing down notes to read from. Ask yourself, “what ideas or skills should people attending my presentation gain?” Someone who spends their time listening to you ought to get value out of that time. What value will you provide? Plan the takeaways for the audience before you plan the bullets and graphics and speaking points for yourself. Educators should easily recognize these as “learning objectives,” and you need them before you start deciding what to show and say.
  2. If you’re using slides, keep them limited, relevant, and visually engaging. No one, and I mean NO ONE, enjoys experiencing “Death by PowerPoint,” where the presenter hammers everyone with slide after slide, some of which they don’t even bother to feature. Better to have too few slides than too many. For slides that are primarily text, follow the 6×6 Rule (Maximum 6 lines of text, maximum 6 words per line), but be willing to break it if you need to. Use graphics when possible, but make sure the audience can decipher them and that they actually add to your message.
  • Side Note: I used to know a central administrator who insisted that PowerPoint presentations by administrators, particularly campus principals, should be graphics-only with zero text, because “the audience should be listening to words, not reading them.” This was one of the WORST takes I ever heard in my education career. (I believe the technical term is “horsesh**.”) Obviously, don’t beat people down with overloaded text on a slide, but graphics-only slides are useful for effect. They are NOT the norm.
  1. PREPARE what you’re going to SAY. Do Not Read your Slides to your Audience (unless they’re a bunch of toddlers who cannot read yet). Your job is to SPEAK TO the points that appear on-screen. Offer details, tell stories, embellish – these things engage the audience. Reading what everyone can already see is BORING, and it’s brutal for the audience. But I know why you’re reading the slides; I’ve been there. You’re not really prepared to speak. You drew up a slide deck, you don’t really know what to say with it, so you’re just turning your eyes to the screen and reading what’s there. Yes, that is better than fail-smiling to the audience because you’ve got no words, but only by about 0.03%. This is why PowerPoint literally has a Notes field for the Presenter view. If you have to, use it. Better to read prepared notes from your laptop at the podium than reading the words on the screen that they see. But YOU have to PREPARE those notes. If you’re not using slides, then you’d really better be prepared to speak, unless you happen to have the natural ability or the experience to start talking and find your way to a coherent message.
  2. Be Energetic, but Slow Down. There’s a thing in education known as “wait-time,” usually reserved for moments when you pose a question to students and need to pause and allow them to answer. Even in a sit-and-get presentation, wait-time is still essential. People can only process so much auditory and visual stimulation in a given timeframe. If that means you have to cut slides and speech for time, so be it. Edit yourself. Your content isn’t so important that 100% of it is absolutely critical and necessary. Figure it out. Speeding through things just to get through all your slides is poor presenting.
  3. Know your Technology. Use your Technology. If you’re personally managing the slides, know how to advance and reverse them ahead of time. It’s frustrating for your audience when you keep saying “Whoops” and struggling to find the correct frame. And USE THE MICROPHONE. You know that person who says, “I’m loud and ya’ll can probably hear me, so I’m not going to use this.” While it may be true that you’re loud, I’ve already stopped listening now, because you’re an idiot. They gave you a microphone so we can hear you better. Please use it. And if it’s a lavalier (the little clip-on with a transmitter box), please clip it to your shirt and belt like it’s designed. Holding a tiny lavalier microphone at your chin is NOT how it was designed, and you’re causing distortion. We cannot understand you. Ask for help before the presentation, lest you look like an amateur or worse. Figure it out.

When it’s all said and done, your presentation comes down to credibility. You as a presenter at least need to look like you know what you’re doing. Even if you enter the room as an expert in your field, if the audience cannot hear or understand you, if you talk too fast, if you’re just reading the slides, if you have too many slides, or if there seems to be no point to what you’re showing and/or saying, it all falls flat. The ability to maintain coherence and competence with the presentation itself builds credibility for you and ultimately strengthens your message so that people remember the information and are perhaps inspired to use it for their own benefit. And that’s the whole purpose of taking the time to make, and attend, a presentation.

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Some Funny Things Happened on the Road to Retirement

Listen to this post

Above Audio Recorded Using:

  • Microphone – Rode Video MicroGo II (USB-C)
  • Hardware – iPad Pro 11″ M4
  • Software – TwistedWave for iOS
  • Additional Software Treatment via MacBook Air M3 13″ – AU HiPass, LoudMax, iZotope RX11 Mouth De-Click

Recorded in my Home Studio

It truly is about time I retired from public education. I’ve actually been planning this for several years now. I came across an old unpublished blog post from January 2021 in which I triumphantly stated that 2021 was “what I intend to be my last year as an educator.” 2021.

The 2020-21 school year was my 27th year in education, when I hit the “magic number” for retirement in Texas: Age + Years of Service = 80. On August 7, 2021, I turned 53 years old, so from that day onward, I was officially eligible to exit my career. But 20-21 was also only Year 1 in my final district, and you might recall that it was also the school year right after the COVID pandemic. What a strange year – our district began the year with 100% distance learning, then later allowed students who wished to pursue in-person instruction, but only with social distancing. Testing procedures were really odd – students could either choose to test or defer until later – but I learned a lot in that unique environment. By August 7 of 2021, I don’t think I was actually ready to retire, after all, so I committed to Year 2 at that campus and in that district. I did truly enjoy the campus where I worked immensely, learn many new skills, had made new friends, and was able to find fulfillment in my work as the Campus Testing Coordinator. So I pressed on…2021-22, 2022-23, then 2023-24.

Each of those next 3 school years grew progressively more difficult, though. The district kept adding tests and testing responsibilities while simultaneously gaslighting everyone with a message of “we’re actually doing less than in years past.” Right. I suppose, as George Costanza said, “it’s not a lie if you believe it.” The State of Texas was also adding new things at least every odd-numbered year. And I was burning out while yearning for more time to do voiceover work, worrying that I might miss a critical chance, if only from the opportunity cost of time spent with education and not VO. So in June 2024, I actually filed the paperwork. Sent a paper copy off via USPS Certified Mail – I still have the receipt. I informed my principal, who was herself moving onto a revised life and career in New Mexico. Also informed the staff. The timing actually seemed perfect – 30 years, weary, new principal, new superintendent – let’s make a break for it.

Into my office walks a former principal of mine from a previous campus, now a district administrator. “I want you to reconsider,” she says. We talk about the bureaucratic issues within the district, as well as my salary, and she pledges to work on a pay raise for me. I figure if she can make something happen with my pay that is worthwhile, I might dig deep and muster up another 3-5 years of effort. So I cancelled my retirement in anticipation of her delivering. She didn’t. Or, to put it more accurately, she couldn’t. With a new superintendent, she found herself professionally pidgeon-holed (districts like to call it “reassigned”) and therefore had very little leverage to influence my pay, at least to the level I hoped. I received a raise beyond the typical x% given to all employees, but it was nowhere near what I had requested or felt like I deserved, given the scope and quality of work I was doing for the campus. “But you’ll like working with [new principal],” I was told in an effort toward consolation.

And I did. Great guy, hard worker, dedicated. Trouble is, he found himself just trying to stay afloat amidst even more district bureaucratic nonsense. Everyone at our campus did. It became comical, and we joked about it openly. I joked freely about these things in e-mails to campus staff. And of course, that got me in a little hot water. “You sound like you’re pitting the campus against the district,” I was told by a central office administrator. No, the district is destroying our morale, and I’m trying to show empathy with our teachers through humor. (But that’s another story for a later post.)

So after year 31, in the spring of 2025, I filed the paperwork again, this time electronically. Then a central admin position came open in another nearby district – “Director of Assessment & Accountability.” Way back in 2018, this was where I was headed in my first district before the rug was yanked out from under me (Another story for still another post.) I apply. I contact this district’s superintendent, also a former principal of mine. (No, I am NOT above leveraging old professional relationships, and neither should you be.) I get an interview. Probably the best performance I ever had in an interview. The committee lead calls and tells me it was a great interview, the committee was very impressed, and he needs to contact my references next.

Now you might be thinking, “What about voiceover? What about THE DREAM?!? Weren’t you ready to commit full-time?” Yes, but this central office job would’ve been a substantial pay increase and set me up for an even more lucrative retirement situation in just a few years. I owe it to myself to try, at least. And if this job is meant to be, I can cancel my retirement again and stick it out a little longer. And a week after the interview, it’s looking like that shall be the plan. They seem to want to hire me. Then another week goes by. And another. And finally, I get the e-mail saying “we have decided to move forward with another candidate for this role.” I figure it’s probably the guy with an Ed.D.; districts love doctorates among central administrators. (Yet another future post.)

“Oh, no! I’m so sorry.” Please don’t feel sorry for me – no condolences, no regrets. I applied, I put in appropriate effort and performed well, but that other district went a different direction. I like to think they’ll regret not hiring me, but it doesn’t matter. In the end, I know from experience that central office work is just a little soul-crushing (wow, that’s FOUR future posts), so that potential additional pay would’ve likely come with…suffering. And now, I simply have to hustle as a freelance VO talent, keep building my skills, market and find clients, and do the work. If I do it right, I may be able to cover the potential difference in salary from that job, and then some. And because I enjoy VO, there won’t be any soul-crushing or suffering. It truly is about time I retired from public education.