Why I Will Never Be As Cool As Tracy Lindley

The Epitome of Coolness / A Video Is Born!

How It All Began

God bless Tracy Lindley.  I mean it.  First of all, she is very cool.  Second of all, when I think of cool, I think of Tracy.  Thirdly, she is very cool.  And in case I forget to mention this about Tracy, there is one thing you should know about her.

Tracy is very, very cool.

In fact, if you decode ancient Latvian hieroglyphics using "Tracy Lindley" as the primer, you come up with "The very essence of coolness."  I am not kidding.

Allow me to explain.  May I?  Thank you.  You see, there are two kinds of people in this world:

1. Those who are not cool
2. Tracy Lindley

You, dear reader, and myself, and everyone else in this uncool world, fall squarely into the first column.  Tracy is in the Tracy column, labeled “Tracy is Very Cool, and You Are Not.”

*Please note that only Tracy goes in the Tracy column.*

I have now said Tracy twelve times, which is a very cool number.

Anyway, Tracy recently posted on LinkedIn how she commissioned a video to be produced, allowing the viewers - which is all of the rest of Planet Earth which belongs in the non-Tracy column…by the way it’s hot in here and please get your elbow out of my face – to have a warm glimpse behind the scenes and get to know the woman behind the voice.  She is the consummate professional, posting engaging content on a daily basis and never actually performing a single voiceover because she is so busy engaging – or at least that’s the way it would seem.  I actually think there are FIVE Tracy Lindleys out there, because no one could accomplish as much on a daily basis.  Unless of course your name is Tracy Lindley and you are very, very cool.

Which she is.

If you know Tracy – and you should get to know her, because I do not know if you know this but she is very cool - you know she is an exceptional voice talent, a quality LinkedIn trainer, and a personable businesswoman.  But that is all that many feed-scrollers would see.  What her video does is allow people to journey into her home and her studio, and meet her family – even her cat!  By the way, owning a cat is very cool, which is why Tracy owns a cat.  In the video she does not divulge the cat's name, but I am going to go ahead and assume it is a very cool name like His Lordship Mr. Whiskercuddles, esq.

In the video we get to see where she works, lives and plays, and find out more about her day-to-day voiceover business operations.  We begin to understand her dedication to her craft, and even learn that she owns an iPhone, which is the most coolest phone you could ever own, unless there was a smartphone called "The Tracy Lindley Phone."  In her video, she is all smiles, and you cannot help but be impressed.

And me over here?  I had no video at all.  And that, dear reader, was most uncool of me.

How It Happened

Isaac Colavecchio of Cola Creative

I guess it had never occurred to me to have a promotional video produced.  Sure, I have created plenty of talking head videos in the past: that became modus operand us, par for the course, run of the mill, and other expressions that make you tired of reading this blog.  I voice commercials all day: you would think I would have thought of this idea first.  But, then again, I am not Tracy Lindley.

By the way, did you know Tracy is very cool?

You see, Tracy is the opposite of UN-cool.  For a textbook definition of "uncool", see "Paypal."  Or this recent news.

I reached out to Tracy before I had even reached :57 in her video, inquiring about what I could do to finally become cool.  And Tracy is so gracious!  She is also very, very cool.  Tracy informed me, “Well, Josh, see, here is the cold hard truth.  You will never be me, who as you may or may not know am very, very cool.”

Yes, I knew.

“But!” she added - and she had my full attention, because I am generally in favor of sentences that begin with a posterior – "if you really would like to be cool, you should have a video produced, like me.  By the way, I am very cool, but I think you already knew this.”

I still knew.  And that was all the motivation I needed.  You see, in my life I have learned three things:

1. I want to be cool
2. It is very cool to be very cool
3. If I am not cool, then I will have to live in a muggy box with everyone else on the planet with elbows in my face. And in such a box is where my love for posteriors ends.  Ick!  Who had the hamburger???
4. I also learned a fourth thing, but I will save that for another blog.
5. I did not have time for a fifth thing, because I needed to get to work on my own video.

So I asked around, and was referred by our church director to the pastor’s son, who is a tremendously gifted videographer. I emailed Isaac Colavecchio, whose name is very cool, although, as you may have guessed, not nearly as cool a name as "Tracy Lindley." Isaac runs Cola Creative, I booked him, and we were on our way.   He quoted me the sum total of $1500 – which is a very fair price and would even allow me to still eat Top Ramen – and asked me to prepare the following:

• A shot list of the things I would like to be included in the video
• A voiceover script to run the length of the video
• A background music track to give it some fun
• A strong letter penned to Tracy to implore her to let him out of the non-Tracy box

I prepared said needed things, Isaac came over and filmed a wealth of material including my family, our dog, our home, our studio, and myself, and he proceeded to whip up something that can only be described as utterly, fantastically, 100% “kinda cool.”

Because “cool”, as you may or may not know, is reserved only for Tracy Lindley.

And now? I can regale my clients and colleagues with 1 minute and 36 seconds of the man and family behind the voice.

(Me, in case you were wondering.)

And Here It Is

I must say that I LOVE my promo video.  Love does not describe it.  It is a mixture of the following emotions:

• Love
• More Love
• Love that might even be called “Yolanda” in another language far from here where people do not have promo videos made because they cannot both live in a forest and also download the VLC Media Player to play their promo videos.  Which they do not have.

There are so many things that I love about this video.  I love that gratitude is a strong theme.  I love that my wife is in it.  I love that I said "I love Jesus", because I do, and it's a core part of who I am (I would be remiss if I didn't include this core of my heart)!  I love where I am holding my 3-year-old and he is eating an apple from our orchard.  I love where he is running tummy-out at the end of the video.  I love the gregarious look of comic excitement on my 6-year-old’s face as he bursts into my office.  I love that there is fun.  I love that our dog sniffs the camera.  I love the drone shot.  I love the look of sheer panic on Asher's face as I throw him up in the air.

Yolanda!!!

Thank you, Isaac Colavecchio.  You are, as they say, VERY “kinda cool.”

So how about you, voiceover talent?  Would you consider having a promo video done?  Why or why not?  I never thought about it, because I am not cool.  (But Tracy Lindley is.)  However, I am so very glad I had one made.  I have received only positive feedback, and my business has grown by leaps and bounds as a result.  As a matter of fact, since the release of my own video, I have booked 927 clients who have all paid me $27 million each as the result of my video.

I am joking.  All of those people booked Tracy instead.

Until I am finally cool, I will just have to stay here and look at my Superman pictures.  Who is also cool.  But not as much, of course, as Tracy Lindley, who, I trust you have heard by this point, is...oh, never mind.

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Joshua Alexander
The Voices In My Head Blog
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