I was out at a bar with Dan Foster last week.
We’re both trying to “make it” — at least our own versions of that.
He’s a voice actor, and I’m some sort of writer / director / composer.
We get frustrated with the unpredictability of the path and how long it takes.
At times, we’re both tempted to give up. Seriously!
But I was telling Dan — and reminding myself — it helps to zoom out. Years.
In 2019, I was writing my second animated TV pilot, That Monster Show.
I walked into a store in Burbank, and I mentioned my project to someone. They said, “You need DAN FOSTER.”
Dan worked at the store part-time, but he wasn’t there that day. The coworker raved about Dan’s voice acting skills. They were certain he was the guy for my show.
Turns out Dan was only starting out. He had done a few low-budget projects, maybe some podcasts? But when I got him into my studio, he ended up being so talented and creative, I cast him as SEVEN animated characters.
Fast forward to 2025.
Dan has since done work for video games like Final Fantasy VII, Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost, and Goosebumps Dead of Night.
And he just had a general meeting at a certain major film studio that no one is allowed to talk about.
I’ve been saying: Dan is just one gig away from establishing himself with a mainstream credit.
But we know it’s unpredictable and takes a long time.
What’s more important is Dan’s trajectory.
1 – Every audition — every small gig — is more practice. He improves. Even if, on a daily basis, it doesn’t feel like it.
2 – With his rare combination of skill, talent, and putting himself out there, it’s only a matter of time.
Same thing with my friend Mike Stone, who was a finalist in the drummer auditions for Primus.
And when I look back at the arc of my own creative work, I can see the growth. Even if no one else can tell, as Jeff Goldblum said in The Fly: “I’m getting better.”
Every little idea or trick I learn adds up. Even if it feels like today, or this week, or this month, or this year, I might actually be getting worse.
Long-term investing has been called “Yo-yoing up stairs.”
The S&P 500 on any given day (for example, today) might look like this:
Uh oh! But if you zoom out 10 years, it looks like this:
And at 100 years:
In the long term, the “bad” days or weeks or months or years don’t matter anymore. Our focus on the short-term is a cognitive bias.
Frank Zappa put it best:
“Here’s the secret. There are two things that you have to do. One of them is to not stop. And the other one is to keep going. (But when you get there, you’ll find out it’s still tough.)”