STEPHEN BOWLBY

Useful everywhere, all the time. Taught to me by Mike Vance, former Dean of Disney University.

• 1. Unconscious Incompetence: you have no idea what you don’t know, you’re in the dark, totally incompetent, like you didn’t even know you had a thing called a pancreas, much less have any idea what it does or how to remove it if it goes bad.
• 2. Conscious Incompetence: You learn, discover, become aware of, by trial and error or by Mr. Miyagi sweeping your leg, that there is Stuff You Do Not Know. Holy crap, I have a what? A pancreas? Ok, alright. Umm…what’s it do, exactly? Pay attention: you got something to learn. Yeah, this is how other people have been doing it for years, ok?
• 3. Conscious Competence: Now that you have Been Enlightened, you work on gaining skills and knowledge, you get some adroit on you, and low and behold, you can actually parallel park your dad’s F150 IF you keep your wits about you, keep your eye on the ball, pay attention, and stay off your phone.
• 4. Unconscious Competence: This is when you do what you do so well that other people want to show other people how well you do it.

As an author, you spent massive amounts of time writing your book, or script, or spot copy. Not only did you have to research, write, rewrite, focus and refine it, you had to suffer the indignity of running it up any number of flagpoles. You got notes. Some infuriating, some spot on. You slept on it. It got better. Then it got finished.

As a publisher or producer, you have carefully matched that text with a voice actor like me. Let’s take an audiobook as an example.

When I read a non-fiction manuscript for the first time in preparation for performing it, I am so often impressed by its quality of thought and presentation of ideas. The author’s comprehensive command of the subject and her passion for its delivery to an audience helps me feel the depths of insight, and challenges me to grasp it and present something that I may never have encountered before.

Sometimes, I find this blazingly easy. The author’s thinking is so organized, creative, and clear that I spend more time getting out of his way and doing less so as to not occlude the message.

Other times, a book’s prose is less than refined, somewhat unfocused, or possibly confusing. But I’m not the smartest guy in the room, and I’m not the copy editor. My job is to breathe life into a text and connect its ideas to its audience.

You’re the house painter. I’m the trim guy.

Authors write for the brain, using the eye as the pathway into the brain. Consider that the ear is also such a pathway.

I’ve had this discussion with school teachers who consider the concept of reading as exclusively eye-trace from a page and optical ingestion. I disagree. The goal is to get ideas into readers’ heads for the purposes of thought and discussion, so the portal of entry is a detail. You drive across a bridge to get into the city, not because you love driving across bridges.

My wife is a teacher and has advocated on behalf of students who struggle with reading optically. They benefited enormously by listening to audiobook performances of books. These students then understood the material, gained insight through the emotional connection with the narrators, and were affirmed to finally join their classmates on a level playing field. They joined the conversation. One said she felt as if she had finally been set free.

Teachers handle that last mile delivery to students. They’re trim guys, too.

If you are particularly a non-fiction author, think about the people you want to connect to. Listen to yourself write. Read passages aloud. Break that Hemingway sentence into bite-size pieces for the ear. Deliver your message into the brains of listeners so they can join the conversation.

Be nice to your trim guy.