Your Buddy Next Door: 2 week Recap!

Hello neighbors. It's your buddy next door. Mason Stewart. And I am so grateful to be back here with each end, every single one of you. Last video that we put out last blog post. It was a 20 questions one, and we had lots of great feedback. And a lot of you really enjoyed that. So I'm going to look to be doing a little bit more of that kind of content going forward a little bit more about me, different things like that.

Um, anyways, we needed to address the elephant. In the room, right. We need to address why I didn't upload really anything last. Um, it all starts with two Saturdays ago. So two Saturdays ago, um, my parents, uh, awhile ago gave me, uh, their old front door. There was something wrong with it. They didn't, they got a new one.

Um, anyways, so they offered this old one. It was a lot nicer than the one, my wife and I have. The dimensions, everything fit. Um, and so my wife and I, we tried to move it. We tried to move it. We tried to do everything that we needed to do to get that door in. Uh, ended up not working out, uh, some of the, like, I don't know what to call them.

The pilot holes where like the deadbolt and the little, the other piece of metal that keeps the door in place, they were off center a little bit. So we need to get those taken care of, but really the thing that happened, it was the worst was my wife strained a part of her back, her upper back. And so, um, fast forward to last week.

Um, it wasn't as bad, uh, that Saturday, when she hurt her back, then come that following week. Things progressively got more and more painful for her. Uh, things started to have a lot of issues for her. And then. Saturday. She went out shopping with her mom and she came back and she's like, my back just hurts so bad.

And so I took care of her that day, rather than making this content. And I was planning on making this content on Monday and getting it out to you. Monday comes Monday morning. I wake up, uh, to start working, uh, you know, like six o'clock. Um, Melissa technically gets up a little bit earlier than myself. Um, And she does her workouts and stuff.

So she can, uh, have the rest of the afternoon off for herself. Well, I walked down the stairs and she's crying on the couch and I'm like, what's wrong? And she says, it's my back. My back is absolutely killing me. It's really hard for me to breathe. I can't walk. So I'm like, okay, this is a situation we need to get you to the emergency room.

Let's get you there. Let's get this taken care of the right way. She's kinda notorious for not wanting to go see doctors, not wanting to do the things, um, like that, which is understandable. I get it. I do, but this was one of those times where I kind of put my foot down and I said, okay, we are going, we're going to the doctor.

So I spent a large chunk of my day on Monday with her in the emergency room. Everything is fine. I just want to point that out there. Everything is fine. Uh, they said that. Had a severe strain, uh, behind her. Scapulas so kind of those winged bones on your back there. Um, and there's not really anything they can do to fix it.

Right. It's all about rest and time and making sure you're doing stretches. They also said popping your back will help relieve that a lot. Um, so to all you bone popping haters out there, There is medical reason for it. I do it all the time drives like my father-in-law insane drives my wife insane. Uh, but long story short, um, come Tuesday and everything.

Um, I just felt like I needed to take a small. Away from everything that I was doing because of this, I wanted to really readjust and recenter what I was doing daily in my life. And so, um, got that all, got that all squared away. So we're good there. Um, and I'm, I'm excited to get back into doing this excited to get back to talking to you guys about how my weeks have went, um, and things going on.

On the downside. We got to talk about another thing really quick is that my in-laws were gracious enough to set up a trip for everyone in their immediate family. So my wife and all of her siblings and their partners. To go to Disney world. So this coming Tuesday, which is when this video actually should be going out, um, I'll get it scheduled and we'll get all that squared away.

But when this video is live, I will be most likely on a plane to. Florida. So this is going to be a very interesting thing for me since I've started voiceover. Um, anytime that I've gone on a trip, it's either been really short and I just kinda took the hit. I didn't do any auditions that day, nothing like that.

Um, or. Or it was just like, it was like a one day thing. So I didn't really worry about it. I was able to do stuff in the morning. It was like a staycation kind of thing. Anyways, jumping through that, this is the first time where I feel like, cause I'm going to be gone. We fly out Tuesday and we don't fly back until the next Wednesday.

So it's over a week of me not doing any, anything content related. So I just wanted to make. I kind of set the precedence out here. Uh, the content going forward for this week will most likely be a lot of me and my family. I'll make sure to be posting pictures, um, and kind of giving my thoughts on my journey through the voiceover world and through different things like that.

Um, and obviously wonderful pictures of Disney world with my family and the good times that we're having there. So I just wanted to make sure that the stage was set and that you guys understood. I'm probably not going to be our typical content. I'm going to try to get the, the, uh, what, what is it? My brain is blinking.

Guys. My brain's blinking. I'm going to get the blog out on Tuesday. I can preschedule that I can preschedule the podcast, the podcast is going to come out. Um, I'll try to get the blog posted as soon as I can on the website, uh, for this transcript. The week following, uh, just because I'm going to be gone that Saturday, right?

I tend to record things on Saturday recap, the week we're going to have another like kind of break and I'm going to try to actually record, um, something towards the end of that week. After that way, we have a lot to discuss. I can share some family pictures. It'll be a good time, but we need to get into the week recap for your buddy next door here.

And in reality, it's a two week recap. So that week that my wife unfortunately injured her back was the last week that I had recapped. So the week after that, Was my birthday week. So I turned 30 again for the second year in a row, which is fantastic. I'm 31. Now, for those of you that are confused by more wording, 31 hit that kind of mark.

And it really, and that's kind of another reason why I took my break is because it really hit me that like the way that the societal expectations have been. Have evolved over time. And currently at least the way that I perceived things as I was growing up was there was a lot of pressure that after college, after you graduate college, which number one, I didn't do that.

You get a job and you have stable income for the foreseeable future, unless you get laid off something crazy happens like the COVID crisis. And, and all of that's done like before you're even 30. And so I hit, I hit 30 and it was like, it was weird. Cause it was like one of those things where you're like all 30 year olds.

That's old, man. That's old. I understand now that it's not very old, it's not very old at all, but really looking at myself and asking myself. Why am I not to the point where society expects me to be right. And I had to really think about that. My journey through the education system was not great. Um, I always struggled at math in particular.

Math was a killer. When I got to college, I had to take remedial math classes, remedial, right? The things that you learn in high school, I took tutors. I did private tutoring. I did everything I could, and I could not pass these classes. I was failing them in college. And that is what led me to dropping out of college and pursuing voiceover.

Now there voiceover is a very competitive industry. It's a very competitive world. And I found myself over this past month, really comparing myself to others, which I know everybody, as soon as I say that is like, oh my gosh, that's the one thing that you can't do. Don't ever compare yourself. We're human.

It's what we do. And I'm realizing, and I'm trying to, I'm trying to work on it. Right. But here's the thing. There are many people that get into voiceover and they have some immediate access and they're doing amazing. And they have everything going for them to get an agent. They land a bunch of jobs, different things like that.

I'm not so lucky. I've, I've landed a couple of small jobs and I'm really just trying to grind my way through and make myself better and make myself, you know, make this into the craft of that I can make. And so a lot of people would look at my life right now. And they would say, oh, you've got this, you know, kind of menial job, right.

Doing QA for a, for a FinTech, like not a, not a really great salary. Um, not terrible, but not great. You know, and you're trying to get this voice over thing going, that's not really working for you. Like, is it worth it? Is it worth the time? And here's the thing, anything that you do in life? Time is your most valuable commodity.

What you spend your time doing, shows what you care about. If you're a religious person going to church and acting like a true religious person throughout your day, that shows what's important to you. Making sure that you're home on time to spend time with your wife, your kids, your family. That shows that family's important to you.

If you spend all day playing video games, then obviously video games are very important to you. None of these things are inherently bad and we've talked about it before in the past. They're good. They're better. And they're the best things. Voiceover to me brings me so much. Even when I'm reading like a narration script or like a really boring, uh, corporate training thing, you know, like if somebody asks you, you know, this question w which response would be the appropriate one, you know, some e-learning thing to like train employees, anything like that.

It sounds really boring on the surface, but me being able to, you know, read those words. And be able to portray a motion or anything like that. Really. It makes me feel like I'm doing what I've been meant to do. And that's what matters. If you're doing something that, that, you know, you need to be doing, it's all that matters.

It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. My sister is a great example of this. She's the one that suggested the 20 questions. So she's amazing. Everybody go give her. You know, all the praise she needs, but she's a dancer always has been her whole life dancing, dancing, dancing, got a, got a, um, what's the word, a degree from college from the university of Utah for modern dance.

Then she took a corporate job with young living where my wife currently works. Um, and she did that for years. And then recently she got. Didn't have any jobs lined up nothing. Um, then applied to do some teaching for dance, uh, being a substitute teacher and really found her calling. And she's been so much happier.

Guys. I cannot stress this enough, doing things that make you happy is what is most important. Voiceover and video games. Make me happy and spending time with my wife. My brother-in-law Alan. He's very big on routine and getting everything. He's a very knowledgeable guy, but he's a very routine guy, nothing wrong with that.

That's what he values. He values his time so much that he is looking at how he can better use each aspect of his time in his life every single day. And that's what brings him joy. And that's what makes him happy. Do something that makes you happy. That's what it all boils down to. We're getting close to our time limit.

But I've, I've kind of filled in my two weeks. Oh, that's a lie. There's one thing I forgot. I kind of got myself a birthday present and that birthday present was, um, I booked a coaching session with Scott Bird. No, you may not know that name right off the bat, but definitely a very tenured voice actor, very well-respected in the community.

He happens to be one of the only people to ever voice a Mario character. Cause if you think about any Mario games, 90% of the time, they don't have any voice acting, right. It's just like, whew, things like that. Uh, they're not actually talking words, but he played Bowzer in super Mario sunshine. And I was able to talk with him and it was one of the most fascinating coaching sessions I've ever had.

I'm very much a home body, right? We'd been over this as long as I don't have to, you know, go, go get groceries or go get a haircut. Anything I like to stay home as much as I can being, being like super social being out there. Totally drains my battery. Um, anyway.

Previous coaches that I've had, uh, their thing is like always like your, to, to sound like a real person. You need to sound like you're actually talking to someone. Right. And that's the way that the ad is going to be believable. It's going to make it sound like you're not talking at a script. And I really struggled with that.

Like a lot that was really hard for me because. I couldn't imagine myself having these conversations with anybody and I would try, and sometimes it would work out and sometimes it really just like fell flat on his face. I brought this up to Scott and he said, Kay is what you're going to do. You do one, take normal.

Then you do a tank where it's a character pick any character. Like I did. One is like Winston from Overwatch. I did like an old man. I did like a Tony, what? You got Tony. Right. And you do the whole script in that voice. Cause obviously that's not you. And then the second that you hit the end of that script, you take a small breath and you start at the beginning again, beginning again as yourself.

He calls it a character. And let me tell you something that has changed how I do auditions because this, whatever it is, that character cloak really reset your mind. And then as you go and you start doing that script again, it really helps you sound like an actual normal person. And so that was fantastic to me.

And it made me really think about it. Like there are things that are really difficult for us in our lives, right. It can be anything. I'm going to be a relationship. It can be like a situation at work. Um, it can be relationships within your community or with the world in itself. And a lot of times we don't know how to interact in those situations with our own thoughts and processes.

I know a lot of my viewpoints tend to go against what like the norm in the world is because of my religious beliefs. And sometimes I have a hard time expressing that. Um, and sometimes we need to put on a. Right. It's not saying that we're we're hating or we're doing anything, but we need to put on a cloak, pretend that we're somebody else.

What would somebody else say in that matter? And then adjust it, take those parts that we really liked from what we did and add it into our own self. That's really what life is about. And when we come to an understanding, we find understanding and our viewpoints through our own experiences and the experiences of a.

I don't like the term flip-flopping like in politics, people bring up flip-flopping all the time. I hate it. And I think Leslie Knope from parks and rec is the greatest example of this. Um, there's an episode where she she's going to like put a tax on sugary sodas and then a bunch of businesses are like a bunch of fast food.

Businesses are like, if you do this, we're going to have to lay off hundreds of people. And so then she holds this, this forum meeting and she says, you know, to the citizens, I'm trying to decide what to do here. Um, cause I don't know what, what the right thing is anymore. Even though I'm the one that proposed this bill and somebody, you know, yells at her she's, you know, oh, this is a flip flop.

And she's like, I didn't flip flop. I just got new information. She said when I was a little kid and this is the example I wanted to bring up. When I was a little kid, I thought that brown cows produced chocolate. Right. But then when I got older and I learned that all cows made white milk and that chocolate syrup is what made it chocolatey and brown, I flip-flopped my ideas and my thought process.

And that's really what life is all about. It's about getting new information and then choosing that side with that information that being said, I do want to bring up something that is. Near and dear to my heart, I've mentioned several times a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints.

And our prophet recently said something that struck me very, very hard, and that applies to everybody, whether you're religious or not. And our church, we have some very what others outside of it may call strict rules. Right? We don't drink coffee, we don't smoke. We don't drink alcohol. Um, you know, we, there's a lot of different things.

Uh, we try not to swear. I'm I'm still working on that one, myself, you know, video games kind of bring out the worst in me. Sometimes something I need to work on. That's what's all about anyways, off that tangent.

And we've been criticized for the rules that we draw sometimes. And the stances that we take and our prophet came out and said this, and it was extremely powerful to me. He said, boundary lines can be drawn without them becoming battle lines. There's a lot of hot button topics going on in the world right now.

We've had some tragic, tragic events. Occur in Texas, we have some tragic things happening, um, politics wise and around the globe with wars, rumors of wars, all sorts of stuff. And a lot of it stems from disagreements and, and things like that. But please understand the goal is to love one another, right?

That's what Jesus taught. And at the depth of every single religion that I've ever studied love for yourself and for your neighbor, right, is at the utmost importance. It doesn't mean that we have to agree on everything. It doesn't mean that our political views are going to line up. It doesn't mean that our social views are going to line up.

And that's fine, but we don't have to go to war with each other. We don't have to call each other terrible, terrible names. We don't have to say terrible, terrible things to each other.

We need to understand that everybody is at a place where you choose whether to just understand one another understandable. And say, I don't necessarily agree with that, but once still go get a drink. Let's have a barbecue come on over for a game night, hang out, play video games, online, whatever it may be.

Don't let these silly little things interrupt what matters most. And that's being with those that we love. That's what it really boils down to is love. Don't make boundary lines, battle lines. I just want to leave that with you guys. Um, my time is getting pretty close to up for what I want to keep these videos at as far as, uh, length wise time.

So I want to thank each of one of you again, as a reminder, um, this stuff is going to come out and on its normal basis. Uh, post next week though, may be a little bit different just because I will be on vacation, but I will try to get the blog, the blog and the podcast out. So make sure you give it a. And let me know any other fun things that you guys want to do.

I really enjoy doing the 20 questions thing. Um, I'd love to do more stuff like that. Um, I'll think of some things and we'll, we'll look into some other things, but thank you so much, each one of you and remember be kind and, and just find ways to show love to everyone. In your day, one way or another, whether it's just a smile, a wave, it's all that you need until next time.

Take care!