Exploring Life & Business with Tish Hicks of The V.O. Dojo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tish Hicks.

Hi Tish, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Hi, I’m Tish Hicks! I’m originally from Chicago, and have been a thriving voiceover artist in Los Angeles for the past 30 years! I’ve been a voice of Subaru for the past 15 years and have voiced Citibank, GTA V, HP, and many other long running and well known campaigns. I’m also the founder and Master Sensei of The V.O. Dojo, a holistic full voiceover training center that for the past 15 years has been guiding, supporting, connecting and accelerating passionate people around the world on the path to creating their own sustained, successful voiceover careers. Our mission is to align people with the power and possibility of their voice!

I studied theater at Northwestern University with classmates like David Schwimmer and Stephen Colbert, and was doing all the things that you do after you graduate with a theater degree — working and doing improv at The Second City, continuing opera training, doing regional Shakespeare, waiting tables at a swanky jazz club and doing poetry readings between sets. My then-boyfriend’s friend at Leo Burnett, one of the top ad agencies, called me about doing voiceover for some spots. I said, “Sure!” having no idea what it was, but figuring I could do it. I left that session knowing this is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing, and I moved to LA shortly thereafter.

I call it “the helicopter phenomenon.” Sometimes, you get an opportunity that’s like a helicopter taking you up the mountain — if you’re ready to jump on — but I was far from an experienced mountaineer!

After moving to LA, I hit the ground running. I met decision makers, took classes, workshops. I stayed focused and made sure I was always doing the things required to move my career forward with other fellow creatives that had the momentum. I kept being around other people who were doing the things successful voice actors do.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
A key moment that may seem like a struggle at first, but turned out to be crucial for launching my career, was, about 10 months into my training — taking non-stop classes, being part of workout groups, doing workshops and private coaching — I felt ready to do my first commercial demo. I coached with a fantastic demo producer who said, “You are 98% ready and I am not going to produce your demo… because to make it in this biz at the top levels you need to be 110% or 130% ready.” She referred me to a working pro level class with one of the top casting directors and I went back to the drawing board for another six months… After that, I made an unstoppable demo that got me my first agent, and the breaks kept coming. I got my first small regional campaign for a hospital in Kansas, then the next campaign for HP, Cooking.com, Burger King, and eventually the voice of Citibank for seven years!

A moment of doubt opened another door to the second calling of teaching.

The V.O. Dojo, my company and voiceover school, was inspired by a period in my own career when things had taken a downward turn for the first time and I lost my VO mojo. I had to dig deep in a moment of doubt and remember what it was that made me a successful voiceover artist. At the same time, I was invited to lead a peer group for a Northwestern alumni organization, where I shared these things I had been reflecting on. Just as I felt my calling in my first voiceover session, I realized that I had something powerful to share through teaching.

It began there and has continued to grow and evolve.

Through all of this I’ve realized, voiceover is not just a great way to make money; it becomes a way of life. Voiceover has helped me through all the struggles that have inevitably come up in life. For example, in the past few years I conquered breast cancer, helped a family member through a mental health crisis, and had my parents both pass away within the same year. Through all of that, voiceover has been a consistent, anchoring through-line for all that life has to bring.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
The V.O. Dojo is a hands-on, hearts-in, full training center that guides, supports, connects and accelerates you every step of the way, from “I don’t know” to working pro — and beyond.

Wherever you are on your VO journey, we will meet you there and help you get to where you want to be.

We have our Development Division and our Working Pro Division.

The Development Division lays foundations with the You Should Do Voiceover Launch Pad + Workouts — a comprehensive overview and hands-on exploration of everywhere your voice can be making money, what it is and what it takes.

Using a martial arts model, this represents the first of five Belt Levels in our Mystery to Mastery Program that provides a structured path to working pro:

White Belt – Awareness, Yellow Belt – Exploration, Green Belt – Self Exploration/Demo Prep, Blue Belt – Demo Production, and Brown Belt – Integration.

Each belt level develops the seven areas of mastery that are necessary for your sustained successful voiceover career:
Mindset, Skillset, Hands-on Experience, Technical, Vocal + Physical, Business, and Community + Connection.

Unlike other programs that may offer beginner, intermediate, and advanced classes with short commitments from random people, we at the Dojo recognize that building mastery to competitive levels requires time, patience, determination and collaboration. You are climbing the mountain and learning to be an excellent mountaineer with the same other committed and focused people. We are here to support you and keep you powerfully on the trail. And we do it together.

When you finish Mystery to Mastery, you earn your Black Belt. Now you are ready and now your work begins as you cross into our Working Pro Division with the Nth Degree Program.

Just as a Black Belt martial artist continues to deepen and strengthen their skills, the Nth Degree keeps you supported and connected as you take on the next challenges of building your voiceover business practice.

It includes our Nth Degree Career Catapult Weekend Intensive, Working Pro Workouts and Focus Action Forums, as well as our V.O. Pro Fight Club, which regularly brings together top notch talent with the high caliber decision makers who hire us in all different genres. It’s a fiercely friendly faceoff that shows us how decision makers decide.

It’s not easy, but it doesn’t have to be hard. At the Dojo, we do it together.

Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I love that everything is possible here.

In Chicago, it always felt like there was a ceiling to what you could do but, in LA, it feels like there are no limits. It’s a place where the brightest and the best, the most creative and most passionate people come together. I love that you have to and get to create your own path, community, and life. Everything is right here AND you have to go after it.

It can be a shallow place if you approach it in a shallow and self-centered way. I have found it a place that has required me to go deeper into myself, build long-lasting connections, and has allowed me to be anchored in the life I’ve created here.

There are so many distinct eco-systems of neighborhoods that are amazing, but it is easy to get stuck into your own little part. Being in Burbank, seeing someone on the West Side feels like seeing someone in Europe! It is a really expensive place to live in, but, once you are here and making money, you forget that other places don’t cost as much.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thevodojo.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thevodojo/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thevodojo
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thevodojo/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thevodojo