This week, I had the pleasure of being a guest on my friend Tre Mosley’s incredible podcast, “Take Time Out with Tre Mosley.” When Tre first extended the invitation, I’ll admit I felt a moment of hesitation. While I’ve never doubted my own greatness, it’s humbling to step into a conversation that has hosted true giants of the voiceover industry—legends like Dave Fennoy, Randy Thomas, and Thom Pinto, not to mention contemporary icons like Joan Baker, Stephon Johnson, Bob Bergan, and Gabe Kunda. I wondered what unique insight I had to add to a discussion among such elite talent.
But Tre is more than just an elite voice actor; he’s a masterful storyteller and a true friend. He knows my approach to life and work runs deep—far beyond the latest VO job I recorded. He knew exactly what question to ask, and before we even hit record, we were deep in discussion about the fundamental difference in our career philosophies.
What truly sets me apart, I’ve always felt, is my unyielding passion for a great work-life balance. I never wanted to simply be a well-known voice actor; I wanted a career that afforded me the freedom to love life itself. The vehicle, in my case, just happened to be my voice.
The conversation quickly settled on a critical concept in our industry: the golden handcuffs. We talked about the talented individuals who are so closely pegged to their recording booths—trapped by demanding deadlines and lucrative gigs—that they can never truly leave. This phenomenon, and my refusal to subscribe to it, was one of the themes of our talk.
The Golden Handcuffs in Voiceover
In the voiceover world, the term “golden handcuffs” describes the high-paying, prestigious jobs that simultaneously shackle you to a specific location and immediate availability. The prime example is promo voiceover. It’s when you’re the voice of a major network, where a breaking news event or a sudden programming change requires you to be in your booth and deliver lines in minutes.
Those jobs are demanding, they have tighter deadlines than almost anything else we do, and the talent who are lucky enough to get those gigs are often unlucky enough to never be able to truly take a vacation, or at least one where they are unreachable. They are tied to their booth by a truly irresistible paycheck.
I have no doubt that I would have been a great promo voice actor. My voice and my ability to connect with copy are built for that kind of high-impact, immediate read. But Tre knows this about me: I never wanted that life.
My career vision has always been about designing a life that incorporates work, not a work schedule that occasionally lets me squeeze in a moment of life. That philosophy guided me from the very start. As Tre and I discussed, for years, this industry—and society at large—has been obsessed with grind culture, pushing the idea that if you aren’t working until you drop, you aren’t trying hard enough. But as Tre perfectly summarized, those who say “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” often end up seeing that day come much sooner. My goal was always to define success on my own terms: freedom over financial accumulation. That choice, to avoid the golden handcuffs, is what has allowed me to build the unconventional journey I now live.
Classroom to Recording Booth: Using My Talent and Finding Freedom
My commitment to a controlled schedule began long before I was a full-time voice actor. When I first studied radio in college, the reality of the career path was immediately unappealing. As a young intern, I was told about the low pay and the intensely hard work—two things that, as I shared with Tre, simply didn’t register as a selling point for me.
So, I defaulted to a path that offered something more valuable than a huge salary: time. I worked in the school system as a substitute teacher and an afterschool program instructor for five years. Why? Because I knew that schedule intimately: full summers off, two weeks for Christmas, a week for Thanksgiving. That freedom, that block of time to pursue other things, was a necessity.
However, the seed of voiceover was planted by my professor, the late Bill Clark, over at WCLK, the school-owned jazz radio station. That seed grew, and in 2004, I made the jump to explore VO. My initial hustle was focused on genres that offered creativity and deadlines that I could manage: producing nightclub commercials and radio imaging.
I quickly found my niche in Atlanta, producing outrageous, attention-grabbing weekly commercials for nightclubs—stuff so “unhinged” that I often crossed the line. But that reputation for producing attention-grabbing, immediate spots with a guaranteed two-hour turnaround for clients was the key. Radio imaging, unlike promo, typically operates on a 24- to 48-hour timeline, a window that gives me the control that the promo world doesn’t. It was a conscious choice that paid off in the ultimate full-circle moment: in 2013, I was asked to become the voice of WLK itself, the same station where Bill Clark had been the program director. It was an incredible, mind-blowing moment, a testament to what can happen when you stick to your unique vision.
59 Countries and a Microphone
The result of choosing freedom has been a career that has literally taken me around the world—59 countries and counting, to be exact. This part of my journey, as Tre pointed out, actively debunks the myth of the golden handcuffs.
When people say they “can’t” travel and work at a high level, I gently push back. It’s not that they can’t; it’s that they don’t know how yet, or they haven’t prioritized it enough to find the way. My career is proof that you don’t need an expensive vocal booth to be successful and deliver high-quality work. You just need the right tools and the passion for both your work and your life.
Modern technology has been the great equalizer. I’ve worked with incredible professionals like George the Tech to fine-tune my mobile equipment, making my travel bag sound as close to my home studio as possible. Using plugins like C Cleaner, and Valley People, allows me to remove complex ambient noise. I shared a story with Tre that I recently blogged about, recording a club commercial sitting in a busy airport in Barranquilla, Colombia, with announcements in the background. The client needed it; I had the time; the tech allowed me to deliver. This is the ultimate expression of control over your career—a luxury that the golden handcuffs never allow.
By remaining flexible and focused on a genre of voiceover that values a 24-hour turnaround, I’m able to build a business that supports my love for learning, experiencing, and seeing the world. The work funds the life, and the experiences inform the creative work. It’s a beautiful, symbiotic relationship.
The True Measure of Success
Tre and I spent time deconstructing the cultural addiction to constant excess. Why do we feel that the more excessive the effort—the more hours, the more steps, the more money—the more successful we are?
The answer, as I learned through my extensive travels, is that it’s a deeply cultural thing we’re taught from a young age in our country. We define success by the things we accumulate. But as I’ve seen firsthand, in many places around the world, people are successful—in life, in spirit, in family—but not necessarily financially.
My experience walking through one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in Medellín, Colombia, completely changed my perspective on this. I saw families with almost nothing, but they were running around, laughing, and experiencing pure, unfiltered joy. They had a freedom I realized many of us lack because we’re constantly on the grind, spending so much time trying to accumulate money to buy things that only have value if we value them.
This realization cemented my core philosophy: I work to live; I don’t live to work. Voiceover isn’t the destination; it’s the vehicle that allows me to chase waterfalls, pet alligators, and fly through the air, all while providing for myself. When you define success as freedom, you start making radically different choices about the career paths you pursue and the hours you keep.
I Make My Parents Proud
Perhaps the most fulfilling aspect of designing this lifestyle has been the ability to give back to the two people who believed in me from the beginning: my parents.
When I started this “obscure career” in 2004, my parents never wavered. They kept me alive when I was broke, gave me money when needed, and offered me a place to stay. My mom, in particular, had always dreamed of visiting Israel, seeing the places she read about in the Bible.
For her 75th birthday, I worked with my brother to surprise her. I told her what to pack, but didn’t tell her where we were going. I captured the moment on video when she finally looked up at the boarding gate, saw “Tel Aviv,” and broke down crying. That moment of being able to contribute to fulfilling her lifelong dream was a joy greater than any commercial booking. Last year, I did the same thing for my father, organizing a trip for him to finally see Paris while we were in the UK.
I don’t have children of my own, (Check out my book “Forget Having Kids. I’m Having Fun“) and because of that, I have the same love and affinity for my parents that I would have had for my own kids. They continued to love and support my wild, big-dreamer ideas long after their job as parents “ended” at 18. Being able to share these incredible experiences with them is a powerful expression of gratitude and further proof that the life I’ve built—the life of time, freedom, and experiences—is the only one worth having.
Defining My Own Success
The conversation with Tre was a fantastic reminder that a career in voiceover can be whatever you need it to be. It can be a relentless grind, or it can be a tool of liberation. You get to decide.
My journey is a testament to the power of defining your own golden metric. For me, it was always freedom, not fast money or false status. I found a way to marry my creative passion with my desire for an expansive life, resulting in a career that I love, but that also serves as a vehicle to the things I truly value—learning, travel, and spending time with the people I love.
So, if you’re a voice actor, or frankly, anyone feeling the squeeze of the grind, take a step back and ask yourself: What are your true golden metrics? Are you working to live, or living to work? Your answer will determine the type of life you design.
You can listen to the full, unfiltered discussion on the Take Time Out with Tre Mosley Podcast here: Voiceover, Freedom & 59 Countries: The Unfiltered Journey of Dane Reid | Take Time Out w/ Tre Mosley
