Overcoming Illness and Working From Home with Voice Actor Sean Gurnsey

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Hi there and welcome to Vox Talk, your weekly review from the world of Voice over. I'm your host Stephanie Ciccarelli from Voices. Did you get into voiceover because of your health? On today's show, I'm joined by voiceover pro Sean Gurnsey. Sean's story of overcoming Lyme disease and changing careers to work from home as a voiceover talent is one that I've been waiting to share for a long time. And today Sean's here. So welcome to the show, Sean.

Sean Gurnsey:

Thanks, Stephanie. Thanks for having me.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Absolutely. So first off, Sean, what is Lyme disease?

Sean Gurnsey:

Lyme disease is a bacteria that you can get from ticks, and I got it down in a paintball game down in Oklahoma back in 2012. For me, it didn't really present like it is supposed to with the bullseye rash or anything. I actually took the ticks off and didn't think much about it, didn't have any symptoms until about two months later. And then I started feeling just kind of tired and weird. Maybe I was coming down with a cold or something. Maybe I didn't drink enough coffee or something like that. And then it progressed from that to very quickly looking like I was having a stroke or I had had a stroke and the left side of my body was not functioning right. My face was drooping and my eye was drooping. My arm and my leg weren't working. And it progressed very quickly and I can't remember it was about a month or maybe two months of really weird, scary health issues and the doctor is not really sure what was going on. And we even tested for Lyme, but it came back negative. And then all of a sudden, the symptoms kind of disappeared. And then it was a while later, they all came back with a vengeance. And again, the doctors didn't know what was going on. But it progressed to the point where I was in a wheelchair or getting around with a cane, forgetting who I was and who my family was, curled up in a ball in a fetal position. Lots of neurological symptoms and lots of pain and difficulties, but the list of symptoms is huge. So it's hard to say what Lyme disease looks like because it looks like so many different things.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

And it wasn't that bullseye that we're all trained to look for, right? Especially up in Canada. And I know the northern United States. There's more ticks normally, but obviously they're everywhere. You were in Oklahoma, you said, so they were obviously there too. Now, you weren't always a voice talent, though, so you came into the voiceover world after you had been diagnosed with Lyme. Can you tell us a bit about what your life was like before you had Lyme? Like kind of where you were at and in the midst of that recovery, but kind of how you landed in voiceover? I'm very curious about that.

Sean Gurnsey:

For sure. So I was working with young people. I worked at a youth center in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan called Joe's Place Youth Centre. I was the program director and kind of just a catch all name for doing everything that you can to help kids out. So I was doing that, and I had a resume before that of kind of like a jack of all trades. Like, I worked in computers, I worked in construction, I worked at a sawmill, I worked in schools and different things. And so I had all of these great skills, at least that it looked pretty impressive on a resume. And then Lyme disease really started taking that away line by line. I remember at one point, because my arm wasn't working, I was tasked with a maintenance job at the youth center, and I couldn’t, I had to screw something on the wall, and I actually couldn't do it because my left hand wasn't working and my right hand was so I could use the screwdriver, but I couldn't hold the screw. And it was all of those little things that really kind of stripped my resume down to all of the things that I thought I was good at, I could no longer do. All of the things that I used to be able to do were gone. And in the end, I couldn't even be the program director at the youth center. I actually was unemployed. I was on disability because I couldn't even get to work. Most days were spent kind of trying to survive. In 2017, I was on disability, unemployed, and trying not to feel sorry for myself, but really looking at 2017 as like, this is probably the year I'm going to die from this. And a good friend of mine, Jesse Adam, who's a voice actor and really good friend, he was like, you know what? You could do this voice stuff. And so he helped set up a studio. He's like, you know, ‘good days, bad days, whatever it looks like if you're in a wheelchair, just wheel yourself in, sit in front of the computer. You got one hand. Take as much time as you need. If your one hand is working, you can edit and you can deal with all of this stuff. Why not just try it out, give you something to do?’ And so I did. I started recording and made my demos and got on Voices, and wasn't long before I landed my first gig. So that's how I got into it.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Wow. I think you already knew Jesse somehow, like, from work, maybe that's part of your story. And yeah, it's just him saying, Sean, it's not the end of the world. You've still got one arm that's moving. You can still wheel yourself up, and you have a great voice. No doubt, he probably told you that you had a gift there. So I guess that is just something that a lot of people don't necessarily think about if they have an illness or whatnot, it's like that voiceover or work from home, something like that is probably a really good fit as you're recovering or even as if it's, let's say, something that you live with an ongoing – a chronic illness – then sometimes just that flexibility, the ability to work from home and to do it on your own schedule means so very much.

Sean Gurnsey:

Yeah, for sure. For me, I wasn't actually trying to work. When you're dealing with chronic illness or facing death, you start kind of looking at the things that are most valuable. Things like, you know, your family, you know, and even my, my boss was like, ‘we're stealing your best days and your family is getting your worst.’ And so he was encouraging me to really spend this time with my family, with getting into the Voices stuff. I knew that auditioning was kind of the thing, right? You got to audition lots. And one of the things that I was really focusing on was my personal character trying to, you know, if I'm going to go out of this world, I'm going to go out with the best character I can. You know, like, let's, let's develop some of that legacy stuff. And right off the bat, I set a goal for myself to audition a thousand times and get rejected a thousand times and to be totally okay with rejection as a personal thing. I started doing that as kind of a goal and didn't care that I wasn't getting jobs. And then when I did get one, it was like a shock, right? Like, what in the world? How did I get paid for doing this? And then landed some really big jobs. And now looking back, it's like I didn't choose the Voice over life. The voice over life chose me. And yeah, it's been such an amazing trip and I can't think of my life in any other light now.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Well, I'm glad you're in voice over. Obviously, it's a great community to be part of, but it's also just such a fulfilling career and you're getting to do amazing work. I think it's really exciting, just the opportunities that have opened up for you, but also what your illness did teach you. So as you said, you kind of wanted to, I guess, live as best as you could every day, but you also wanted to apply yourself and it sounds like you weren't afraid of failing.

Sean Gurnsey:

I think it's Thomas Edison that did the thousand attempts before the light bulb. I think that's the story. And that was running in my head when I thought about what success looks like is failing a lot. And I think we kind of chalk success up to those glory moments like, ‘oh yeah, now I've made it.’ Well, no, I made it when I was okay not getting it. And it's kind of like the opposite of what our culture would say is valuable or success or whatever. I think illness does teach that a little bit. I don't know. I think life is one of those things that we have to kind of look at it through a different lens, recognizing that we have value that's intrinsic beyond our capabilities or what our resume looks like or what our bank roll looks like. You know what I mean? It's got to be something deeper. And so when we can understand that, then getting jobs is just that much more joyful. Like, you don't need the job because you've already got your value, you're already successful and that's just icing on the cake

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Right, like the birds are taken care of and none of them falls down without Him knowing… you're going to be okay, too.

Sean Gurnsey:

Exactly, exactly, exactly.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

So I see what you're saying. So all of this is so interesting to me because I know that there are a number of other voice talent who are listening, who may have come from not the Lyme experience that you had, but perhaps they have some other chronic illness or perhaps a terminal illness or who knows, maybe just a come and go. Now I don't have this and I'm feeling great. I'm sure there are a lot of people who've been in that dark place and are out of it, but I think it's just so encouraging that someone can think, you know what, I have value as a person. I'm not just a number. Whenever you send something through, you're giving your best effort, and whenever you audition, you're like, really giving a piece of yourself right, to whatever it is you're doing and any work that you're doing. I think it, what you went through perhaps brought it home that much more, that everything that I'm doing, I am choosing to do. Everything is purposeful. There's meaning behind it. I want to leave some kind of an example for others to follow. And you look great right now. Obviously, you've been perfectly able to do everything you're doing. So obviously there's been some recovery here.

Sean Gurnsey:

For sure.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

So, Sean, tell us about that part of your journey.

Sean Gurnsey:

It's interesting, it almost followed in tandem with me doing voices. Obviously doing voice over work didn't remove the bacteria from my body, but it allowed me the space. I think having been done, I was doing nothing for several months and just trying to focus on surviving and being able to work from home was again, a big part of that process of healing. And now we've moved again, we've moved out to the country and we're living closer to family, mostly because, again, the family value is high. And, yeah, the recovery process has been so cool, and again, with Voices, how it ties it all together, ties the story together is in having done these voices and done interviews with you guys before, and my story kind of blowing up. It's been all over the news and it's been crazy. Like crazy attention. It's actually allowed me to connect with a pile of people, whether they're aspiring voice actors or they're people that are really struggling with an unknown, undiagnosed illness. And so for the last, like, well, since 2017, I've kind of been in this realm of people that are looking to learn, and I never would have been able to put myself into that position. It's not like you can go out there and look for how do I become an influencer for Lyme disease and Voices? Like, you can't really sign up for that. And yet, looking back at it, the amount of lives that I've been able to connect with because of the two worlds, it's been amazing. So, yeah. And recovery wise, I am doing great. There's still a few things that I can recognize, our kind of post illness issues that I deal with, but really, I was out there chopping wood this morning for for our fire, right? So, like, I'm able to do all sorts of great stuff, and I still get to do voice overs. I get to sit in a booth and talk to myself. It's great.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah. And you have a marvelous booth, I must say. That's some good sound absorption. It probably is quite hot in there. It gets warm there's. Like a baffled fan. This booth is another crazy story. I've got stories on top of stories, but the booth was actually given to me. I've discovered my biological father in all of this process right around the same time that I started voice acting. And he just happened to have a Whisper Room in a garage collecting dust. And he's like, hey, I've missed a bunch of birthdays, so here you go.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh, wow. What a gift!

Sean Gurnsey:

And so now I've got a professional booth, which is unreal nice. No, I love it.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

That's great. So obviously, you're saying you get a little bit of lime here and there. Maybe it hasn't completely left you. Can anyone be cured of Lyme, or is it something that kind of always hangs around a bit?

Sean Gurnsey:

Yeah, so there's kind of been a lack of information in Lyme disease, and they're discovering a lot more because it's kind of become a little bit more of a mainstream recognized problem. It's more of an issue than they recognized that more people were dealing with it than had the bullseye rash. And so the testing is starting to be questioned because about 30% of people that get Lyme disease get the bullseye. So that's, like, the rest of the other 70% don't get a bullseye. So if that's not the first indicator, then what is? The treatment, if you catch it within the first month, is really easy to deal with. Basically, it's two to four weeks of antibiotics. That's it. That's all it takes. It's dealt with. If it goes beyond that, if it takes a while, like, in my case, it was more than four years before I actually got diagnosed, then the bacteria has the ability to change shapes and do all these different things and get into your spinal fluid and sit on your brain and things like that. So it's a lot more difficult, if not impossible, for late stage Lyme disease to be cured. So that might mean that I might have another relapse, which I've heard people have gone for like a decade, and then all of a sudden it comes back like a flood. And so there's always this twinge of apprehension when I've got a little symptom, like maybe my shoulder, my left shoulder starts hurting or something, and I'm like, ‘oh no, is this Lyme? Again?’ Right? But yeah, I think I'm in the clear. And for people that are struggling with it, there's lots of support groups out there. And definitely if anybody is curious, like, they're experiencing a long pile of symptoms and they don't have any answers, like, get in touch with some of the Lyme groups that are out there and start asking questions. It's a good place to look because it is escaping detection for a lot of people.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah, no kidding. Well, it had gone on for so long with you that it kind of spread its tentacles, if you will. But I think at least in our neck of the woods, pardon the pun, I brought all the ticks in our neck of the woods. My goodness. But if you get a tick on you, I think what you're supposed to do, or what you can do at any rate, this is what I've heard, because our dog has had ticks on it before. Anyway, they won't test those ticks unless you pay for it. But if it lands on a human, if it's been on a human, then you can actually send that one away somehow through your healthcare provider. And they can test to see if that maybe through public health units or something. They can see if that tick was actually a deer tick with Lyme, or if it was just some other tick that is not as detrimental because not all ticks carry Lyme.

Sean Gurnsey:

Yeah, but they're actually discovering that more ticks than what they thought do carry lime.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh, goodness.

Sean Gurnsey:

And so, again, some of the information out there is a bit weird. Like, even up until recently, that wasn't the case that you could get them tested from you as easily as that. It was actually easier to get it tested for your dog than it was to get for you. It is changing, like, I know it was, again, right around the time that all of my stuff became a thing, like with Voices and whatever. I think it was late 2017 is when it was established that they were going to set up a center for Lyme disease research in Ontario, I believe. It really kind of became mainstream and in everybody's periphery at the same time. So, again, talking about timing is amazing. But yeah, definitely you can take your tick off, put it in a bag, try to and when you're removing it, if it's really embedded and you need help, like, you can seek a physician, they can deal with it. But, yeah, keep the tick, get it tested. You get tested. Even if there's a hint. I would get on antibiotics. A doctor can put antibiotics. It's two weeks. It doesn't affect you, like, long term. Right. You're not worried about the long term, really bad side effects as you are. Lyme disease.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Right. Just so everyone knows. Usually they warn you about tall grasses and in the wooded areas and animals that brush themselves on and off of the limbs of lower trees or whatever to be aware of that. But I guess paintball were you kind of like in a what was that area like?

Sean Gurnsey:

Definitely in the thick of it. It was pretty intense. But even those ticks, they weren't the deer ticks. They're a smaller tick. They actually were really hard to see. They were only the size of a freckle. Really hard to see. So I didn't even notice I had them on until like, 33 hours or whatever the trip back was. It was a long time I had them on me. But, yeah, if you get a tick, just get it checked. There's the lesson.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Excellent advice. That's really great. And so another question here before we let you go, Sean, but what would you say to anyone out there who's struggling with a diagnosis or a health challenge about what it takes to succeed in voice over?

Sean Gurnsey:

I think two things I would say, give yourself more grace than you're giving right now, because you probably need a lot more grace, and you're probably your biggest critic, so stop being so hard on yourself. The second thing that I would say is don't give up so easy. I think probably most people, I think, have to audition, I would say audition 100 times before they get their first job, at minimum. And that's all about practice. You know, practice makes perfect. Well, maybe not perfect, but practice makes better so just keep practicing. Don't give up just because you don't see what you would decide is success. You not giving up is the success.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Persistence, to persevere, to keep going even when you don't feel that you can. I also like the whole idea of just keep auditioning because not everyone will hear back from the client. I don't want to say it's scientifically proven that you will not hear back unless you get hired, but it's pretty much that. The reward is the job. And they often won't get back in touch with you. They're not obligated to unless they really would like to. So just remembering that in the midst of poor health is tricky, right? Like, it's hard for someone who isn't struggling with something, but for someone who already has a lot on their plate, maybe only so much energy to expend in a day or whatever, it might be just a limitation. You have to think like, ‘okay, well, how am I going to manage my time?’ I'm sure that was something that you had to think about with energy control and that did you kind of meter out, how much you could do every day or what did you do?

Sean Gurnsey:

I basically did whatever I could. And then when I started landing jobs, it was like, ‘Okay, let's clear the schedule. Like, there's no auditioning. Like, all energy in on this moment.’ And so for me, it was a little more like that. But again, I had fun during those. Those were kind of energizing moments in the process. So auditioning is great. I have a lot of fun auditioning, especially for character roles. I love character roles. But the jobs are fun. You get to meet new people and you get to act, you get to record, and you get to make money and that's great fun.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Absolutely. And that's the whole aspect of if it makes you happy, you feel alive, you feel like you're doing what you were created to do. Right? Like, in those moments, you're just like, ‘I'm in my booth. This is the best place ever. I love the script I'm reading. I'm reading life into this character. And what I'm doing is actually impacting and affecting other people in most likely a positive way.’ I think that's part of what the great joy of being a voice talent is and responsibility, too. Just thinking back to the Spider-man thing, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ Because I know you're into a lot of characters, so I just put that there. But that's really true. All of it. It feeds into the bigger kind of like you're putting stuff out there that other people are going to engage with. And will it benefit them? Yes or no? And will it benefit you? Right. So often actors like to separate themselves from the work, and they think that it's just the work, it's not me, but I think that it must affect people. What would you say?

Sean Gurnsey:

Yeah, no, I put myself into the work. Even just quick little taglines for ads or whatever, that's still me. And I'm not going to put myself into something that I disagree with fully. That's the way I deal with it. If I see something, I'm like, no, this is not me, then I can glance over it and go to the next one, and it is me. But it's interesting, like you say, doing the thing that I've been made to do. I remember when I was young, like, I never would have in a million years thought about being a voice actor. Like, I probably didn't even know that they existed. And as a kid, I remember getting into trouble for doing voices. Like, I used to, you know, mimic the different characters that I'd see on cartoons. And I was always making people laugh and always talking when I shouldn't be talking and getting put in cubicles, like, oh, the ADHD kid, let's put them in a cubicle. Maybe we can contain them in there, and I'm like, I was in a box. Kind of like what I'm in, making voices to myself. And now I'm looking 30 years down the road and I'm like, there was some training that happened early on, you know, like, maybe maybe this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah, thank you. We're prepared for it. Absolutely.

Sean Gurnsey:

Yea, maybe a little.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah. Well, thank you very much, Sean, for sharing your story. Now, before you go, I would like to give you an opportunity to give people a way to find you online and also how they might get a hold of you.

Sean Gurnsey:

For sure. So you can check me out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, I'm on all of those. You can message me there or you can email me gurnzillacreative (at) gmail.com, or you can check out my website, gurnzillacreative.com. Those are all good ways. You should be able to find me on one.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

I love it. Gurnzilla. That's a fun play on your last name. So very good. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Sean. It was a pleasure to have you here.

Sean Gurnsey:

Thanks so much.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

And that's the way we saw the world through the lens of Voice over this week. Thank you for listening and for giving of your precious time to us here at Voices. We had such a great conversation. I'm sure you agree with Sean Gurnsey and his story of getting Lyme and recovering from it and overcoming it and doing really what he loves and how you can do that, too. So if you like this episode, be sure to share it with your friends. You can tweet it out, you can put it on your Facebook, wherever it is that you like to communicate with others. For Vox talk as your host, I'm Stephanie Ciccarelli. The show is produced by Geoff Bremner. Thank you again for tuning in and we'll see you next week.