Career Change In Midlife: From News Professional To Voice Actor (VIDEO)

In my experience of documenting professional reinvention, I've found that it's often not really starting over; it's more revisiting a dream deferred. In my own case, filmmaking was something that was always a fantasy. Back in the 80s, I even took some filmmaking courses. But at the time, I had a career in TV News. They liked me, and I liked what I did. It was only after 29 years, and a voluntary buyout, that I reconsidered the professional dream of when I was younger. I decided to make my first dramedy web series, "The Nextnik," about, of course, professional and personal reinvention. One of the big reasons I could do this is because the technology to make movies has become smaller and cheaper. The hard part is thinking of what the film should be about.

One of my co-workers, Bob Hurley, also took a buyout to pursue a dream deferred. When he was 10, he told his guidance counselor that he wanted to be an actor. The counselor was surprised at the nontraditional choice and responded, "Oh. Why don't you be a fireman or policeman?" From that moment, Bob gave up his dream.

After 25 years at ABC News, now at age 53, he has started again as a voice actor. Bob is slowly succeeding and doing it on his terms. How does he do it? Technology. It's made it so he can sit in his home in rural Virginia and be a "voice" of the Orbit Showtime Network in Dubai.

Learn more about Bob's second act as a voice actor in the below video.