Your address will show here +12 34 56 78
Directing, Leadership, Self-Development

19 Attributes You Need to be a Great Film Director

By on

August 8, 2019

- Directing, Leadership, Self-Development

A filmmaker – a great director – is more than a guy or gal who makes a movie.

Regardless of a feature film’s budget, a great director has many admirable qualities. Each director has their own strengths.

Do you possess the qualities of a great director? Where are you weak? Where are you strong? Where and how can you try to improve yourself? We can all work on strengthening our weak areas while further increasing our strengths.

Self-improvement is key to being successful. Those who fail to adapt and grow are always outstripped by their competition.

I wanted to share some attributes that successful people, including leaders, mentors, business owners, and filmmakers, share in common.

(Note: I have an important update at the bottom of this article, so keep reading to the end)

Personal Attributes

1. Stress-Tolerant. A great director can roll with the punches, be cool in a tough situation, and still make the decisions needed while under pressure. They don’t crumble under stress and have healthy stress-coping mechanisms in place.

2. Flexible. A great director is open to new ideas so they can make the best film possible. They don’t turn their nose up at ideas that could make the film better. The director doesn’t always have the right answers and has to rely on many professionals, including actors, crew, and other collaborators to advise him/her.

3. Positive Attitude. Great directors aren’t self-obsessed divas. They’re leaders of a team. Everyone on set looks to him/her to set the standard for behavior. If the director is always gloomy, pessimistic, has low morale, etc., so will everyone else on set.

A great director is mindful of this and sets the example (see ‘leads by example’ below).

4. Uses Time Efficiently. A great director has no time to waste—there’s a movie to be made, and time is money! Great directors understand the value of time and uses it properly. There’s a time for everything. If it’s time to rest, they rest. If it’s time to work hard, they work hard.

They try to maximize the time they have available.

5. Knows How to be Diplomatic. Great directors didn’t get where they are by treating people poorly when they were in a bad mood. Great directors have self-control and can deal with people cordially, even if the situation is frustrating or someone is being unreasonable.

The great director understands that you can’t always take a sledgehammer to an issue and call it a day. Sometimes you need to use more delicate tools; approach people with finesse.

6. Knows When to Speak Up (or Shut Up). This is basically an extension of being diplomatic. Sometimes that thing you really want to say, you don’t say. The great director knows this and exercises restraint in what he or she says.

7. Thinks Outside the Box. The great director doesn’t feel constrained or threatened by others creative ideas/input. Instead he or she uses them to his or her advantage. The great director is willing to try new things and take risks to get great results instead of only okay results.

8. Problem-Solver – Not a Problem Creator. There are those that focus on pointing out problems, often in a complaining manner. They want to be the first ones to point it out but don’t offer any solutions. There are also people who create problems where none need exist. This is counterproductive.

The great director identifies problems before they occur and current problems, but he or she never walks away without offering one or two solutions. The great director is always working to move the team forward one step.

He or she doesn’t unveil a brick wall in the path, only to walk away and tell others, ‘good luck’.

9. Takes Responsibility. The great director understands the distinction between fault and responsibility. He or she understands that everything that goes wrong or right about their film (as the leader of the filmmaking team) will be attributed to the director.

The great director accepts the risk and possible reward, his or her own mistakes, and always works to correct them without blaming others, because it is a waste of time to play the blame game.

Lastly, the great director isn’t afraid to attribute a ‘job well-done’ to members of the team that deserve recognition for their good work.

Relationships & Communication

10. Focuses on Fostering Relationships. The great director got where he or she is because he or she understands that business is largely about relationships. Therefore, the great director spends time building genuine relationships with a variety of people.

He or she networks, meets lots of people, and stays in contact with many of them regularly.

11. Communicates Effectively. The great director understands that communication is absolutely essential to efficient and pleasant working conditions. He or she has spent a lot of time learning these skills and making sure he or she communicates as clearly as possible at all times.

12. Motivates and Inspires. The great director inspires people to give their best effort, even when they aren’t feeling energetic or particularly invested. Their passion is contagious.

13. Creates and Shares a Common Vision. The great director knows that creating a strong vision and sharing that with his cast and crew is important step for inspiring people’s commitment and best work to a film.

The director does this through multiple methods, including doing thorough director prep, creating visual references, and more.

14. Leads by Example. The great director understands that leading teams to make great films requires sacrifice and hard work from everyone, and so he or she does what it takes to set the example of how others should behave.

He or she is always the first one on set, ready to work with coffee in hand, and the last one to leave set.

Storytelling Skills

15. Understands the Filmmaking Fundamentals. The great film director understands why they say, ‘you need to know the rules before you can break them’. Only then can you break the rules in order to get specific, desired results.

If you don’t know why you are breaking a ‘rule’, then you’re just shooting from the hip. You don’t know what you are doing and can’t predict the result. That’s fine on a passion project, but if there’s any money at stake, you should be surer of what result you will get.

Additionally, understanding the fundamentals will help you communicate and work with your crew since you’ll speak their language.

The great director knows many of the great number of storytelling tools at his or her disposal—both the technical and creative. He or she is familiar with them and can mentally flip through that toolbox to make great directorial choices.

However, the great director is always open to new techniques and isn’t afraid to lean on the expertise of the crew.

16. Understands Real Human Behavior. If one doesn’t understand how people react in real life to various events, how can one portray them believably on film? A great director can anticipate how someone might react in a real-world situation and transplant that into the fiction of his story.

Especially if the director is young and relatively inexperienced, he or she tries to experience the world and examine human behavior in order to learn.

17. Understands Film Conventions. It’s not enough to know about how people actually act in reality.

The great director knows that reality is sometimes perceived differently than the equivalent in film, and can adjust how he or she presents events, conversations, and storytelling techniques in order for the audience to see what he/she wants them to see and feel what he/she wants them to feel.

The great director understands various film conventions, from the most broad (genre) to the very specific (grenade explosions in film versus reality).

18. Can Walk in Others’ Shoes. The great director knows how to create believable performances from a variety of characters and perspectives because he or she understands how people tick, and has enough empathy and creativity to put him or herself in others’ shoes.

19. Understands How Humans Learn. The great director understand that film story arcs (and stories in general) mimic the process in which humans learn (deep personal flaw, inciting incident, ensuing struggle, a realization, and finally, change or growth), and applies that to his or her films in order to create believable characters and moving stories.

No one starts out with all these traits / skills / knowledge.

I’d like to add that no director knew all these things when he/she got started—or even many of them.

So don’t freak out. If you don’t possess the above qualities, you can learn them. We all have room to learn and grow.

If you aren’t sure where to start learning and growing, read this article for specific tips that will help you become a movie director.

The process of making films will help you grow as a person and over time you’ll get better at doing it.

Additionally, you should go out of your way to find and spend time around people who have the above qualities. The people you spend time around affect you greatly.

Personally, filmmaking has been one of the best things I’ve ever pursued. Along the way, I’ve learned many life lessons. If you haven’t yet, I’m sure you will! Get out there, learn to be a better Human, and make great films.

UPDATE:

Since the film industry is changing, it is more important than ever that filmmakers that want to direct their own work and make money from it need to understand the following key skill…

Audience building.

For the modern indie filmmaker, knowing how to build an audience is an absolutely essential skill, because the harsh truth is that most people never make it to mainstream Hollywood success. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make work you care about and make money from it.

Filmmakers have always been subject to middlemen in this industry, but affordable equipment and the internet changes that. All the tools are there – we just need to learn how to use them. This involves understanding how to tell stories for a niche audience, build excitement around your content, and design a method for selling your films to your audience.

So if you are interested in learning how to build an audience and make income from your filmmaking work, I personally vouch for the skills taught in the Film Audience Accelerator course by Rob Hardy. If you want to hear my explanation on why this is one of the best set of skills you should learn right now, you can go here.

If you want to skip that, go straight to checking out the Film Audience Accelerator course.

Stay strong and focused, fellow Storyteller.



2
Directing, Writing

5 Story Elements You Need to Make a Great Film

By on

August 2, 2019

- Directing, Writing

What are the bare-bones essentials of a good story?

[Podcast discussion of this topic now available here.]

What makes for a good story? When you start writing a screenplay or other story, you quickly learn that it isn’t as easy as it looks.

There are dozens of books on screenwriting. There are dozens of tips given on how to structure a story, what a story needs, and so on. It’s hard to filter out what matters most.

However, I was recently reading “The Working Film Director” by Charles Wilkinson, and something he said really stuck with me.

This is one of the clearest explanations of good storytelling I’ve ever heard:

“Here’s what Aristotle said about the basics of Western-style storytelling. You need a sympathetic hero on a vital quest against insurmountable obstacles. In addition, the ending needs to be surprising, but inevitable.” (Charles Wilkinson)

I thought about all the books and material I’d read on long-form storytelling and screenplay writing. It all seemed to fit into that neat little sentence.

So if you’re working on a feature film (or maybe a novel or long short film), measuring your story against the above standard is a great start.

Does your story meet all of those elements? If so, is it weak in one area? Could it be strengthened?

So what does it mean to have a “sympathetic hero on a vital quest against insurmountable obstacles”, and to have an ending that is “surprising, but inevitable”?

Let’s break it down.

1. A Sympathetic Hero

Having a ‘save the cat’ moment can help you create a sympathetic character. This ‘save the cat’ term was coined and popularized by writer Blake Snyder.

Here’s what it means. “The “Save the Cat!” beat in any movie, novel, or story is that moment when we meet its hero and he does something “nice” — like save a cat — that makes us like him and want to root for him.” (Blake Snyder)

A sympathetic character is one who may not be ‘good’, but has admirable qualities. They can be respectable or likeable, but at least need to be relatable.

A good example of this is the character Lou Bloom from the film Nightcrawler. As Michael explains in this video, Lou isn’t a good person. He’s exploitative, cold, calculating, and selfish. But he also has admirable, relatable qualities; he’s hard-working, persistent, and clever.

Ultimately, the audience must care what happens to this character, or the stakes, challenges, journey, victory – everything – will be meaningless.

2. A Vital Quest

It’s no joke. There are real stakes to this quest.

This isn’t a lovely trip to get groceries.

Instead, it’s a quest to find a cure for the hero’s dying child. Maybe the cure is at the grocery store pharmacy – but only if there are assassins pursuing the hero, and he has to make it to the pharmacy and back alive with his child’s medicine.

The key thing there is not the hero’s physical danger. It’s the hero’s dying child.

Why?

If this hero is bold and willing to charge into danger to save his child…

Then getting hurt isn’t consequential enough. If he gets hurt – even badly – it’s expected.

Physical consequences aren’t enough.

The emotional stakes have to matter to the main character. The emotional or spiritual consequences of failure must be significant.

If the stakes really matter to the hero, and the audience cares about them (which you did by making them sympathetic earlier), then the audience will care about your stakes.

Again, if the character doesn’t fear death, and no one will be harmed by his death, then his death holds no weight.

Similarly, if your hero is cold as ice (and never changes), and his girlfriend breaking up with him will be the consequence of him failing his quest, then no one will care because the stakes don’t matter.

In the film Dan in Real Life, Dan’s biggest pain is that – despite having 3 daughters and a large family – he is incredibly lonely. His stakes are he risks losing a potential new love if he doesn’t step up to the plate and change his passive behavior.

The bottom line…

If your hero doesn’t care, why should we?

3. Insurmountable Obstacles

It seems impossible for the hero to achieve victory, at least as he is now.

The deck is stacked against the hero. The enemy is too strong, too numerous, and too clever. The hero’s own flaws seriously hamper his ability to achieve victory, most likely due to a moral flaw, lack of courage, or other deeply ingrained weakness.

He is unwilling or unable to make the difficult decisions needed to achieve victory.

Perhaps the hero seems to lack the ability to go on the quest for one reason or another. He’s too weak, too stupid, too poor, crippled, blind, or too broken. Or, the hero doesn’t believe he can or should take on the quest.

There are many ways you can create ‘insurmountable obstacles’. One way to make them tower over your hero is by pitting him or her directly against their greatest weakness.

If your hero is timid and never takes charge, he or she must forced to become a leader at school/work/church/volunteer group.

If your hero is incredibly selfish, he or she must be forced to live a life of pure, selfless servitude for 6 months.

If you hero is a pathological liar, he must be forced to live one day where he can only tell the truth. (This is the plot of Liar, Liar – a great comedy starring Jim Carrey.)

You can get creative with these.

4. Surprising Ending

Ingenuity and creativity sees the hero achieve victory through unusual means, finding help in unexpected places or with unexpected allies.

The hero achieves a spiritual victory, but suffers consequences; perhaps winning the war, but losing the final battle with death, loss, or disfigurement as the price of success.

The damage could be emotional instead of physical.

The hero overcomes a great weakness to accomplish what he otherwise would have found impossible to do. He makes the decision he would have been least likely to make at the beginning of the story, and it wins him the day.

Because the hero’s obstacle was pitted directly against his greatest weakness, it seems unlikely he will succeed. But when he goes against his worst nature, faces his fears, and comes out on top, it’s a pleasant surprise.

5. Inevitable Ending

The ending is logical. It seems obvious after-the-fact that it would end as it did.

Hindsight says there weren’t many other ways it could have turned out. The character’s flaws would have otherwise prevented victory, but his overcoming of them made it plausible for him to succeed. Subsequently, since you made clear in your story what the hero’s goal was, when the hero overcame his flaws, it was clear he had a real shot at winning.

Additionally, since you aren’t throwing random elements into the mix – like a Deus Ex Machina with no setup – this makes your ending seem more inevitable.

A Deus Ex Machina is “is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and seemingly unlikely occurrence” (Wikipedia)

To be clear, a surprising ending can also be inevitable…

Perhaps someone does swoop in to help your hero. But by setting it up clearly earlier in the film, when the audience sees this person swoop in to help win the day, they won’t be left thinking, ‘well, that was random’.

Instead, they’ll be thinking, ‘oh, I see how that worked out – I should have seen that all along’.

Surprising. Yet, inevitable.

This is the tip of the iceberg

I hope these thoughts on what makes a story work are helpful and get you thinking.

Like you, I’m always looking to understand storytelling better every day. It’s difficult to tell a great story!

There are plenty of great resources out there to help learn storytelling. Some of them I recommend in my article on books directors should read.

Get out there, learn, and make great films!

0
Directing, Visual Storytelling

A Breakdown of Why the First & Last Images of a Scene Matter

By on

July 21, 2019

- Directing, Visual Storytelling

Start and end with the images you want your audience to remember.

I’ve told people (inspired by the advice I’ve read) that they should choose snapshots within their films to represent each scene or sequence. That way, as they design their film in prep, they know what is most important in that scene.

Those snapshots represent the information or emotion you think is most important for you to communicate to the audience. It’s a useful way to focus in on what matters most – to filter out noise.

The existence of snapshots, or key images, is a reason why storyboarding is such a great tool. As you create storyboards, you discover what the most important images/information/emotions are (and therefore what you should absolutely make sure you capture while on set).

What do key images have to do with the first and last image of your scene being important? I’ll get there in a moment, I promise.

First and Last Key Images in a Scene

So each scene has key images. Let’s look at a scene from American Psycho.

In American Psycho, there’s a scene where Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) murders a homeless man in an alley.

You can watch the whole scene here:

The key images (which I can almost guarantee are in the storyboard), are:

1. Bateman, silhouetted & emotionally distant, walks down an alleyway. It’s unclear why he’s there but it appears he is only passing through.

2. Bateman notices the homeless man as he passes, and intentionally goes back to the man, who also notices Bateman.

3. Bateman lowers himself to the man’s level and tells the man what his problems are, how he should fix them, and makes a show of trying to connect.

4. The man thanks Bateman for his kindness, grabbing him by the arm. Bateman shows immediate discomfort & disgust.

5. Bateman declares that he has nothing in common with the man. He stands, looking around to ensure no one is watching them.

6. Bateman silently opens his briefcase. The man thanks him. Bateman’s veneer of civility drops as he insults the man and stabs him to death.

7. Bateman grabs his suitcase and casually walks away from the scene of his crime, again a distant, cold shadow.

Of course, films are open to interpretation. Viewers interpret scenes differently based on the subtle creative choices of the director.

As far as what the audience will feel or remember about this scene, obviously the actual content of the whole scene is going to be a determining factor. If in this scene. Bateman just gave the homeless man a few bucks, told him to get his act together and left, that’s going to leave a different impression than him murdering the guy in cold blood.

However, have you ever thought about you start and end your scenes? What first and final impression are you giving your audience about what is important in the scene?

What do you want your audience to remember or feel about this scene?

Here’s what you should consider…

Don’t begin or end your scenes carelessly.

You shouldn’t begin or end your scenes carelessly. The first and final images are impactful.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the idea that people best remember the first and last things that they read. That’s called the serial position effect. I believe this affects what we watch.

When I was in the editing process for my first feature film, one of our Executive Producers gave us some very valuable feedback that amounted to what I’m saying.

He watched one particular scene and paused the film. He asked us, “is that what you want to close out on?” We asked him what he meant. He asked, “is that really what you want people to take away from this scene? What do you want them to remember and dwell on as they move from this scene to the next?”

We hadn’t considered that the bookends (beginning and end) of our scenes would have an outsized effect on the audience as they moved into the next scene. We had ended the scene on something that – frankly – didn’t really matter. It wasn’t what we wanted to communicate to the audience.

We changed the last shot to a closeup of the main character who was dealing with some inner turmoil as that was a better indication of what the scene was all about.

In the above scene from American Psycho, the director starts the scene with a shot that is dark, cold, with Patrick Bateman being nothing but a hollow silhouette. He’s faceless. Just passing through.

He murders a homeless man after he becomes disgusted with him.

Bateman leaves in an even wider, more detached shot. It’s still cold, dark, and Bateman is a more distant silhouette than before. He’s unchanged. Unfeeling.

If the scene would have ended with a closeup of Bateman gazing out at the road, his face completely expressionless, what would that have done to the audience’s last impression of the scene?

Perhaps it would have accomplished the same thing. The audience sees that he is cold and merciless. Maybe. Perhaps viewers would read into his blank expression, laying over it their impression of what they think he is feeling, as viewers often do.

Maybe it would look like Bateman doesn’t care, but the shot is too intimate, and therefore, too personal. It causes the audience to feel closer to Bateman – being a more empathic camera perspective – as opposed to causing the audience to feel disconnected from Bateman, which would suit his serial killer persona better.

Who knows – those images are open to interpretation. The creative choices above are up to the director and his/her creative intent.

But that’s what is important – that you ensure your bookend images are intentional creative choices, not careless coincidences.

So, that’s about it. Think about that.

Next time you’re making/editing a film, think about the bookends of your scenes. Do they represent the impression you want to leave the audience? Or are you selecting those key images carelessly?

I hope that gets you thinking. Until next time – get out there, be productive, and make great films.

0
Self-Development

How to Win the Filmmaking Game by Embracing Discomfort

By on

March 30, 2019

- Self-Development

Some nerdy statistics, first…

Ever heard of the 80/20 principle? (AKA the Pareto principle)

In the past, I’ve explained that there are a small number of tasks you do that create the majority of results for you and why it’s so hard for us to do those things. This is a universal law. You can’t escape it.

So it stands to reason that if you want to be successful, you have to figure out what 20% of tasks get you the most bang for your buck… but how?

How you can tell what you’re doing is worthwhile

A while back, I closed a deal with a non-profit called HEAL (which you should consider supporting, by the way) that provides community and financial support to mothers who are recovering from cancer.

I claim to be a storyteller and all that, but at the time, I hadn’t injected many of those skills into my commercial video production work. (Shame on me!)

This was a problem for me. There are a lot of people who can make nice-looking videos; pretty pixels. I needed a way to differentiate myself.

So, what I did was jump headfirst into learning new story structure techniques, interviewing skills, and completely changing how I look at commercial video.

This took many weeks and no small investment of time and money. It was challenging and it would have been easy to quit halfway through and let other ‘priorities’ take over.

Naturally, after I closed the deal with HEAL, I went about preparing for the interview…

But I made a few radical changes to my usual practice.

First, I sat down and figured out what the story beats were going to be for this interview.

Second, I focused on hitting those important story elements by guiding the interview naturally.

Third, I treated the interview like a genuine conversation, not an interview. My goal was to make the interviewee feel like she wasn’t giving a performance.

Lastly, I didn’t use any notes for my interview. Instead, I memorized a series of images that represented the story beats.

The goal of these techniques was to draw out genuine responses from her. Deeper thoughts on her experience – not the rehearsed answers she’s to giving everyone else.

So the morning of the shoot arrived.

The interviewee walked in, and I started trying to build some rapport with her.

I’d never met this woman before. We’d never even spoken before.

Not only that, but this socially awkward dude (me) was about to…

– Delve deeply into a stranger’s personal and medical life
– By asking her to share a ton of intimate details of her life with a total stranger
– About a heavy and emotional topic
– And using a bunch of techniques I’d never used before (you know how you feel less confident when you’re doing something new?)

Sheesh.

The interview lasted about 45 minutes.

After the interview and she left, I collapsed onto the couch. I was mentally exhausted.

That was incredibly uncomfortable. And painful.

But you know what? I think it’s going to be a great interview. Heck, even if it’s only decent, that’s still a victory, because the experience took me far outside my comfort zone and that’s how you grow. Next time, I’ll do even better.

All of us have different goals. Some may want to direct feature films, some want to make documentaries, and so on.

But one thing that remains consistent is this…

Discomfort can be your compass.

You can use discomfort as a guide for growth, and subsequently the value of the task.

If you naturally flinch away from something, and find excuses to avoid it…

Maybe you should embrace it.

If you aren’t good at talking with people, but that’s a key part of getting good paying clients, and interviewing for their projects…

Maybe you should make yourself do it.

If you would rather stay home rather than go to a networking event (I too, am an introvert), maybe you should just go do it anyway.

If you only ever do the things that don’t challenge you, that you feel comfortable with, chances are you are not growing. This is very bad.

Pretty much everything I’ve ever done that felt like a really big step forward was very challenging, uncomfortable, or outright painful. I may have had apprehension going into it. A feeling that it’d be great just to take the easier path, or just quit altogether.

But I didn’t – and I reaped the rewards of persevering.

This is like the 3rd time I’ve cited this article, because it’s just so good:

“‘Nearly everything that generates enduring value requires effort, focus and discomfort’

– Thomas Oppong

Aspiring [filmmakers] quake in fear when they hear this. Or, they secretly hope that they’re smart enough that these rules apply to everyone else, not them…

The wannabes become real [filmmakers] when they realize the only “secret” they’re missing is the courage to act. They realize that execution is everything. That entrepreneurial discomfort itself can serve as a compass, pointing to the true north of genuine value creation.

And there lies real, concrete success.

To get comfortable with being uncomfortable is as simple as realizing: Discomfort is where the value lies. Follow it and you’re headed in the right direction.”

Remember these things. Embrace them, and you will grow.

What else should you be doing?

You should be making films.

You should be doing things that you find painful and challenging…

And you should be making films. It’s really that simple – though not always that easy.

Get out there and consistently practice your craft. If you want to be a great filmmaker, make films that people enjoy. This will get you noticed.

In order to make films that people enjoy, you need to practice, practice, practice.

Each film is a chance for you to stretch your filmmaking muscles, but also to show off what you can do.

Embrace discomfort. Challenge yourself. Practice making great films by making films and risking failure.

And through it all, remember that “For [filmmakers] especially, becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable gets easier when you realize that the competition vanishes when things get tough. That there’s no traffic on the extra mile.” – Peter Shallard

Let’s make great films, even when it’s tough. I’ll be in the trenches with you.

A method to get outside your comfort zone

One way to get out and practice your craft while challenging yourself is to try filming a scene type you aren’t familiar with, or where your skill is lacking. There are 5 challenging scene types that you could consider practicing.

I go over some common scenes that are deceptively simple but can be powerful tools in your storytelling arsenal if used well.

I find the dinner scene to be particularly interesting. On my first feature film, we had an awful dinner scene that we decided to remove entirely. It just didn’t offer anything of value to the story.

It lacked drama, and instead of revealing things about the characters in an intimate dinner setting, just ate up screen-time. Boring!

Don’t be boring.

“There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness.”

– Frank Capra

Wrapping up…
  • 20% of tasks you do yield 80% of the results according to the Pareto principle.
  • Use discomfort as a compass to what is worth spending your time on.
  • Embrace discomfort! Don’t shy away from challenges. Instead, seek them out if you want to grow and become a great filmmaker.
  • Get out and make films and become a better storyteller with each project.

Learn, grow, create… and have fun, while you’re doing it. Good luck!

0
Self-Development

3 Reasons Filmmakers are Lazy, Shortsighted Time-Wasters (but don’t have to be)

By on

March 30, 2019

- Self-Development

With hard work, we can change. Here’s how.

I’ll tell you a sad story. This is the story of past Nick, who wasted countless hours on things that weren’t that important. This is the story of a lazy, shortsighted time-waster.

The sadder part? He kind of knew he was wasting time. But he was lying to himself. After all, it sure seemed like he was being productive. Past Nick thought, “I want to have a successful production company. Also, I would love nothing better than to be an amazing movie director.”

Suddenly, an amazing thing happened. His wish was so strong, his dream so incredible, that a magical genie appeared and granted him 3 wishes.

(And he did not let Nick wish for more wishes, by the way.)

Nick’s now a millionaire, has every breakfast delivered to his bedside via drone, and is chauffeured every day at a lazy 10am to the set of his 300 million dollar film sets!

…and then he woke up from his dream fantasy.

I want to yell at past Nick, “Oh yeah, do you really want those things? Then stop taking the easy way out, you DOLT!” Because what was past Nick doing?

Well, he wasn’t out hustling, making as many films as he could to gain experience. He wasn’t cold-calling clients or building business relationships. At least, not nearly enough.

He was spending hours and hours and hours building his website. Constant iterations, ‘improvements’, tweaks, feedback, fixes, additions, subtractions… past Nick spent SO much time on his website. Days and days, in between ‘learning filmmaking skills’ by watching endless tutorials and whatnot.

At least, that’s one example of what I spent my time on back then.

If this is you, I urge you to STOP!

But I’m not telling you to stop doing those things at all. Far from it. What I am saying is you need a shift in mindset. And if you make this mindset shift, it will change your life.

I want to tell you 3 very, very important things.

VERY IMPORTANT:

1. Living an illusion of progress. We naturally pick the easiest task in front of us to work on that will make us feel like we are doing something productive

2. Using time inefficiently. Some of those things are beneficial, but we should be focusing the majority of our time on the small number of things that give us the most results. (This is called the 80/20 principle, or the Pareto principle. Basically, 20% of our effort yields 80% of the results.)

3. Picking the easy road and procrastinating. The things that give us the most significant results are very often the things we least want to do. If you think to yourself, “I really don’t want to do this. I’ll do that later”, you are putting it off because it’s important, and therefore difficult to start and push through.

Of course, effective time-management techniques do a world of good, but there’s a reason why everyone struggles with these things.

Why? Well, I’ll tell you a secret.

It’s totally normal. And the reason we do the above things is that everyone you meet has the following three qualities…

THE THREE QUALITIES:

1. Seeks short-term gratification. We all look for things that will satisfy is as soon as possible. (This accounts for being inclined to pick something that makes us feel accomplished today.)

2. Very lazy. We don’t want to do anything that we don’t feel like doing. (This accounts for not doing those tough things we should be doing.)

3. Shortsighted. We don’t sit and think through goals, considering where our time investment will take us in the long-run. (This accounts for not seeing how doing those key 20% tasks will allow us to reap future rewards, and being motivated by that vision.)

Seriously, there’s maybe less than 1% of people who don’t have the above qualities.

Probably not even that. I suspect they’ve learned to fight those weaknesses, not get rid of them altogether.

This is really exciting news though. Why?

It means that what you admire in that person you know (we all know one) who is a total workhorse, gets all the right things done, and has masterful work ethic…

That’s something you can learn.

You can become like them. You can accomplish great things. But you have to stop being a lazy, shortsighted time-waster!

You have to fight the 3 instincts/qualities I mentioned. Being conscious of them is the first step.

You have to focus most of your time on the 20% of tasks that will make you a successful filmmaker, and less time on the 80% that won’t.

Closing notes

What we all do:

1. Pick the easiest task in front of us to feel like we’re being productive.

2. Use time inefficiently – putting it into the wrong things, per the Pareto principle.

3. Procrastinate and avoid the tough stuff.

3 qualities we all have:

1. Seek short-term gratification. This accounts for being inclined to pick something that makes us feel accomplished today, but not in 6 months or a year.

2. Very lazy. This accounts for not doing those tough things we should be doing.

3. Shortsighted. We don’t craft a vision of the future and subsequently lose out on a great motivator.

You ARE past Nick. So, if you really want to achieve your goals, your filmmaking dreams, then “stop taking the easy way out, you DOLT!”

I’ll be right there alongside you, telling myself to do the same.

Adapt. Grow. You can accomplish great things. So do it.

1
PREVIOUS POSTSPage 3 of 8NEXT POSTS