June 15, 2023 • 15 mins
Fresh from the Lighthouse International Film Festival (at the Jersey beach!!), for the premiere of my short film How to Pack Up Your Life in One Day, and still dizzy from the red carpets, the phenomenal filmmakers, the profound screenings.
I've been thinking how these moments of celebration - our crew gathering, our friends thrilled, an audience applauding - are such highs in the journey.
Such an external reminder that the work is good, that it matters, that it belongs.
But what do you know in between?
How do you celebrate all the unseen work - the submissions to festivals, the revising of scripts, the long nights editing, the hours of practice?
I have some ideas.
And one especially goofy one that I hope delights you, and inspires you.
x
Come check out the Hot Mess series on TikTok, and watch as I lose my mind - and find it again - writing, producing, and acting in a show!
#CreatingIsHealing🦋
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi my friends. Uh, welcome back to the podcast. I
feel like I'm the one welcomingmyself back. Hopefully you
never left. It's , uh, beenmore time of medical stuff,
which we'll skip over entirelyand talk about how I just came
from a film festival, which wasamazing , uh, short film that
(00:20):
my dear friend Albert Beta andI made together called How to
Pack Up Your Life in One Day,which was very much inspired by
my own experience of leavingBrooklyn after 15 years and
getting a secondhand car anddriving out into the world to
try out different cities andfigure out where felt like home
next. And we shot it in one dayin my apartment. It was half
(00:44):
packed, mostly empty. Webrought in a really brilliant ,
uh, cinematographer and a jackof all trades , uh, lighting
designer. And uh , anyway, thisbeautiful four minute poem of a
film. Got into the LighthouseInternational Film Festival out
on Long Beach Island, NewJersey, one of the best
festivals, just the bestpeople, the best programming,
(01:07):
the best parties like thisbeach vibe, you're literally on
the ocean. Um, they bring inreally phenomenal programming
from South by Southwest andKhan and Sundance that they
have recently seen. They bringa lot of New York filmmakers
who get to travel out causeit's not that far from New York
City. Anyway, I could raveabout it. What I'm actually
here to talk about is all thebehind the scenes blood, sweat,
(01:31):
and tears, and also successesthat build up to the ones that
everybody gets to see. Youknow, going to a film festival,
it's a , it's a photo opbonanza . Like that's literally
the whole point is you wear apretty dress or a nice suit or
whatever your fancy is and yougo in front of what they call a
step and repeat , right? Whichis this , um, sheet with all
(01:52):
the logos of the festival or ifit's, you know, for an ABC
network it'll have all thoselogos behind you. And so you're
very much promoting thefestival and yourself and, and
you give interviews and youtalk about why this, you know,
film mattered to you and it'svery public and you get to
celebrate with your friends whoare all excited for you and you
get to show the trailer and theposter and blah, blah blah
(02:13):
blah. It was so much fun. Andit's interesting cuz I've been
knocking around this idea forthis episode , um, in my head
for a while and it's about theopposite. Um, you guys know
that if you've been listening,I am a huge fan of stickers to
the point where I think I knowevery single dollar Ramma , um,
(02:34):
in uh, Montreal wheremy aunt lives. Cause I spent a
month there in May. And I justlove going to dollar stores and
seeing what kind of stickercollection they have,
especially when things arerough and I'm kind of pushing
myself to get stuff , uh,sorted. I, I use them mostly
for journaling actually. I do alot of inner work and it's very
(02:54):
uncomfortable and it's hard andit's very invisible. And so
when I'm particularly gnawingat something that is an old
belief system that's notserving me, that is a
resistance that I wish was notholding me back. And I'm doing
the work of sorting that out.
Um, and I just feel icky cuz Ispent time with it. I will put
(03:16):
stickers all over that writingbecause I want my brain to
associate reward and excitementand pride with the thing that I
did. And this kind of escalatedrecently and I had to share
this story cause I think it'sabsolutely hilarious. Um, also
if you've been hanging out withme, you probably know that I've
been in physical therapy a lot.
(03:36):
I have some medical stuff and Iget a lot of chronic
tendonitis. Um, and I had it inmy hip really badly. And then
my ankle really badly. Like Ithought I broke my ankle, it
was that bad. Or I torn theligament in the achilles heel
turn out . I hadn't, which wasreally good. But I found this
really phenomenal app online ,uh, that has now shut down much
(03:57):
to my chagrin that allowed forremote physical therapy, which
was fantastic cuz I was drivingand I was paying out of pocket.
But it was really affordable,which was also amazing cuz if
you've been to physicaltherapy, usually your insurance
lets you go six times and it'susually 50 bucks a pop for a
copay . Um, which is a lot ofmoney. But on top of which six
(04:18):
sessions is not really enough,they kind of are like, cool, I
guess you're better. Go flylittle bird . And I'm
always like , uh, I mean I feelbetter now, but I don't know
how to like live in the worldwith this chronic thing that
keeps breaking and I'm justgonna be back, which is what
happened. Every six months I'llbe back with something else
that was strained. And I justwasn't learning how to be in
(04:39):
the world with my body in theway that it needs to be. And
this was like a huge source offrustration and anxiety and
sadness. And I just kind ofstopped doing stuff cause I was
so afraid of what else wasgonna, wasn't gonna break, but
what else was gonna flare up somuch that it felt broken. And
so the gift of this onlinephysical therapy is that I
could renew every month. And soI ended up spending six months
(05:01):
with this physical therapist.
We would check in once a monthand then she would upload
exercises to this app and Iwould know what I needed to do
and we would talk about, youknow, how my strength was going
and how my stability was goingand give me new stuff. And she
was brilliant. So every time wetalked I would take all these
notes about how to really knowwhen my body's doing well and
when it's not, and how to , um,how to really maintain and
(05:22):
build on what I was learningwith her. And so at the end of
six months, the app wasshutting down. So she said,
well, you're graduated. And Iwas like, well, am I, or is
this one of those well,you're no longer gonna be, you
know, working for this companyand we can't treat you so
congratulations, which kind ofdoesn't feel right. And um, I
(05:42):
ended up going to Costa Ricaactually , uh, in late April
and found out that I could do aton of things that I didn't
think I could do, like swimmingfor an hour and , um, hiking
and zip lining . And it wasabsolutely fantastic. And I
came back and I was like, oh, Iunderstand now. I can feel my
body is stronger. Um, but Istill had this incredible
doubt, you know, like even whenI was swimming at a certain
(06:03):
point my ankle started toreally hurt. And I said, okay,
now I know that's too much.
This is when I rest, this iswhen I go back. But my body
still needs to keep gettingstronger and maintaining and
there's a lot of joints. So ifyou get joint pain , uh, in
different places, I'm like , Idon't know what the full body
PT experience is and I justkind of want someone on
retainer is my dream. Anyway,that wasn't gonna happen. So we
(06:26):
agreed that I was graduatingand I was like, I'm really
trepidatious. And what I saidto her was, it kind of feels
like you're, you know, pushingme out of the nest and saying
fly little bird and like,you're gonna be okay. And I'm
like, I don't know that I'mgonna be okay. I, I feel having
spent six months with her, thatI had learned so much more and
I knew better , um, how to notneed sort of as much specific
(06:48):
physical therapy tends to beyou're injured, you wanna get
to zero. And then once you'reout of that you can go maybe to
yoga or Pilates or Tai chi orsomething that's more
functional movement and thattends to work most of your
muscles. And so , and yourjoints and, and that kind of
keeps you functioning was theidea. Um, but I I likened it
too. Um, when kids graduate,graduate from kindergarten to
(07:11):
first grade and there's often aceremony and you know, the
little kid gets to walk acrossthe stage from their group of
kindergartners and be greetedby first graders. And maybe
they were cap and gown , maybethis is more middle school, but
I was just imaginingkindergartner who is, you know,
there's like nothing differentbetween where you are now and
where you are going except theceremony of being told you are
(07:34):
in big girl panties now.
Congratulations. And I waslike, this is how I feel. And,
and for some reason it made mekind of like chuckle and
realize like, that is how yougrow. Like you have to leave
behind the thing that you wereat and trust enough that you're
going to be in this new thingand you're gonna feel like you
don't know what the hell'shappening and you're gonna
learn as you grow and get moreresources and you know, get
(07:54):
smarter and and stronger. Andso I was kidding around and
talking about how much I wanteda trophy for like a
little award that said that Ihad graduated and oh my
goodness, I didn't bring thetrophy. Um, I'll have to put a
picture up, but I , uh, I wentto a trophy store in Montreal ,
(08:18):
um, and I got the mostadorable, most silly trophy of
this like star with like a facein it and a little graduation
cap and just kind of like, youknow, jazz hands. And there was
three lines of engraving roomfor, and I said , um, I needed
to say like PT graduation. And he did. And I was
(08:41):
like, you know , I'm getting itfor a friend. It's kind of a
joke thing. It's supposed to bekind of funny. He goes, okay.
Um, and I got this trophy madeand I brought it home and you
know, it was like $11. It wassuper affordable, but it was
this thing of I have busted mybutt over six months, not just
doing the work. Which isn'tthat hard. It's all of my fear
(09:02):
of getting injured again. It'sall my fear, like, can I ever
be healthy? It's like years ofgoing to physical therapist who
told me that if something hurt,it was my body's problem
because my body, no one elsefelt pain when they did that
same exercise. Like there'sjust so much in my brain , um,
having to do with exercise andmoving my body. And so every
time I come up to a new thingof learning how to move my
(09:24):
body, I have to clean all thatup, not just fight through it
cuz like, I don't wanna whiteknuckle anything anymore, but
sit with it, learn from it, goback through it and decide how
I wanna feel differently. Andit's not fun, it's just
swimming through a swamp. Um,and I'd done all that work and,
and I was being pushed outtathe nest and told I was gonna
be okay. And I was like, Idon't know that that's true.
(09:47):
And so I was like, I want alittle trophy. And I got myself
a trophy guys, and it'shilarious and adorable and I
told a bunch of friends aboutit and I absolutely need to put
it up on Instagram because itneeds to be seen by the world.
And it's another one of thosethings that is so goofy, but
also so freaking importantbecause what I think we don't
do enough is celebrate theunseen work. You know, going
(10:07):
back to the film festival, whenyour film gets to screen
somewhere or when you win anaward for being an actor or you
win an award for making a thingor an Oscar or whatever, that's
absolutely incredible highlightof your life. Love it. And that
is built on so many othermoments of trying stuff and
failing and getting your heartbroken and , um, submitting,
ugh , this is my other trophystory that I also freaking
(10:29):
love. About five years agothere was a pilot competition
for a TV show. And it was thetime when TV pilots weren't
really a thing that you couldsubmit. It was either a short
film script or feature film.
And I was really excited and Iwas just starting to pivot into
writing pilots. And I had thisreally cool idea for a pilot
and I'd never written onebefore and I wasn't sure I
could finish it. And thedeadline was freaking me out.
(10:52):
And I decided if I finishedthis script and submitted it,
that I would get a trophy . I went online to
Amazon and I found this trophyof this like Hulk character who
was, you know , uh, rippingthrough their clothes and just
muzzling up and just like doingthis really incredible work
that looked painful of likegrowing into the next version
(11:12):
of themselves. And I was like,that's the trophy I'm getting.
And I finished that thing, Iwas up all night. Uh, it took
way longer than I thought. Itwas so scary and so hard and I
submitted it and nothing cameof it in the sense it didn't
get advanced in thatcompetition. I've since
retooled it and worked it andyou know, it's something that I
pitched. But to me, thegreatest joy and the greatest
(11:35):
threshold to cross was actuallyfinishing it and putting it out
there, submitting it to afestival. And once you click
submit, there's like nothing toshow that you did all this
work. You know, so much ofcreativity, well, depends on
what you do, right? If you're apainter, you got a painting to
show. If you're a filmmaker ,you got a film show. But even a
film is usually what, fiveyears of development and then
(11:56):
five weeks of shooting and thena year of posts. There's so
many steps along the way. Ifyou only celebrate that one
time when it gets seen in theworld, you know, opening night
or something, it's really hardto stay proud of yourself and
excited and feel accomplishedalong the way. And I think we
all need that sense of prideand accomplishment. Like, I
have done something and it washard and I don't have anything
(12:17):
external to show for it, but Idid it. So I'm a really big fan
of literally rewarding yourselffor stuff that you, and this is
a cool thing. You get to decidewhat's hard for you for someone
else physical. I have a lot offriends who've gotten injured
lately, and to them physicaltherapy is just the thing they
do. They have like no qualmsabout it. They're like, no ,
yeah, I'm gonna do it like fivetimes a day, whatever. And I'm
(12:38):
like, I have so much resistanceand anxiety and fear and panic
and blah , blah , blah when itcomes to this stuff. Even
though the actual exercise isnot hard. I have all this
mental work that I need toclean up in terms of how I
relate to my body, how I listento it, how I, how I honor what
it's telling me, how I letmyself be an expert in my body
(12:59):
rather than someone else,rather than looking to someone
else to know more than me.
There's such a learning curve.
And to have done all of thatwork and then just be in the
world like it wasn't enough.
And I was like, I needsomething that shows I did this
thing and I'm ready for thenext thing. And so I wanted to
talk today about un celebratingthe unseen about all the
(13:22):
moments in time where eitheryou submitted a script to 10
different festivals, you know,and, and that was really hard
to keep going and you've gottaknow from each of them, but god
you sent it out there. Youknow, or um, you auditioned a
ton or you, I don't know, evenlike networking can be hard.
Maybe you went to fivenetworking parties and you're
like, oh my God, I talked tostrangers and I told 'em what I
(13:44):
do. And right. Everyone's gottheir own thing. Everyone's got
their own thing and there arethings that come easy to some
of us and there are things thatare just terrifying and hard to
others. Like it's just, andthat's the beauty of it. What
you get to celebrate, youdecide and how you celebrate.
You decide you can makeyourself a a card that's like,
congrats you . Like Iknow I'm a goofball, but this
(14:05):
works. Like everything youlearned about first grade , um,
reward systems, totally a nap.
Excellent reward,snack, excellent reward. A
really cute card that'shomemade stickers the most
brilliant reward, right? Alsoknow what your brain lights up
with. Freaking love stickers. Ifind trophies adorable and
hilarious and anything that canmake me laugh about something
(14:27):
that was hard, I love, I thinkthis is another way that you
can express your creativity.
How can you , um, celebrate thework that you've put into
something that maybe no onewill ever know about and no one
will ever see? And it wasreally important to you that
you showed up and you did thiswork. And I think the reason
this is so important is youwanna wire your brain to really
(14:50):
internally
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Get that dopamine hit. If I did this thing, it
was hard and I'm really proudof myself because so much of
any career is built on doingthings that make you proud and
that's how you have the bestsense of staying true to
yourself and honoring yourvalues and your alignment and
your creativity is knowing howto be proud of yourself. And we
(15:13):
have to wire ourselves for thatcuz we are built to look
externally for pride, to lookexternally for validation,
especially when we're artists,right? So practicing that in
small ways, practicing,celebrating the hard work that
doesn't necessarily produce thefinal product, but god needs to
happen so you can get to thefinal product. That's what I'm
here for. So if any of youstickers, trophies, an app , I
(15:37):
would love to see and celebratewith you. Thank you for joining
me today. Take care guys.
Hi my friends. Uh, welcome back to the podcast. I
feel like I'm the one welcomingmyself back. Hopefully you
never left. It's , uh, beenmore time of medical stuff,
which we'll skip over entirelyand talk about how I just came
from a film festival, which wasamazing , uh, short film that
(00:20):
my dear friend Albert Beta andI made together called How to
Pack Up Your Life in One Day,which was very much inspired by
my own experience of leavingBrooklyn after 15 years and
getting a secondhand car anddriving out into the world to
try out different cities andfigure out where felt like home
next. And we shot it in one dayin my apartment. It was half
(00:44):
packed, mostly empty. Webrought in a really brilliant ,
uh, cinematographer and a jackof all trades , uh, lighting
designer. And uh , anyway, thisbeautiful four minute poem of a
film. Got into the LighthouseInternational Film Festival out
on Long Beach Island, NewJersey, one of the best
festivals, just the bestpeople, the best programming,
(01:07):
the best parties like thisbeach vibe, you're literally on
the ocean. Um, they bring inreally phenomenal programming
from South by Southwest andKhan and Sundance that they
have recently seen. They bringa lot of New York filmmakers
who get to travel out causeit's not that far from New York
City. Anyway, I could raveabout it. What I'm actually
here to talk about is all thebehind the scenes blood, sweat,
(01:31):
and tears, and also successesthat build up to the ones that
everybody gets to see. Youknow, going to a film festival,
it's a , it's a photo opbonanza . Like that's literally
the whole point is you wear apretty dress or a nice suit or
whatever your fancy is and yougo in front of what they call a
step and repeat , right? Whichis this , um, sheet with all
(01:52):
the logos of the festival or ifit's, you know, for an ABC
network it'll have all thoselogos behind you. And so you're
very much promoting thefestival and yourself and, and
you give interviews and youtalk about why this, you know,
film mattered to you and it'svery public and you get to
celebrate with your friends whoare all excited for you and you
get to show the trailer and theposter and blah, blah blah
(02:13):
blah. It was so much fun. Andit's interesting cuz I've been
knocking around this idea forthis episode , um, in my head
for a while and it's about theopposite. Um, you guys know
that if you've been listening,I am a huge fan of stickers to
the point where I think I knowevery single dollar Ramma , um,
(02:34):
in uh,
month there in May. And I justlove going to dollar stores and
seeing what kind of stickercollection they have,
especially when things arerough and I'm kind of pushing
myself to get stuff , uh,sorted. I, I use them mostly
for journaling actually. I do alot of inner work and it's very
(02:54):
uncomfortable and it's hard andit's very invisible. And so
when I'm particularly gnawingat something that is an old
belief system that's notserving me, that is a
resistance that I wish was notholding me back. And I'm doing
the work of sorting that out.
Um, and I just feel icky cuz Ispent time with it. I will put
(03:16):
stickers all over that writingbecause I want my brain to
associate reward and excitementand pride with the thing that I
did. And this kind of escalatedrecently and I had to share
this story cause I think it'sabsolutely hilarious. Um, also
if you've been hanging out withme, you probably know that I've
been in physical therapy a lot.
(03:36):
I have some medical stuff and Iget a lot of chronic
tendonitis. Um, and I had it inmy hip really badly. And then
my ankle really badly. Like Ithought I broke my ankle, it
was that bad. Or I torn theligament in the achilles heel
turn out . I hadn't, which wasreally good. But I found this
really phenomenal app online ,uh, that has now shut down much
(03:57):
to my chagrin that allowed forremote physical therapy, which
was fantastic cuz I was drivingand I was paying out of pocket.
But it was really affordable,which was also amazing cuz if
you've been to physicaltherapy, usually your insurance
lets you go six times and it'susually 50 bucks a pop for a
copay . Um, which is a lot ofmoney. But on top of which six
(04:18):
sessions is not really enough,they kind of are like, cool, I
guess you're better. Go flylittle bird
always like , uh, I mean I feelbetter now, but I don't know
how to like live in the worldwith this chronic thing that
keeps breaking and I'm justgonna be back, which is what
happened. Every six months I'llbe back with something else
that was strained. And I justwasn't learning how to be in
(04:39):
the world with my body in theway that it needs to be. And
this was like a huge source offrustration and anxiety and
sadness. And I just kind ofstopped doing stuff cause I was
so afraid of what else wasgonna, wasn't gonna break, but
what else was gonna flare up somuch that it felt broken. And
so the gift of this onlinephysical therapy is that I
could renew every month. And soI ended up spending six months
(05:01):
with this physical therapist.
We would check in once a monthand then she would upload
exercises to this app and Iwould know what I needed to do
and we would talk about, youknow, how my strength was going
and how my stability was goingand give me new stuff. And she
was brilliant. So every time wetalked I would take all these
notes about how to really knowwhen my body's doing well and
when it's not, and how to , um,how to really maintain and
(05:22):
build on what I was learningwith her. And so at the end of
six months, the app wasshutting down. So she said,
well, you're graduated. And Iwas like, well, am I, or is
this one of those well
know, working for this companyand we can't treat you so
congratulations, which kind ofdoesn't feel right. And um, I
(05:42):
ended up going to Costa Ricaactually , uh, in late April
and found out that I could do aton of things that I didn't
think I could do, like swimmingfor an hour and , um, hiking
and zip lining . And it wasabsolutely fantastic. And I
came back and I was like, oh, Iunderstand now. I can feel my
body is stronger. Um, but Istill had this incredible
doubt, you know, like even whenI was swimming at a certain
(06:03):
point my ankle started toreally hurt. And I said, okay,
now I know that's too much.
This is when I rest, this iswhen I go back. But my body
still needs to keep gettingstronger and maintaining and
there's a lot of joints. So ifyou get joint pain , uh, in
different places, I'm like , Idon't know what the full body
PT experience is and I justkind of want someone on
retainer is my dream. Anyway,that wasn't gonna happen. So we
(06:26):
agreed that I was graduatingand I was like, I'm really
trepidatious. And what I saidto her was, it kind of feels
like you're, you know, pushingme out of the nest and saying
fly little bird and like,you're gonna be okay. And I'm
like, I don't know that I'mgonna be okay. I, I feel having
spent six months with her, thatI had learned so much more and
I knew better , um, how to notneed sort of as much specific
(06:48):
physical therapy tends to beyou're injured, you wanna get
to zero. And then once you'reout of that you can go maybe to
yoga or Pilates or Tai chi orsomething that's more
functional movement and thattends to work most of your
muscles. And so , and yourjoints and, and that kind of
keeps you functioning was theidea. Um, but I I likened it
too. Um, when kids graduate,graduate from kindergarten to
(07:11):
first grade and there's often aceremony and you know, the
little kid gets to walk acrossthe stage from their group of
kindergartners and be greetedby first graders. And maybe
they were cap and gown , maybethis is more middle school, but
I was just imaginingkindergartner who is, you know,
there's like nothing differentbetween where you are now and
where you are going except theceremony of being told you are
(07:34):
in big girl panties now.
Congratulations. And I waslike, this is how I feel. And,
and for some reason it made mekind of like chuckle and
realize like, that is how yougrow. Like you have to leave
behind the thing that you wereat and trust enough that you're
going to be in this new thingand you're gonna feel like you
don't know what the hell'shappening and you're gonna
learn as you grow and get moreresources and you know, get
(07:54):
smarter and and stronger. Andso I was kidding around and
talking about how much I wanteda trophy
little award that said that Ihad graduated and oh my
goodness, I didn't bring thetrophy. Um, I'll have to put a
picture up, but I , uh, I wentto a trophy store in Montreal ,
(08:18):
um, and I got the mostadorable, most silly trophy of
this like star with like a facein it and a little graduation
cap and just kind of like, youknow, jazz hands. And there was
three lines of engraving roomfor, and I said , um, I needed
to say like PT graduation
(08:41):
like, you know , I'm getting itfor a friend. It's kind of a
joke thing. It's supposed to bekind of funny. He goes, okay.
Um, and I got this trophy madeand I brought it home and you
know, it was like $11. It wassuper affordable, but it was
this thing of I have busted mybutt over six months, not just
doing the work. Which isn'tthat hard. It's all of my fear
(09:02):
of getting injured again. It'sall my fear, like, can I ever
be healthy? It's like years ofgoing to physical therapist who
told me that if something hurt,it was my body's problem
because my body, no one elsefelt pain when they did that
same exercise. Like there'sjust so much in my brain , um,
having to do with exercise andmoving my body. And so every
time I come up to a new thingof learning how to move my
(09:24):
body, I have to clean all thatup, not just fight through it
cuz like, I don't wanna whiteknuckle anything anymore, but
sit with it, learn from it, goback through it and decide how
I wanna feel differently. Andit's not fun, it's just
swimming through a swamp. Um,and I'd done all that work and,
and I was being pushed outtathe nest and told I was gonna
be okay. And I was like, Idon't know that that's true.
(09:47):
And so I was like, I want alittle trophy. And I got myself
a trophy guys, and it'shilarious and adorable and I
told a bunch of friends aboutit and I absolutely need to put
it up on Instagram because itneeds to be seen by the world.
And it's another one of thosethings that is so goofy, but
also so freaking importantbecause what I think we don't
do enough is celebrate theunseen work. You know, going
(10:07):
back to the film festival, whenyour film gets to screen
somewhere or when you win anaward for being an actor or you
win an award for making a thingor an Oscar or whatever, that's
absolutely incredible highlightof your life. Love it. And that
is built on so many othermoments of trying stuff and
failing and getting your heartbroken and , um, submitting,
ugh , this is my other trophystory that I also freaking
(10:29):
love. About five years agothere was a pilot competition
for a TV show. And it was thetime when TV pilots weren't
really a thing that you couldsubmit. It was either a short
film script or feature film.
And I was really excited and Iwas just starting to pivot into
writing pilots. And I had thisreally cool idea for a pilot
and I'd never written onebefore and I wasn't sure I
could finish it. And thedeadline was freaking me out.
(10:52):
And I decided if I finishedthis script and submitted it,
that I would get a trophy
Amazon and I found this trophyof this like Hulk character who
was, you know , uh, rippingthrough their clothes and just
muzzling up and just like doingthis really incredible work
that looked painful of likegrowing into the next version
(11:12):
of themselves. And I was like,that's the trophy I'm getting.
And I finished that thing, Iwas up all night. Uh, it took
way longer than I thought. Itwas so scary and so hard and I
submitted it and nothing cameof it in the sense it didn't
get advanced in thatcompetition. I've since
retooled it and worked it andyou know, it's something that I
pitched. But to me, thegreatest joy and the greatest
(11:35):
threshold to cross was actuallyfinishing it and putting it out
there, submitting it to afestival. And once you click
submit, there's like nothing toshow that you did all this
work. You know, so much ofcreativity, well, depends on
what you do, right? If you're apainter, you got a painting to
show. If you're a filmmaker ,you got a film show. But even a
film is usually what, fiveyears of development and then
(11:56):
five weeks of shooting and thena year of posts. There's so
many steps along the way. Ifyou only celebrate that one
time when it gets seen in theworld, you know, opening night
or something, it's really hardto stay proud of yourself and
excited and feel accomplishedalong the way. And I think we
all need that sense of prideand accomplishment. Like, I
have done something and it washard and I don't have anything
(12:17):
external to show for it, but Idid it. So I'm a really big fan
of literally rewarding yourselffor stuff that you, and this is
a cool thing. You get to decidewhat's hard for you for someone
else physical. I have a lot offriends who've gotten injured
lately, and to them physicaltherapy is just the thing they
do. They have like no qualmsabout it. They're like, no ,
yeah, I'm gonna do it like fivetimes a day, whatever. And I'm
(12:38):
like, I have so much resistanceand anxiety and fear and panic
and blah , blah , blah when itcomes to this stuff. Even
though the actual exercise isnot hard. I have all this
mental work that I need toclean up in terms of how I
relate to my body, how I listento it, how I, how I honor what
it's telling me, how I letmyself be an expert in my body
(12:59):
rather than someone else,rather than looking to someone
else to know more than me.
There's such a learning curve.
And to have done all of thatwork and then just be in the
world like it wasn't enough.
And I was like, I needsomething that shows I did this
thing and I'm ready for thenext thing. And so I wanted to
talk today about un celebratingthe unseen about all the
(13:22):
moments in time where eitheryou submitted a script to 10
different festivals, you know,and, and that was really hard
to keep going and you've gottaknow from each of them, but god
you sent it out there. Youknow, or um, you auditioned a
ton or you, I don't know, evenlike networking can be hard.
Maybe you went to fivenetworking parties and you're
like, oh my God, I talked tostrangers and I told 'em what I
(13:44):
do. And right. Everyone's gottheir own thing. Everyone's got
their own thing and there arethings that come easy to some
of us and there are things thatare just terrifying and hard to
others. Like it's just, andthat's the beauty of it. What
you get to celebrate, youdecide and how you celebrate.
You decide you can makeyourself a a card that's like,
congrats you
(14:05):
works. Like everything youlearned about first grade , um,
reward systems, totally a nap.
Excellent reward,
really cute card that'shomemade stickers the most
brilliant reward, right? Alsoknow what your brain lights up
with. Freaking love stickers. Ifind trophies adorable and
hilarious and anything that canmake me laugh about something
(14:27):
that was hard, I love, I thinkthis is another way that you
can express your creativity.
How can you , um, celebrate thework that you've put into
something that maybe no onewill ever know about and no one
will ever see? And it wasreally important to you that
you showed up and you did thiswork. And I think the reason
this is so important is youwanna wire your brain to really
(14:50):
internally
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Get that dopamine hit. If I did this thing, it
was hard and I'm really proudof myself because so much of
any career is built on doingthings that make you proud and
that's how you have the bestsense of staying true to
yourself and honoring yourvalues and your alignment and
your creativity is knowing howto be proud of yourself. And we
(15:13):
have to wire ourselves for thatcuz we are built to look
externally for pride, to lookexternally for validation,
especially when we're artists,right? So practicing that in
small ways, practicing,celebrating the hard work that
doesn't necessarily produce thefinal product, but god needs to
happen so you can get to thefinal product. That's what I'm
here for. So if any of youstickers, trophies, an app , I
(15:37):
would love to see and celebratewith you. Thank you for joining
me today. Take care guys.
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