Dont Be afraid to be different
Stop trying to fit in
One of the biggest pitfalls that I experience when working with clients is that they often come to me saying hey can we make our video look like this video or our website look like this website?
In the early stages of running this agency, I used to entertain these thoughts, but every time we try to be someone else it completely backfires. I think this is an important lesson, not only in branding but how we live our lives as humans it's almost like we're living a lie if we're trying to be someone else and to live your life, not an integrity with who you are is basically to live a life in an uphill battle of struggle and shame.
What I tell clients is how about we completely ignore what other people are doing and focus on exactly what excites us the most about our vision and our story and remember who we are to the core. That remembering of who we are to the core is what we ought to strive for which if we do it right will always be better than our competitors because this way we will attract people who are aligned to our truth, as opposed to align to our desperate desire to copy someone else who's a leader.
If you look at the best businesses in the world, such as Tesla or Apple, you'll see that what made them stand out is that they didn't bother to copy anyone else and instead did what they thought was best.
Do it for you
If you read Rick Ruben's book the creative act you'll quickly learn that the best art doesn't need approval from an audience and is not created for any sort of praise or recognition. I think it's not unreasonable to think that a lot of artists dream of winning an Oscar or an Emmy or some kind of award for their work, but I would expect that most artists who do win these awards are winning them as a result of them following their core passions and not the awards.
Money follows art
I learned this in an interesting way in the early parts of my career, where I was desperate for money, but I wasn't trying to necessarily make content that made me money instead I was just making content that I really liked which then got me recognition because some of it went viral, and then the money followed. I think this one rule is something that I often tell young Filmmaker and artists. It's more important to follow your passion to follow the money. By following your passion the money will find you.
History informs the future
Often I feel like we can be stuck in life and not know where we're headed next forgetting who we are and thinking that we need to be someone else. In these moments of stuckness, I think it's most important to remember where we came from in order to inform where we're going. When people have an identity crisis or think they need to do who they are I think it can cause a lot of struggle. And these moments of struggle often these people forget just who they are and where they came from. I don't think you can go wrong when you look backwards in order to find your answers.
For me, this comes in, knowing that as a child, I used to make action movies after school. I would build my own computer, computers and websites. I would make hip-hop music with friends, and I would often break the rules in order to innovate and find an edge against the norm. If you look at who I am today and how I run my business I think it's safe to say that I haven't changed much. Knowing who I was as a kid allows me to feel more confident into who I am in my day-to-day present just as long as I'm not trying to be someone else who is probably successful because they are continuing to be who they were as a kid.
