**This blog post is contains content that is especially relevant to fellow recent graduates… and any members of The X Factor’s The Risk who were tragically voted off the show last week**
1. Becoming a Director takes Perseverance
- Last Thursday I received three job rejections in one day.
- My best friend recently told me that if she was me, she would have “crawled into a black hole” by now.
- Every time I see my Grandparents I prepare for the dreaded question: “So have you got anything more permanent yet?”
Thank goodness for 4Talent, Carve Productions and Disclosure. One piece of great news that I got last week was that I’d be directing a short documentary along with a writer, producer, production assistant, camera op, presenter and editor for a scheme called ‘For 3 Minutes’, helping people like myself to gain production experience and pursue their dreams! It’s part of the Global Entrepreneurship Week 2011, encouraging young entrepreneurs to achieve their goals. Many of the others had also received no after no after no but proved by perseverance that they could get a great gig.
Day 1 began, as all events should, with a 4Talent goodie-bag and an inspirational talk from Toby Mildon. As someone who’s bounced back from being in a coma for two months last year, he knows more than anyone what it is to live life to the full and clarify your desires to help you achieve them. He encouraged us all to have the ‘badass’ mindset to do whatever we want.
With this energy in tow, we were put together in four production teams. We’re all in competition to make the best documentary this week, the winning one going on Channel 4 website! We’re called Twist Productions due to the slight difference in our group: we have two writers. This means that production assistant and I will be doubling as camera operators – eek!
By the end of the day, we had brainstormed-out our idea under the guiding eye of our brilliant entrepreneur mentor Aaron Carty and were totally exhausted. Aside from the many thoughts running through my head about our documentary, I left feeling positive and excited about the future and (cheesey but true) with a lot of self-belief! You’ve just gotta have it to keep filling in those applications at a rubbish time for employment, and us Brits need to remember that!!
Keep Toby’s catch-phrase in mind: JFDI. Just F***ing Do It.
Follow #4TGEW11 for more info.
2. Inspiration can come from anyone… even babies
My babysitting skills were put to the test when I visited my 8 month old cousin who lives in Tanzania, Africa (I know, cool baby huh?!) for a week. Aside from being SUPER cute, he is absolutely curious about everything at the moment and will persevere to reach that object and, most likely, put it in his mouth. I’ve got a great video clip of him in his baby wheels taking several run ups to the onion shelf, getting that little bit further to reaching the onions each time he hits it… eventually, he succeeds.
Now that surely proves that perseverance IS in our human nature.
3. Make every night ‘A Night to Remember’…
I was slightly gutted when The Risk were voted off The X Factor. It was the icing on the cake of getting four job rejections in a week, returning from holiday to rainy England and saying goodbye to my baby cousin (that did actually make me cry…) Spotify tells me that A Night To Remember (The Risk’s last performance song) has since become my ‘Top Track’ (the Shalamar original provides a great kick-start to your day).
However. In true spirit of this blog post, these guys have got the perseverance. All of them had been told ‘no’ at least twice in the competition, they were clearly one of the best acts, and I truly believe that they’ll continue to bounce back.
Derry, if you're reading, can I book you for a gig please? (This will be a night of MC meets orchestra meets Hip Hop dancing...)
I hope you are feeling positive and motivated having read this post. Feel free to share inspirational stories below.
In the words of Aaliyah:
"If at first you don't succeed, dust yourself off and try again."
(Although I think she might be referring more to 'love' on the dance-floor rather than her career-path...)
