In the fall of 1999 I packed up my Toyota corolla and headed out west to follow my dreams! I was nineteen years old, full of hope and promise, determined to live a life I loved. It was worth it to me, to move three thousand miles away from everything I knew to pursue everything I wanted. By summer of 2000 I found myself homeless. Living in my car, determined not to give up, I stuck it out. It was worth it to me to be homeless and continue forth on my journey in life. This was just the beginning of learning to make sacrifices in order to live out the life I had dreamed of.
What is “worth it” to you?
Is being an Artist/Entrepreneur
-Worth being homeless?
-Worth working overnight jobs so that you have your days free to create?
-Worth using all the money you make to produce projects you believe in?
-Worth turning your home into office spaces?
-Worth giving up luxuries to finance making your visions come to life?
These are just a few of the sacrifices I have chosen to make in order to create. When I ask myself if it was worth it, the answer is always ‘yes’.
This subject is particularly close to my heart at the moment, because my husband and business partner John and I have decided to give up our beautiful rent controlled apartment in Los Angeles in order to make another movie. We can’t financially afford both, and something had to give. Our love for filmmaking won in the end, and we are now preparing to live with my sister’s family as we write the script, and go into pre-production. There are moments in your life, when you have to say ‘it’s now or never’. You get one lifetime, and I believe you regret more the things you don’t do, than the things you do. Regret is wasted energy, if you want something you have to “Just Do It”. There is never a perfect moment to jump off the cliff into the unknown. This goes for any endeavor in life, whether you want to open up your own bookstore, coffee shop, start an on-line business, or go back to school. If it’s worth it to you, you must find a way to do it.
For the past four years John and I have made many sacrifices that were “worth it” for us to make our projects. Recently someone asked me how we got funding for “Home Sweet Home”, and the answer is- we make solid financial plans in advance to fund our films. We’d take a job, save the money, and when that job ended, we used that money to create our own films. Besides the money we raised on Kickstarter, John and I took all of our savings account and poured it into that movie. We couldn’t work our side jobs while on location for 28 days, so we had to live off and use our savings for that movie-double whammy. The whole cast and crew took a risk by giving up work to relocate to the middle of nowhere to be a part of that film. On one of our last days of shooting our cinematographer received three phones calls to work on large budget projects and he turned them all down. First it was “In Plain Sight” then “Breaking Bad” and finally the “Avengers”, literally the jobs just got bigger and bigger, and Rick continued to say no. Amazed at his dedication to our movie, I realized this was “worth it” to him.
After completion of principle photography on the film, John and I packed our bags and moved from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Los Angeles, California, in hopes of selling the movie, and moving forward with our careers. I took a waitressing job and supported him while he edited the movie. It was ‘worth it’ to me to take a job I despised in order to give John the full time job of editing.
Beginning the process of creating our live action app game, four of us sat down in our apartment and decided to take a giant leap of faith to embark on that project. Two of our team members decided to hold off on getting survival jobs and used their savings account to make the app their full time job. It was a risk, and the outcome is still unknown, but it was ‘worth it’ to all of us to give up our lives and jobs for a year and dedicate everything to make sure that game came to completion. John and I turned our dining room into an office space and for four months the team would gather there to edit the app. By turning our living space into a workspace we forfeited having a home that was a sanctuary, but it was ‘worth it’ to us.
I believe many stories get whittled down to overnight successes, but I guarantee you most success stories are anything but that!
The creator of Amazon.com Jeff Bezos, decided he wanted to get involved with the internet boom in 1994, and create an online bookstore. With the support of his wife, he quit a well-paying job in NYC. From there the couple flew to Texas, were gifted a car, that Jeff’s wife drove, while he typed a business plan. Once in Seattle they set up shop in a rented two-bedroom house, with extension cords running to the garage. Jeff set up three Sun Micro stations on tables he made out of doors from Home Depot for less than $60 each. On July 16th, 1995, Bezos opened his site to the world. By September it had sales of $20,000 a week. **
Steve Jobs- Creator of Apple attended Reed College, which his parents couldn’t afford so he continued auditing classes at Reed while sleeping on the floor in friends’ dorm rooms, returning Coke bottles for food money, and getting weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna Temple. Auditing means he didn’t get certified credit for those classes. In 1976 a man named Wozniak single-handedly invented the Apple I computer. He showed it to Jobs, who suggested that they sell it. The two teamed up with Ronald Wayne and together they all formed Apple Computer in the garage of Job’s parents in order to sell it. *
From the outside greatness appears unreachable, but in truth, greatness might just be waiting to be discovered in your basement.
I have never been a big fan of the book “The Secret”; I do not believe you can will something into existence with your mind. Hard work, and follow through is the way to will something to happen. Although you must have a positive attitude, and the mindset that if you set out to do something you can accomplish it!
I was recently offered a stand in job on a show in my hometown of Massachusetts. Standing in is the furthest thing from my dream job, but it pays well and I love to be on set. So I relocated my life to this area for a few months with a very specific goal in mind; to save all the money I make and use it to support us and help fund our next feature film. But one important factor in this strategy is to NOT get sucked-in by the money, crew jobs pay well, and before you know it years have gone by and you find yourself making other people’s vision come to life. About two years ago, at the exact same time we were about to start shooting our app game, I got an offer to stand in on the last season of “Breaking Bad”. Trust me it was so tempting to work on one of my favorite shows, and the money was extremely appealing as I was slaving away at a restaurant job, feeling miserable. But after a long pep talk with myself, I turned down the job, and chose to continue forth with my team on the app game. I believe you have to make very strategic decisions when dealing with survival jobs versus your creation jobs.
Do you want to create your own projects? Then you have to set aside the time to DO those things. If it’s “worth it” you will do it.
Spend time with people who uplift you, not tear you down. Being supported is another key element in being able to do what is ‘worth it’ in your life. I have surrounded myself with “Yes” people, we all agree what we are doing is ‘worth it’.
What’s “Worth It” to you? Do you have a story where you made huge sacrifices to secure your dream outcome in life? If what you’re doing isn’t ‘worth it’, then why continue doing it? Stop- reevaluate-refocus and find out what is ‘worth it’ to you! Do it TODAY, don’t wait; you only have one precious lifetime, so spend it wisely!
* Source from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs
** Source from- http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/bez0bio-1