How I Got a Paid Apprenticeship With One of the Best Videographers in my City
4 months before getting hired, I had never been paid to make a video.
Video cameras were always intriguing to me. But beyond making skateboarding videos as a kid, I didn’t have any real video production experience until I decided to pursue it full-time in the middle of 2017.
At the outset, all I had was a little Canon T6i (great starter camera) and a vague idea of how the industry worked.…
Advice for Someone Struggling to Find Purpose
Our cave-dwelling ancestors had it much easier than we do.
Their problems and solutions were clear. If their family was hungry, they knew they needed to hunt for food. If they succeeded and ate a fulfilling meal, they were happy and satisfied for the day. End of story.
We, on the other hand, have much more complicated struggles. Many of us in America don’t know what it’s like to literally go…
My First Time Going to Church
Lately I've been deeply fascinated by Jordan Peterson's lecture series on the Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories. This is somewhat surprising to me, because I've been a staunch, disagreeable atheist for as long as I can remember.
In the series of lectures, Peterson points out that religious storytelling has been one of the major constants throughout all of recorded history.…
Some Notes on Haters
"There is only one way to avoid criticism in life: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing."
-Aristotle
Ever since I started vlogging regularly about a month ago, I haven't gotten much public criticism. I've gotten a few "thumbs down" ratings on my videos, but not much more than that.
This lack-of-haters has concerned me. Throughout my life, every time I've made myself vulnerable, stood by…
Narratives are Created Backwards
I've been fascinated by videos since I was 9 years old. I wanted to be a movie director so I used to write stories and scripts during school and rally the neighborhood friends together to direct and film them in the evenings. It makes sense that I'm back into videos 14 years later.
This is my current narrative. I can create a narrative that makes it clear that my "passion" has always been…
Setting Big Goals
I'm a fan of setting very large goals. If you set goals that are out of reach, you might fall short and still end up pretty far. But the problem with overly large goals is that it leaves a big blurry gap between you and the goal.
That's where benchmarks come in. They provide tangible steps that are reverse-engineered to bring you closer to that goal, clarifying the middle ground bit by bit.……
Commit First
Commit first, figure out the details later.
I was reminded of this concept when I recently read Grant Cardone's book, The 10X Rule.
If you wait to figure out the details before you commit to something, you will never commit. The details are never 100% clear. They're always moving, changing and evolving. Instead of trying to grasp them to come to a full understanding before you feel "safe"…
You Don’t Need the Right Tools
I was talking to some photographers a few weeks ago about taking pictures of the eclipse. They had some really good advice about what equipment to use, where to put your settings, and how to capture it correctly in the short timeframe.
To do it right, I'd need to buy a lens that costs about $2500. Since I'm not not ready to drop that on a camera lens for one single 2 minute event right now, I…
Building a Business Day 11: Building a Sales Process
In a previous post I mentioned that one of my biggest priorities for this business is to build a sales process. I explained the sales process from when I ran a painting business, which is the primary example I'm pulling from as I figure this one out.
It takes time to build an entire sales process because you have to flip back and forth between executing the process you currently have (which is…
Building a Business Day 1: Becoming a Generalist
Video production is a craft. Hours of planning and execution go into the visioning, filming, and editing. It takes a team of people, a truck full of equipment, and a detailed plan to produce a high-quality video.
Visioning is the hard part. When I read a book, I get a clear vision of the story in my head. Characters and settings take a defined form and color in my imagination. When I go to the…
Ep 16 – Elisheva Hinkle on What it’s Like to Never Go to School
Unschooling: Learning by living and living by learning.
This is Elisheva's definition of unschooling. Elisheva is a 16-year-old Praxis Participant, musician, entrepreneur, freelancer, and artist. She never went to traditional public school, and when you talk to her you'd be surprised to hear that she's 16 years old.
Like Elisheva, I believe that most kids would be better off not going to…
Painting Houses Taught Me More Than Business Classes
When I was 19, I did a summer internship with a company called Young Entrepreneurs Across America. It was much more like a franchise than an internship though. The company provided training, a trusted brand-name, a supportive office-staff, payroll systems, and marketing materials, and the interns booked and produce house-painting jobs in the field.
It was an incredible experience. I got a…