Stay Away From Dream Leeches!

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There is fear in almost everything at one time or another, especially for the first time you do something. So many times people are hesitating to move forward with an idea or a project because they are fearful of the journey.

People come to me all the time passing ideas through me, getting opinions, asking me to even speak up for them, and they often come to me to learn how to make their dreams a reality; however, only a few have moved forward with their dreams. It’s not that the passion is not there, because the passion is always there, but somewhere in the line up for action, fear jumps in, especially when I say, let’s go and do it now.

Fear is the culprit of stagnation in progression.

I am going to tell you what my number one trick is that helps me not have fear to follow my dreams and passions….it is simply the action of:

“Surrounding yourself with people who have the same passions as you do.”

I will give you a real-life example of what happened to me just a couple of months ago. My non-profit mission led me to get perspective out in the open to help change group think in our social services industry, encourage creativity for diversified programming, and give power to those who fear suppression from others.

In doing this, I had the wonderful opportunity to review the uncut version and give feedback on a film that made it all the way to the SOHO International Film Festival in New York City. It was on a social services project and I was able to help give insight to a producer about the importance of our state’s ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) Program. During these moments, I was in heaven

I have always had artist blood. Learned how to sew at a young age, spent many years in art doing oil, charcoal, acrylics, pottery, etc., heck, even learned how to play three instruments, clothing designer, and been messing around with tech programs since I had my first IBM on the DOS system back in the 80s.

So, I simply loved reviewing the social service project film, it was and is technical art to me and at that moment is when I decided, I wanted to do this. Almost a year later from the film, I have the time to chase that passion now my non-profit accomplished one of its main goals this past December.

I had no experience really in film before, but I had experience in tech with already working in photography and knowing a few software programs for editing. All I knew was, I wanted to do social service advocacy through film. I have the advocacy down pat, but didn’t’ know much about film.

So, I researched resources all over the state and found a guild, went to film classes, built a network, and now I have a film production department in a short couple months, and getting ready to submit my first big film project aimed at helping veterans with substance abuse addiction and mental illnesses by building resiliency. All because I surrounded myself with others on the same mission as me.

What I experienced in this film network is such a supportive, caring, and eagerly helping the community to lift each other up. I asked an editing question in our forum and received about 20 responses in about an hour of multiple people wanting to help me. It was beautiful.

Ironically enough, especially just starting out in the film industry, when I wasn’t around my film peeps, I was made fun of for carrying my camera around, my first run editing videos were talked about as looking like crap, which they did, but the point is I was new and instead of encouragement, I received comments of people seeming like they wish I would fail.

There are so much hate and negativity for someone to overcome fear and when I surrounded myself with my film peeps, I got encouragement, and even tho my first films sucked, they helped me by giving me tips, feedback, and training to get better. It is so important to understand, if you surround yourself with the right people, fear goes away and gives you the strength to attack your passions and dreams.

Looking back on my other ventures, the common denominator for my projects coming to life was because I surrounded myself with those who were on the same mission as me, but excluded myself from those who were not supportive.

Steve Harvey stated,

” If nine of your friends are broke, you are going to be the tenth one, if seven of your friends’ smokes, you are going to be the eighth.”

Think about who is in your current environment and ask yourself, “Are they encouraging you or are they bringing you down? Do you feel powerful with them or do you feel like you are always trying to justify yourself and your ideas?

You can overcome fear easier if you surround yourself with others with the same passions as yours. There has never been a time where I looked for a marketplace for my passions and not found at least a few others…even a Backgammon club with an international championship, who knew! (If you know what that is, don’t laugh, what can I say, I like Backgammon)

This article today is to hopefully give you motivation for you to test out this theory I constantly use in my life which is,

” Be thankful for what you have, surround yourself with others who will lift you up, remove yourself from those who don’t, and you will overcome fear to live your passions.”

Till Next Time,

 

Mel K