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60. Stepping Out Of Our Comfort Zone And Fighting Our Fears- With Joan Poggio
77 Plays4 years ago
Joan Poggio is an independent filmmaker with over 20 years experience. Born and raised in Colombia, in 2004 he fell in love with Kenya while filming a series for Animal Planet Latin America. Since then he has lived in Nairobi with his family, and has travelled consistently around Africa telling unique and exciting stories.
Joan loves telling stories that depict the beauty, strength and contradiction of the human spirit, such as it the case of Kenyan warriors turned into marathon runners, Liberian environmental activists overturning their government, and young radicalized Muslim youth conflicted by their beliefs, to name a few. He enjoys working as a director, cinematographer, editor and colourist on documentary, feature film, music video and advertising. His work has been nominated, and garnered awards internationally and has been featured on local and international television, Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Check out Joan Poggio's Projects:
In 2021, as a fun creative exercise, he started a Film Diary in which he explores the mundane of daily events through short story telling.
https://www.youtube.com/user/joanpoggio/videos
Samples of his work can be seen at: https://vimeopro.com/joanpoggio/portfolio
He posts behind the scenes of his work and experiences as a filmmaker on: https://www.facebook.com/joanpoggiofilmmaker
Contact Kendra Rinaldi to be a guest: https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/
Music: https://rinaldisound.com/
Logo: https://pamelawinningham.com/
Production: Carlos Andres Londono
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Transcript
Introduction to Stepping Out of Comfort Zones
00:00:01
Speaker
And it's not easy stepping out of your comfort zone. And it gets harder because as you step out of your comfort zone, your comfort zone gets bigger. And it gets bigger and it gets bigger. And then the fears can become bigger. So at the end of the day, it's all about fighting your own fears. It's about finding the irrationality of these fears.
00:00:30
Speaker
and also, you know, not ever stopping dreaming.
Podcast Introduction and Host
00:00:38
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast. This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:01:02
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right in to today's episode.
Conversation with Filmmaker Joanne Poggio
00:01:24
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining us today. Today, I am chatting with a childhood friend long. We've known each other for many years. We went to school together, and now we are going to be here chatting with you all. He'll be sharing some really interesting perspectives about stepping out of comfort zone in areas that have to do with
00:01:47
Speaker
work and career and just goals. So we have filmmaker and storyteller Joanne Poggio here with us today. Hello, hello. Hi Kendra, such a pleasure to be here with you.
00:01:59
Speaker
Same. And we were chatting before we scheduled this interview as to what language we'd be talking in, we'd be speaking in. And that was one of the things they were like, okay, do we, we are used to talking in like more like Spanglish mode in general. And so we're like, what? Sure. But we both lived out of the country, out of Columbia for so long that, um, I guess English is what you probably navigate the most now in your career as
Joanne's Multicultural Life and Language Struggles
00:02:25
Speaker
well. Correct.
00:02:26
Speaker
Yeah, so I live in Kenya. I've been here for 17 years and my wife is English. She's British. And even though Swahili is the most common spoken language in Kenya, English is the lingua franca. So I speak English all the time. And even my kids, I try to speak Spanish and I get more Spanish out of a wall than my own.
00:02:51
Speaker
I am the same way here. And the thing is that I have no excuse because both my husband and I are both Colombian, so we speak Spanish to each other, yet when our kids speak back to us, they respond in English. So yeah, I can understand, but I have less of an excuse because my spouse also speaks Spanish, and yet our kids still respond in English, so I get it.
Early Life and Film Passion in Colombia
00:03:17
Speaker
All right.
00:03:17
Speaker
So let's talk about first off, okay, so you were born and raised in Colombia, and then what first off took you into studying film? And let's just kind of go that way. And then we'll just venture into the conversation about comfort zone and all the times you've had to kind of step out of that comfort zone in your own career and process. So take us back to your upbringing and how you left Colombia.
00:03:46
Speaker
Well, it's quite interesting. I went to an American school in Cali. I actually studied with Kendra and my father was the Spanish teacher there. And, you know, one of the perks he had was that his children would have a
00:04:02
Speaker
an education in one of these top schools in the country.
Pursuing the American Dream through Film
00:04:05
Speaker
And I dreamt all my life of traveling outside Colombia. We say in Colombia, this is saying the poor want to be Mexicans, the middle class want to be Americans, and the rich want to be European. And so I wanted to go to the US and have the, you know, achieve the American dream. When I was 13 or 14, one of our classmates brought a video camera to school.
00:04:32
Speaker
and we started playing with it. And I really got into video and teachers encouraged us to present rather than doing the typical board presentation to make little films. So I started making little films and I made some money selling like class graduation, senior graduation, and I would go to my friend's schools and say, hey, I can make a video of your nativity play or whatever.
Challenges in Film Career and Education
00:05:01
Speaker
Um, I then something happens in your life when you're in school, which, um, I, I think happens to all of us and is that it castrates your creativity and it castrates your dreams or traditionally, I don't know if things may be changing, but the system is designed so that you go and be productive and look for a career. And, uh, coming from Columbia, you know, the traditional careers.
00:05:29
Speaker
And in many places of the world would be architecture, law, medicine, engineering. And I thought, okay, I'm gonna get serious. And the closest thing I can do to filming is maybe advertising. And I went to study advertising, but that didn't work out. Then I moved on to, I then thought, I started teaching English when I was 18 to make money.
00:05:58
Speaker
and being dependent from home. And then I thought, OK, I'll go to the best university in the country. And I studied general courses for one semester. And then I hated it because I studied with some of the richest kids in the country. I was already working as an English teacher and paying everything myself. And I would be late to a four-hour designing class.
00:06:26
Speaker
I mean four hours and I would be late 15 minutes and the teachers asked me why are you always late. I said well I apologize but I work I teach and so I'm late because I just come from teaching a 130 lesson and this teacher said well you either study or you work but you can't do both.
00:06:46
Speaker
And that really is such a different perspective, especially even here, like in the in the States, like nowadays, like that is not like at all what would be the status quo. You know what I mean? Like people, a lot of kids, you know, work their way to be in school. So that was that's definitely very different. What what our upbringing was, or at least at that time period.
00:07:13
Speaker
Well it just speaks volumes of the class system in Colombia you know so I was in an elite university Los Andes and then I just had a very pompous teacher who was like you know you either work or study to which I thought I don't have to be here because I'm not gonna put up with this kind of attitude because I can't work and I can't just study or I can just
Realizing Film Passion and Educational Challenges
00:07:36
Speaker
work I've got to do both because this is an expensive university and then something happened and it's that all along the way I was not happy with my choice and and and I thought well what do I really want to do and and I thought well I've always known oh so there's an incident in in this general course as I was interested in psychology and and I went to the psychology class
00:08:07
Speaker
And I was blown away because, you know, they were asking questions about Freud and blah, blah, blah. I don't know. And there were people raising their hands and they're talking about it. And I was thinking, maybe I'm in the wrong class, but I wasn't to which I realized, Oh, okay. These people are passionate about psychology. I'm not. So I've got no idea what I'm doing here.
00:08:32
Speaker
So I thought and thought about it and I finally decided to go to university and study film. Now there were two film universities in Colombia. One was the public university and the other one was this cheap university which was back then not even a university. You graduated with a technological degree which is three and a half years rather than five and I thought
Choosing Film Over Prestige
00:08:59
Speaker
hard and long about it having gone through the experience of the University of Los Andes where I was also in classes with people that never read, never did their research and so it became like a summary lesson rather than a discussion and I was like why, what am I doing here?
00:09:20
Speaker
getting a review about something that we're in. The cliff notes. The cliff notes. The cliff notes, rather than really the insights, like people having conversations about what they thought of what they read, rather than just a summary of what they read. So I thought, yeah, exactly. So I thought, OK, I'm not going to do this. I'm going to, it doesn't matter where I study, because whatever I'm missing, whatever gaps I have,
00:09:49
Speaker
in my education, I can fill them in with a good library. So I looked for, these two universities had a good library. But the difference was that the public university didn't have equipment. And back then, in 1996, before digital video cameras, film was the golden standard. And I thought, okay, I want access to these film cameras that I can,
Ego and Early Career Dreams
00:10:17
Speaker
you know, grow as a filmmaker here. And that's what I did. Um, and then I had my big dream, which was going to the States and something funny happened and is that I graduated and I was in a relationship with, uh, like my girlfriend from unit three years and a half. And she was Colombian American. And she said, why don't we go to the States? So we got married.
00:10:44
Speaker
And I thought, okay, we'll go to the States and then that's my way into the film industry. Now that didn't work out because we got married, we had been together for three and a half years. We got married, we did the American Embassy paperwork and then she went off ahead of me.
00:11:06
Speaker
And then she just was dazzled. She had an American passport because she had been born in Colombia, but she had never lived there. So when she went there, it was just like, you know, like the Broadway lights shining, you know. I stayed behind and I made a big mistake when I stayed behind and I thought I thought I was too good to just get a local job.
00:11:36
Speaker
in the film industry and something happened. Can we pause one sec? Do you mind if I pause you for a second?
Family Support and Career Changes
00:11:46
Speaker
Okay, so I'm in this conversation. I'm curious. So we're at this point. I just want to make sure we put a little bookmark where we're at because I tend to do this. I tend to go back because I want to fill in these gaps. I'm curious, what were your parents' thoughts?
00:12:00
Speaker
of you switching careers and studying film. Again, going back, we were talking before we even started recording about the aspect of the titles that we get so attached to. And again, like, oh, well, is a doctor, a doctor this or a doctor that? Or what was the reaction of your parents when you decided to become a filmmaker and go into that route rather than the career you had started to do in advertising?
00:12:26
Speaker
Well, luckily for me, I didn't quit one university, but two. So by the third time I said, I said, I want to be a filmmaker. My dad was like, just get a degree. I don't care if you you're a baker or filmmaker or, you know, like.
00:12:44
Speaker
whatever, but just get a degree, so it was not that hard. But to give credit to my father, he loves poetry, he was a Spanish teacher, and so he never had a problem with me studying film. The arts. My brother studied arts, and my mom was very encouraging.
00:13:08
Speaker
And anyway, when I was in school, I was making money filming and selling videos. So I had been independent for quite a while. So we bookmarked ad
Financial Sacrifices for Filmmaking
00:13:21
Speaker
when you decided to submit and then you felt like you were too good to just take a job. Yeah, you see, this is a huge problem, which is your ego.
00:13:30
Speaker
Yurigo gets in the way all the time. And this was like the first big block in my life was thinking, you know, I'm too good for this. I need to go to Hollywood and go to the US. Now, my father had been very insistent. Oh, you've got to meet Mauricio.
00:13:56
Speaker
He went to Harvard. He was from our school, Kendra Mauricio Eles. And he went to Harvard. He was a top athlete in Colombia. And he studied film. And he was back in Colombia. And my father was, you've got to go and meet Mauricio. But I remembered Mauricio. I think I'm eight years younger than him.
00:14:22
Speaker
And so I remembered this guy and I thought, but he's a geek, he's a nerd. It was like, how boring. Anyway, finally I went and I met Mauricio and he showed me a bit of what he was doing, which was a documentary about condors and the paramour in Latin America. Which is our national, which is our, El Condor, it is a national, wait, no, is Condor not, is that our national bird too, or is it just from, yeah, it is our national bird, okay.
00:14:51
Speaker
And it just blew my mind what I saw. I was so blown away. And I had never considered documentary ever. I wanted to make feature films. And so then I was very determined. I want to work with this guy. And I had nothing to show him. So I went and I got involved in a little project where I could do camera work. I even did the acting.
00:15:18
Speaker
And it was like a tourism clip in America. You had done acting already. We were in a play together, mister. So we had done acting already just on a stage. This is like me operating the camera and acting and editing. And I had very cheap tools, but I just worked really hard to make it look very polished.
00:15:48
Speaker
And he loved it. He said, oh, it just comes to show, you know, it's not the tool, but what you do with it that matters. Now, the other problem I had is that I had been working as an English teacher at Berlitz from the age of 18, and I was already 24.
00:16:08
Speaker
And at that stage, I had already dropped out of barrelets as a teacher, but I had my private students, and I was making pretty good money in Colombia. And no one could match what I made working, I was working four hours a day, no one could match that salary, that income in the film industry if I came as an apprentice. And that was very hard, but then,
00:16:37
Speaker
Um, when in that point, again, was it the ego being attached to the component of the financial? I had a rebound. So, uh, immediately after my wife, um, left the scene, I met this other girl and three months later she was pregnant. So, um, and I said, look, we can have the child, but, um,
00:17:06
Speaker
And, and, and I was happy. I was like, great, I'm going to be a dad. Um, but then I, and that was interesting because I thought about it and I realized if I didn't work for my dreams now at that point or then, uh, it would be really hard to achieve them because.
00:17:28
Speaker
a child is a major responsibility so now you've got to educate him and I just saw myself then trapped in time perpetually being you know a teacher and then and maybe ending up as director of one of these institutes or school and that was not the path I wanted for myself I wanted to be a filmmaker so I had to make a real hard decision and
00:17:57
Speaker
And I thought, OK, I'm going to I'm going to work as a filmmaker, start as an apprentice from the very bottom and and keep on teaching English to supplement until it got to a point where my son was born and I was doing two or three jobs at the same time. So I would be teaching English during the day and then I had what they called the horse shift because it was from eight o'clock at night to six o'clock in the morning.
00:18:27
Speaker
And I was just editing and I was barely sleeping. But one thing led to the other.
Entrepreneurial Leap with Mauricio
00:18:34
Speaker
And then finally I started working with this guy Mauricio. And we did a big documentary on the history of Latin American aviation for Discovery Latin America. But we were working for another production company. So he was an employee and I was an employee.
00:18:55
Speaker
And I had never in my life been so mistreated. It was awful. The producer of the whole company was just an incredible piece of work. And he basically a slaver. And then when we finished a project, we were very happy with what we did with the final project. We were offered a permanent position in the company where we would basically
00:19:24
Speaker
we would have to look for the stories we would look for the funding and then we would put the funding towards this project through this production company and that would be it and they would keep all the glory right and so Maurizio turned around to me and said look we have this alternative or I have some savings I'll buy an editing machine
00:19:51
Speaker
I find a place to rent. We open up an office and we do the same thing, but we don't have any backup. And this was, he offered this to myself and another, another young guy who was like assistant production. And we said, we rather eat our own poo poo than someone else's. Yeah.
00:20:12
Speaker
You know, so that right there was, again, like just standing up. I guess you had already experienced the working for somebody else's dream to some extent and being treated the way you did, that it just gave you then that opportunity to already just decide that that's not what you were going to do. I call this grief gratitude in the grand between because in those hard moments when you also are grateful for those because it shows you a different
00:20:40
Speaker
direction as to what to go because you've already experienced what was not what you wanted, right? So then it took you into the direction of then creating your own dream. So how was that? How was it creating then something from scratch with these two other individuals?
Financial Struggles and Determination
00:20:58
Speaker
It was phenomenal. It was phenomenal. The best thing ever. There was so much energy and
00:21:05
Speaker
You know, and the bet paid off. I think the first year and a half was a bit challenging. We got little projects and we could live. I could have still been making more money. Okay. By that point, I had already dropped from teaching English. Maybe I had one or two lessons every now and then to supplement a little bit. Um, and, and then when we opened the office, um, you know, my son was already a year old and
00:21:35
Speaker
What we were doing was amazing in terms of work, but I was really struggling with money. And I had to downsize my flat. I had a really nice flat. I moved downtown, which was not like the best area. And then I couldn't go out. My friends would come visit sometimes visiting from out of town. Let's go out, have some drinks. And I'd say, actually, do you mind? We have a drink at home and you help me with some nappies.
00:22:04
Speaker
So my friend subsidized, you know, my son's nappies. Nappies for us. Well, that for us, American, that would be diapers. Diapers, yeah. Is that right? Yeah, diapers. Just making sure, because you have the British government making sure. So you had to like make some sacrifices, but at the same time, did you feel like you were
00:22:29
Speaker
missing out by making those sacrifices in your lifestyle? Or did you not because of the reward that was coming from doing what you really loved? I didn't feel I was missing out. I always thought that was temporal. And I've always believed, you know, like you have temporal setbacks. At the moment, it is hard, right? But you try everything. And I have to admit at one point, you know, I had schemes in my mind. At one point, I
00:22:59
Speaker
felt a lot of empathy for people that actually commit a crime in order to help their family, you know, their children. Because I thought, Jesus, if I have no other alternative, I would happily rob someone, you know, or I would commit a fraud. I don't know. And I just thought because you had a child, because you had a child and it was hard. I mean, it was hard. I was, you know, I had, I would walk to work for an hour and a half back and forth.
00:23:30
Speaker
because I had to save every penny, so I wouldn't spend a bus fare. And I'm not talking about a cab. I'm talking about a bus fare. And so... And that was an hour and a half each. Although that would have almost taken you... Although in Bogota, where is where you lived at that time, correct? That would have probably taken you that amount of time even riding the bus with the traffic. Or were you saving time aside from money by walking? Or were you adding that time as well? No, I wasn't.
00:23:58
Speaker
No, because that's not traffic. Three times as long. Five thirty in the morning. Three times as long. Oh, yeah. So, so, yeah. So then that was a sacrifice you were making there, even just walking just to save even on that that. Yeah. But there was there was a good purpose behind it. There was a good purpose, which is like your son, your child. Yeah. But then, you know, we hit jackpot and we got commissioned by Discovery to do
00:24:27
Speaker
a reality show with a Latin American Grammy awarded band with Basilos and They said look we need to take Basilos in September. We were in May May 2004 we need to take them On a safari anywhere around the world a trip To see something related with wildlife and make a series of four episodes for Animal Planet Latin America
00:24:57
Speaker
and we have a million dollar budget. And this was like huge for us. It was like, this is what we opened this office for. This is it. And we worked really hard because, you know, time constraints. Now Mauricio's dad used to hunt in Tanzania and Mauricio hated it. And so he swore himself that he would do a photographic safari. Safari means his Swahili trip.
00:25:27
Speaker
So everyone thinks safari is hunting. Safari means a journey, a trip. Yeah. So he said, we're going to have a photographic safari. And we looked and logistically speaking, it was better coming to Kenya than Tanzania because the distances in Tanzania, you have to cover a much broader and there were more things to do here in a tighter area. So it worked best for us.
Support from Mauricio and Opportunities in Kenya
00:25:57
Speaker
Now something incredible happened. This is what year? What year? That's 2014. Now something incredible happened and is that, you know, I would say I was very lucky and there was magic in the air. And many years later I came to understand that I had created that luck and that magic. And I'll say why, because
00:26:27
Speaker
Luck is the encounter of preparation and opportunity. If I offer you right now, Kendra, you know, like you can, uh, if I give you half a million, you know, $500 million and you open, you know, a competition to Tesla, you wouldn't do it because you're not prepared.
00:26:50
Speaker
So when people come to me and they say, oh, you're so lucky you get these amazing jobs. I say, well, you know, if Netflix called you right now and offered you the same job I've been offered, would you be able to do it knowing, knowing the skillsets you have? Uh, maybe not. So for me, luck, luck is I was prepared for that moment. And then the magic magic is stepping out of your comfort zone.
00:27:20
Speaker
When you're trapped in your comfort zone, you live in Groundhog Day, everything is the same. The minute you step out of your comfort zone, things are tough, but amazing things start happening, and that's the magic, magic in life, I believe. So Mauricio said, I was gonna be the editor of the series, and he turns around and tells Discovery,
00:27:48
Speaker
Joanne has got to come to Kenya with me as a camera assistant. And they turned around and they said, he's never traveled. He's never traveled. He doesn't have that experience. And he put his hands on fire for me and said, look, he's going to be the serious editor. He's got to know what happened on the trip. And he's an amazing cameraman and he'll be
00:28:15
Speaker
not only assisting us with the camera work, like with tapes and charging batteries, but he'll be doing camera work himself.
Transformative Kenyan Project and Life Changes
00:28:23
Speaker
And so I was very lucky that Mauricio believed in me because I had worked really hard in achieving this dream with him. Remember when he said, we either stay with his job and we do the work for someone else, or we come together and we do our own thing and, you know, we suffer and we
00:28:46
Speaker
but we reap our own benefits. And he delivered with that promise. And so I was absolutely broke, but this project changed things around. Then the money started coming in. I did go to Kenya and then everything changed again.
00:29:06
Speaker
Okay, so at this point then how long was that trip to Kenya then for that particular project and then it was a very short trip Maurizio and I were all together a month here in Kenya Because it was a reality show. So we basically, you know, basilos had only two weeks in their very busy and hectic schedule and so We came a week before then
00:29:35
Speaker
The band appeared and we filmed for two weeks and then we stayed on for another week. Okay. And then what happened then from there? Then this is where you said everything changed. I have to do a little bracket there.
Balancing Career and Emotional Sacrifices
00:29:49
Speaker
Absolutely. I'm good with, I'm the expert at brackets. Okay. Open bracket. My relationship was not working with the mother of my son. It was actually,
00:30:03
Speaker
a very tremendous relationship. And I was very, very, um, I, I was lost. I didn't know what to do because I was not happy. I was absolutely miserable. Now you have to bear in mind that I was sacrificing like everything like financially and personally to make my career work. Now at the same time,
00:30:30
Speaker
I was sacrificing my emotional side for my child because I thought if I'm not in this relationship then my son will suffer. So I decided to put my emotions down and just live with it. Now many years later with a therapist I learned that
00:30:57
Speaker
I've always been passive aggressive and I just eat quietly and I just start boiling up inside because I sacrifice myself for
00:31:09
Speaker
people or for to make the piece to keep the piece to keep the piece around but then inside you're just stuffing it just to kind of not yet to not not ruffle any feathers yet at the end of the day then at some point it has to come out in one way or another yeah luckily as fate would have it the mother of my
End of Relationship and Emotional Growth
00:31:34
Speaker
son
00:31:34
Speaker
a month, two months or three months before I traveled, she said, this relationship is not working. And I was like, Oh, yeah. So how was that? That's a bit confusing because she had, I had always been a crutch for her. Um, I hope she's not listening to this. I was, I was a crutch, uh, you know, an emotional crutch. She would say,
00:32:03
Speaker
uh, you know, without you, um, I can't live, you know, that kind of, um, dependency. Yeah. And so anyway, she then turned around. I think she, she started working again and then she met someone at work that, uh, you know, really was interested in her. And I think that made her think, and she came and she said, this is not working.
00:32:30
Speaker
So we still shared the same flat. It was amicable. But then when I traveled to Kenya, I mean, I, so I had never been on a transatlantic trip and I came all the way from Bogota to Nairobi in business class, drinking champagne, stuffing myself up in the plane. I mean, it was amazing.
00:32:54
Speaker
And then my mind was blown away when I got to Amsterdam and I saw cops with, you know, Mohawks and, and earrings. I was like, seeing Indians, Japanese, seeing the whole world, like, and all everyone dressed up differently and skippled. I was like, Oh my God, this is it. This, this, this is it. This is one of the dreams I had in the back of my mind.
00:33:21
Speaker
for such a long time and I was doing it. And I come to Kenya and then I meet, I mean.
00:33:31
Speaker
the woman of my life and she's currently still my wife. Samantha, no Sam? Is that what you call her, Sam?
Meeting Samantha and Personal Milestones
00:33:40
Speaker
With Sam then, do you met her during that then short trip that you guys were doing? Yes. Was she part of the production? How did you meet her?
00:33:57
Speaker
So when we landed, we were doing a bit of pre-production with the people organizing our trip on the ground. And we realized like, oh, wow, we don't have any women in our show. These are four guys. And the guide, our guide said like, oh, don't worry. We have this lovely lady. She's photogenic. She's got a witty sense of humor and she'll be joining us. She's going to help with logistics and I'm sure she'll be happy to be filmed.
00:34:27
Speaker
And every day he would say like, she's coming tonight. And then the following day, she's coming tonight. And the following day she's coming tonight. Now I was intrigued. Waiting for Godot. Like waiting for Godot. So when I met her, she actually came, she came the same day that the band arrived. And so I met her working, I was filming. And when I point, I could not stop pointing my camera at her.
00:34:57
Speaker
I have never been so unprofessional. I think I didn't film these guys the whole trip at all. The documentary, if you're by Celos, is like Sam on camera. Now, you know, I believe that in life we cross celestial paths, like there are doors when you go through life opening and closing doors.
00:35:25
Speaker
and you go into long hallways or alleys of doors and you say, I'm going to try this door. And at the same time, other people are crossing those doors. And I've realized like all these years living here, for example, that I had been walking parallel to other people I have met here and that had been to Columbia on a holiday and blah, blah, blah, and whatever, and realized like,
00:35:54
Speaker
oh wow you know if we had probably we crossed paths in Colombia and now we have a total relationship here so Samantha is one of those people and but but she was very dismissive of me because I'm nine years younger than her so when I came I was 27 or 26 27 and she was already older than me and the Mexican
00:36:24
Speaker
either Mexican cameraman was flirting with her. Luckily he didn't speak English and she doesn't speak Spanish. But we had a fling and then I came the day I was leaving and I just got to Amsterdam, wrote her an email and then I got to Colombia. She wrote me an email and we had a long distance relationship for three
Embracing Life Changes in Kenya
00:36:48
Speaker
months. She went to visit me to Colombia in December 2004.
00:36:55
Speaker
And then we had a great holiday, and she said, oh, this is not going to work, because I'm not going to move here and learn Spanish. I have to learn Swahili. She had been in East Africa for 10 years. And then she's like, you have a child. And I realized then, no. Well, if I don't make things work, nothing's going to happen. And I said, look, I want to go to Kenya. So I made the decision to come to Kenya.
00:37:26
Speaker
Yeah, how was that? How was it making that decision of leaving your country? So here's here's one of these things of the stepping outside your comfort zone So you stepped outside your going to kind of retrace a little bit here So you've stepped outside your comfort zone in areas of work before you stepped outside your comfort zone when you created, you know this company with
00:37:51
Speaker
with Maurizio Eles, you stepped outside your comfort zone when you traveled to Kenya, you know, first time internationally. And now here again, you're stepping outside your comfort zone to leave your home, leave your child to then move again, not just to another country, just another continent. So how was that transition and decision for you? It's funny, but I made that decision
00:38:21
Speaker
the day I had the fling with my wife, or the one night stand, as you would call it in the US. I thought I could live here. And I didn't think about- Your soul felt that was home. I didn't know, but something happened and I thought, I just felt so comfortable there. And I thought something deep inside of me said, you don't have to go to the US.
00:38:51
Speaker
Because that had always been my dream. So I think it's very, you know, when things become clear, I think, okay, I think in life, you have long term goals, midterm and short term goals. And for example, I thought living in the US was a long term, like it was my main goal in life. And then I realized like, no, no, it's not. And I thought,
00:39:18
Speaker
the right thing is moving here. And I don't know what's going to happen, but I'll never find out unless I try it out.
Overcoming Doubts with Confidence
00:39:25
Speaker
So I had no fear. And I actually, but I did reserve that information to myself. I didn't tell anyone that already I was planning to go back to Kenya. And the funny thing is like, you know, like I had nothing here, right? I met this girl, but it was a fling.
00:39:46
Speaker
Now what happened is that we made it work, having a long distance relationship. And then when I told everyone that I was coming here a month before, actually coming here, everyone tried to dissuade me. And I found that truly unbelievable. And I realized that they were projecting their own fears on me. So I would be told things like,
00:40:16
Speaker
But you know, you've worked so hard and now you had a very successful project with Discovery, and there's so many more that will come your way, you'll be, because I also did a little directing for Discovery, parallel to this project. So I could have stayed on and made a career and keep this client. Then other people would say like, oh, but your family is here. That's so far away.
00:40:44
Speaker
And then other people would say, well, it's Kenya, Nairobi is Nairobery. Um, you know, like, what are you going to do there? And I thought, I said, well, I'll figure it out, but I can actually, I could be an English teacher or a Spanish teacher. I don't know. I could do anything. It doesn't matter. But I was confident. I thought, okay, hold on. Um, I'm a good filmmaker. You know, I'm learning, I'm growing.
00:41:11
Speaker
now i've stepped out of my ego and i realized okay you don't know you don't know at all you will never don't know what you don't know you you will never know everything and you keep growing because i realized now working with mode issue that yeah it's just you just have to come to every project with a clean slate and we need to work and learn
00:41:36
Speaker
So I came here, luckily I had left enough money for my child for six months. So I came again, I came without a penny.
Building a New Life in Kenya
00:41:48
Speaker
I came with $300. I came with a rucksack, $300 and a little Mac mini. And then luckily Samantha said, well, you can live with me. And then three days later, I had no money. And she said, how much money did you bring?
00:42:06
Speaker
It was $300. Now, $300 in Colombia can see you a long way, but not in Kenya. So yeah, so I had to go out and look for work, network. I would go out on a bicycle and go to Samantha's office, borrow the car, go meet people. So yeah, it was interesting.
00:42:31
Speaker
Yeah. So then what, okay. So then how then did you start doing film there and at what point and how long into your.
00:42:42
Speaker
being in Kenya, did you start kind of creating then what you now have? And we're going to step into now the present to kind of just jumping a few. You've had now since a daughter, right? You have your daughter now. So you want to kind of jump forward to the now and then we just go into how your career shifted? Sure. So, okay.
00:43:12
Speaker
Um, so I mean, it's hard, right? It's hard. It's so hard, especially as a storyteller, as we were just saying before, it's so hard to like jump into, like, I was like, wait, all these details matter. I want to give it like a one-liner. So currently, currently, um, I'm involved in different projects. Um, I'm a documentary filmmaker, but I'm, so I call myself a filmmaker because
00:43:39
Speaker
Although I started with documentary, I have filmed feature films. I do music videos, I do a lot of advertising and other things.
00:43:54
Speaker
And I'm a cameraman, I'm an editor, I'm a director, I'm a producer. How did you establish that? How did you establish that by living there, being a foreigner in this country? Like, how did you end up creating? And you see, I'm like, now I'm, here I am, like wanting, now I'm the one that wants to know the details, but how did you just, Samantha introduced you to people she knew or did, how was it that you established what you now are there? So everything here works word of mouth.
00:44:20
Speaker
but not by someone coming and saying like, oh, you should hire my friend. He's a good filmmaker. It's reputation and that reputation you build by living up to your promises. So one of the big drawbacks here with people is that they'll promise you the sun and the moon. Yeah. You know, if you say, can you deliver in a week? Yes. Can you do it for $2,000? Yes. When the reality is it will be in two months and it costs $8,000.
00:44:50
Speaker
And so and I learned that very quickly when people would let me down and then I would have conversations before hiring people and ask them how much they would say X amount and how long however many days and I would always say if you are telling me If you're giving this prize and this time frame thinking oh, this is what he wants to hear
00:45:16
Speaker
So I'll get the job by telling him what he wants to hear and then I'll just come up and start bloating the prize and giving excuses. Then what will happen is we'll finish the project six months down the line. We'll be sworn enemies. I'll never hire you again. And I'll just, I'll tell the people around me not to hire you again. So is that the price and is that the deadline? Uh, no. So
00:45:42
Speaker
But I would keep my promises. And I was always in budget when I started. I started working filming interviews. And then the person that I did the interview with was very happy with the work we did. We did it on the spot. I edited on the spot. And then she said, well, would you be happy to work with me making like more of this?
Impactful Documentary Work Across Africa
00:46:07
Speaker
And I said, sure.
00:46:08
Speaker
And then that turned, this was for the International Livestock Research Institute. And it's one of 15 centers of research institutes of a conglomerate called the CGI, Consortium of International Agriculture Research, blah, blah, blah. And we jumped from doing interviews to then
00:46:35
Speaker
filming a little story about triponosomiasis in Ethiopia, to then going to Uganda, to then for seven years, I traveled to 24 African countries, to India, to the UK and to the US with this kind of like agricultural scientific research stories that focused around people. So again, something I like. I can get the stories, uh-huh.
00:47:03
Speaker
I don't know, like I never dreamt, oh yeah, I want to do films for, I wanted to make Transformers and James Bond films. And there I am with farmers filming their stories. And it was amazing because, you know, I realized like my job was telling stories and to impact policy makers.
00:47:30
Speaker
to twist their arm into you have to work with us, help us with these policies because the farmers need them. So scientists are very scientific in their approach and they would talk about the science and think like policymakers understand that. Policymakers don't care. They want to know how does this have an impact on the ground. So my job was going out to the field and
00:48:00
Speaker
finding real people you know like underdog heroes people that worked really hard and show them like you've got to help these guys because they're doing everything possible to uplift themselves so it was showing like not charity but
00:48:23
Speaker
worthiness of people. Yeah, standing up for the standing up for the little guy, for example, type of thing that component of just standing up for those that may not be able to stand up for themselves completely. Is that how you felt? Yeah, and yes, absolutely. And it was fun, because, you know, I had to figure out how to tell engaging stories. And there's a problem with
00:48:48
Speaker
or there used to be a problem with the word documentary. It was a dirty word. People would think like documentary. Oh, interviews boring. You know, you take a look at Netflix now and the number of documentaries there. And there are so interesting, so engaging.
Pursuing Meaningful and Innovative Work
00:49:04
Speaker
So it was, it was interesting. Now that changed because then they started turning around and saying like, Oh, can you do a video, you know, for human resources we want to attract
00:49:18
Speaker
scientists from europe or whatever so then i started making videos showing the dorms and the facilities and we have a squash cord and then i thought no i might as well do wedding videos they're more interesting i don't want to do this you know so i decided to go back to um longer form documentary and a very interesting project landed on my lap um and i was i
00:49:47
Speaker
try to turn it down and sometimes when you try to turn something down really hard and people are persistent you really have to look again and say okay
00:49:58
Speaker
Maybe there's a reason. Yeah. It's kind of like, again, back to those, what you're talking about, the sliding, the walking in the hallways, kind of in the different doors. And at some point, we do have to kind of check in with ourselves. Are these opportunities coming up to us for a reason?
00:50:17
Speaker
and reevaluate the right and think if it's going to be a moment in which we're just going to pass it or if we're going to open that door or not. Because if not, it's going to probably come up later on, maybe, maybe not. So that's awesome that you took. So you did take it and then. It was a very interesting collaboration with a Canadian filmmaker director, Angelina Yarr.
00:50:45
Speaker
We started this documentary, well, she had been working on it and she was looking for funding. And she told me the story was about cattle rustlers or cattle thieves here in Kenya. There's two tribes that fight amongst each other with AK-47, so they're armed and they shoot each other for their cattle and they just steal it back and forth.
00:51:13
Speaker
And this is in the northern part of Kenya, which is like banded territory. And she said, oh, it's about cattle rustlers leaving their guns behind to run marathons. And I was like, what? I've got to do this project. I mean, I just thought it was the most incredible project. You know, everyone talks about marathon runners in Kenya.
00:51:40
Speaker
Uh, everyone's made a documentary about Kenyan marathon runners. Um, but, and I've seen so many and they're all the same, you know, it's about the runner and that's it. But this was not about marathon runners. This was had the marathon there, but it was about life choices and it was about friendship. And it was about, you know, like, uh, the realities of Kenya. So we worked on that project for six years. Um,
00:52:09
Speaker
And we started another one in Liberia at the same time, which also took six or seven years. And we started another one at the same time, which we're still filming. So that's been now 10 years or 11 years. And so I just shifted everything. I totally dropped the research institutes and I started doing documentary and I started doing then advertising. I decided to invest in a
00:52:39
Speaker
very professional equipment and then my wife turns around and says you know we're getting kicked out of our house because they're selling the plot so um you know one of the amazing things about living in Nairobi or in Kenya is that you can live in big places but if you don't own the plot it's expensive it has become really expensive so like my neighbor's house goes for five thousand dollars a month
00:53:09
Speaker
And this isn't a third world country. So she said, let's buy land. And I was like, I've been saving for eight years for my gear. I was like, OK, well, yeah, let's buy land. And we bought an acre. We got a mortgage. And we got a mortgage for five years. They only gave us a mortgage for five years, $150,000.
00:53:39
Speaker
with a 20% interest in Kenya. So then those five years were really hard. And for me, it felt like going back to square one when I was teaching English and trying to be a filmmaker. Then all of a sudden, here I am full fledged filmmaker, but really struggling and struggling because I
00:54:06
Speaker
You know, I did have very good projects. I worked for the UN making films. I worked in advertising and I had some steady clients. But then this is when, you know, financial markets were plummeting. And... Had your daughter been born yet at that moment? Yes, yeah. She had, okay. Yeah, she was two years old. Okay. And my son, oh!
00:54:36
Speaker
Parentheses, my son came to live with me a year and a half after I had been here in Kenya.
Family Integration in Kenya
00:54:43
Speaker
So my son has grown up in Kenya. It originally was intended for a year and then he stayed on and he's still here thanks to COVID. Even though he just, he graduated from school last year. So, you know, I looked at the numbers and said, okay, it's hard.
00:55:05
Speaker
paying $150,000 in five years, but we can make it. What I didn't count with is some of my clients not settling their bills up to a year and a half later. And so I went back to, I would no longer drive my car. I would save fuel and I would go down on the bike with the bike to the shops and buy milk and whatever.
00:55:35
Speaker
Going out for dinner with friends. We stopped socializing. A lot of people stopped inviting us because they're like, oh, yeah. They can't come out. So it was really
Financial Challenges and Professional Balance
00:55:50
Speaker
hard. And I was working, I mean, I was working Saturdays, Sundays. There were months in which I would be working 20, 22 hours a day.
00:56:03
Speaker
I had the stamina to sleep two hours a day and I would sleep whenever I was tired like, Oh, now I need to sleep for two hours. Um, and then I absolutely hated that life and I absolutely hated a plot and owing money and working just for that purpose. And I felt I had no life. Uh, I think that that was like the hardest thing ever. And then come,
00:56:34
Speaker
Christmas, I think, five years ago, we are friends that, you know, we're with, sorry, we wake up to the 25th, which is when we give gifts here. And we had said, no gifts for us, just the kids. Well, my wife had some gifts for me, like really silly things, and a beautiful card. I didn't even have a card for my wife. I didn't even
00:57:03
Speaker
you know, like wrap a spoon and say, happy Christmas, anything. And she was, it was so hard for her. It broke her. Because she thought like, you know, like, wow. And, and that really made me think, you know, I and I apologize profusely. I said, I don't know. This the whole situation have taken over my life.
00:57:33
Speaker
Like I was absolutely absorbed by the financial burden. And then at the same time, a lot of the big projects I had were pulled off at the very last minute. And so to make money, I would go and be camera assistant. So it's like, I would give the cameraman their lenses in an advertising shoot and people that were way younger than me. And I thought, you know, like it's fine.
00:58:04
Speaker
you know like I'm fine with my ego I can work as a camera assistant as a focus cooler I can be an assistant it doesn't matter I just need to pay my debts but you know I was not happy I was like this is not what I had planned and then and then so that all made me think and that night you know I was very down and I looked at I was
00:58:32
Speaker
watching stuff and I came across Transcendental Meditation and I came across this filmmaker David Lynch who is a big proponent of Transcendental Meditation which is basically you have 20 minutes and it's kind of like a power nap where you focus and it's a power nap because you start meditating but in that meditation you go into a deep sleep
00:59:02
Speaker
And then you wake up and you're absolutely reenergized.
Transcendental Meditation and Life Reflection
00:59:06
Speaker
So I started doing that. And I started thinking a lot about what do I want to do? Because at the same time, I realized that once again, there I was working for someone else's dreams. So all these projects, all these documentaries, absolutely adverts and musical videos, they're not for me, they're for someone else. And I'm
00:59:31
Speaker
And I love these collaborations, right? But I felt a void because it's like I'm doing everything, you know, like I'm building this house. It's, yeah, it's for me, but it's for my kids. And I'm working on all these projects and I've won awards and I've been nominated, but it's not, it doesn't come out for me.
00:59:55
Speaker
So with doing then transcendental meditation, was this the first time that you thought you were again just feeding your own being in that moment? Was it something to just kind of help you recenter and refocus? Yes. So it's funny because I always look for something. I'm always in search of something.
01:00:20
Speaker
So when I was in uni and I was teaching English. We should always be searching. That's a thing. We should always be. So like I, and I, my father has suffers from depression and it's been handed down to me. It's a biochemical thing and I can very easily get depressed. I mean, just today I was depressed in the morning, but, um, so when I was in uni and I felt very lost cause I was working as an English teacher and I was
01:00:50
Speaker
you know, not happy with the university. I took three months off while I was doing my thesis. And I went looking for martial art and I found Aikido. So I went to different dojos, like gyms, so karate, and it's like, oh, can I watch? Yeah, this is how we kick the shit out of someone. And they just punch someone. And then Tekondo, yeah, this is how we fly in the air and kick this guy's face. And I was like, oh my god.
01:01:19
Speaker
is not what I was looking for. And I find Aikido, which is this martial art, which is like it works on the spiral. So someone attacks you and you throw their attack back. And it's, it's like life, what goes around comes around basically. And it's like, what is it like blocking it so that it deflects it? It's not even blocking, but it works like a spiral. So when someone comes to, to,
01:01:48
Speaker
hold you, you move them around and they fly off. Anyway, it's a beautiful martial arts and it was more of a spiritual thing and sometimes we would get to the door and then walk away because I was not afraid of the exercise, I was afraid of confronting my ego. Every time my sensei would say like, she was French, she would say like, Joanne, you are falling apart because you're fighting your ego. I was like, okay, what does that mean?
01:02:18
Speaker
So transcendental meditation, again, was one of these things in life where I found another way of looking at myself and thinking about my goals and thinking about life and helping me see hard times through.
Financial Freedom and Renewed Dreams
01:02:38
Speaker
And then we finished paying the mortgage by accident. I got a call from the bank. We said on a Friday,
01:02:48
Speaker
If you don't pay today, you know, Monday, it's going to the lawyers for, you know, the start for reprocession. And I owe the bank $3,000 out of 150, out of 210,000 with interest. Yeah, because of the 20%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, what the hell? So I just called a friend and he lent, well, actually he paid me a job that we were on at the moment. I said, can you pay the job right now? And I went to the forex.
01:03:18
Speaker
changed the dollars into shillings, went to the bank five minutes before they closed, I paid. And then I turned around and I said, okay, can you look in the system and tell me how much more money I owe you? And they said, we look and they said, oh no, you've just finished. And I thought, oh, I thought we had another three months to go. Cause I was so behind my payments. I was like two months, three months behind all the time. Anyway, so all of a sudden, and it's my daughter's birthday,
01:03:49
Speaker
So it's actually, her birthday is on April 21st, but we celebrate on the 13th, and it was Friday the 13th, and I'm lost, and I'm like, I can't believe, and my wife is like, I can't believe we just finished paying the loan. I didn't even know what to feel, I was numb. And I was still working, so we had my daughter's birthday, our friends came and I said,
01:04:19
Speaker
her little friends came and I said, okay, I'll take some time off and then I'll come back to the office at two in the morning. So I went back to the office at two in the morning and I was working and then at six I go out for a cup of coffee. So my office is in my garden, which is the lucky thing. So I decide I'll go to the house, get a cup of coffee and I stand in the middle of the plot and I'm looking
01:04:48
Speaker
miserable morning, but I love those miserable, blue mornings. And I just cried for two hours non-stop. Because just before during that, I was chatting with a friend, one of our classmates, I was in Palau, and he's like, oh, let's go to Japan, blah, blah, blah. And I said, and I thought to him, I said, yeah, let's plan for Japan, but let's do it next year. And then I realized like, oh, I could dream again.
01:05:18
Speaker
So I had withheld my dreams during that period because there was no way I could do any of these dreams when I had this financial pressure. And so I decided I wouldn't let that happen again because it's too much of a sacrifice.
01:05:40
Speaker
And I think. So that you wouldn't let basically find financial blockages like that be things that would block you from being able to dream. Yes. Yes. Try not to get involved in anything that you sacrifice. I think, you know, like you have to sacrifice things in life. Um, but, um, but not so much.
01:06:11
Speaker
Wow. So yeah, there's been quite a bit of those moments then for you in your life, different, different junctures. Like you said, you were talking about luck and magic and those junctures, like that luck is kind of when the opportunity and the preparation meet, but then also in life, there's just been a lot of other different kinds of junctures that have been life awakening and changing for you.
01:06:34
Speaker
Now, let's talk a little bit about how now during COVID as a filmmaker, what has been your purpose and talk a little bit about these vignettes that you've been doing, which was actually what prompted me to contact you and see if you wanted to hop on because I loved what you were doing with your journal vignettes. So would you mind sharing that? And then we'll wrap up.
01:07:04
Speaker
yeah so look just very quickly so you know my son is very intelligent and but he's got very emotional understanding and social skills he's kind of like almost asperger's and and he's a lovely kid and throughout the years we've given him tools with the help of therapists to help him cope and understand more about the emotional
01:07:34
Speaker
side and social side anyway we found we found and we talk about this lunch dinner time the family at times and my daughter she is very emotionally intelligent and she tells me my wife brings this up like oh there is this thing IQ, EQ, SQ, AQ so you have the intelligence coefficient emotional quotient so social quotient and adversity quotient
01:08:05
Speaker
And Lola says, Lola says, Jan Blue, if you give me some of your IQ, I'll give you some of my EQSQ. Because you don't have any. And she's so much younger. She's how many years younger than he is with her? She's 11. She's funky. She's funky. I like that. And one of the things that, you know, like our marriage could have fallen apart for these five years.
01:08:34
Speaker
because it was under such stress. Luckily, my wife is very resilient as well. And then talking when we heard about this AQ, adversity quotient. I love that. It was like, you know, it's so true because, you know, we could have sold the plot or half of the plot.
01:08:58
Speaker
And we just, she would just turn around and say, it's just two more years. And I'm like, do you know how many days that is? But we made it through. And, um, and so, um, I feel that some people have a huge adversity, like a lot of people that make it, make it in life have gone through terrible hardships.
Resilience and Opportunity Amidst COVID
01:09:22
Speaker
And, but that's that AQ.
01:09:24
Speaker
Anyway, that would be the resilience. That's the resilience component. So AQ, in other words, resilience. Yeah. Resilience. Yeah. So, um, well, luckily, okay. During COVID. So funny thing is the minute I finished paying the mortgage, then, uh, all the jobs I've had, they haven't been canceled. Like I, whatever happened, it was a bad streak or it was fate.
01:09:55
Speaker
But then I've been on so many projects, and then my name started going out more out there. And so I've always been busy, but now I've been busy with more international clients, which came so much better. And I got on a long-term project. I mean, I started in 2018 doing a history series here in the Bush, which is where I'm actually
01:10:24
Speaker
Right now, it's the biggest. And the bush is what, the bush is just the outskirts, what does the bush consider? No, but this is for us. Okay, the bush in Kenya, the bush in Kenya is where you will find lions, elephants, wildlife. Okay, so the bush is like what, like in Colombia would be like the jungle, like what the bush is that, that's considered, what, yeah? Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. Out, yes. Okay, nature, being out in the woods kind of thing and the nature. Okay, not in the woods, but in the plains. National park.
01:10:54
Speaker
National Park or reserves or like there are places where you have wild animals and it's not a park very soon It's just thank you. Thank you for feeding my IQ. Thank you for feeding my IQ This is the largest national park it's huge and I'm working with a filmmaker who's 82 years old and he's lived in this park since 1969
01:11:23
Speaker
He's filmed the poaching that's happened here. He was a second unit director of Out of Africa. He's worked with Clint Eastwood, he's worked with Steven Spielberg, big names. But he always was interested in making his wildlife stories. So he's like, oh, I worked in Out of Africa, so I could get money to make my film about the honey badger. So I've had a very consistent
01:11:53
Speaker
job but it's been quite demanding and then I've got some clients in South Africa and I'm doing advertising for them where I produce everything and then we shoot it here and we edit it and and then other people approaching me so for example last year with COVID there was a high demand for cameramen here in Kenya from overseas
01:12:23
Speaker
Because generally speaking, you would have the BBC, Planet Earth, you would have now Netflix, Nat Geo sending their own crews. But with lockdown and all planes on the ground, they had to use local cameramen. So we're some expat cameramen here in Kenya.
01:12:53
Speaker
We got calls. Can you go and film this? Can you go and film that? So last year was not a bad year for us. It was actually, there was even more work because of COVID. But then it got me thinking again about this whole thing of me working for other people's dreams.
Personal Creativity and Passion Pursuit
01:13:14
Speaker
And one of the things I had been moaning about in the past years, inclusively when paying the mortgages,
01:13:22
Speaker
but I was not exercising my own creativity again I'm working for someone else and so this project is an amazing project but it's for someone else of course there's always something of you in there but I'm following someone else's instructions and I can exercise my creativity but it's not the same it's not my things so I've been putting off writing my own film you know I've been putting off doing my own thing and
01:13:52
Speaker
And a friend of mine did a video diary. He's a film director. He works with me here in Arabic. And he did a film diary last year. He made a film per day. And he kept saying, why don't you do one? Why don't you just do one? I'm like, now I'm too busy. And then I thought, I'm always busy. And I will always be busy.
01:14:17
Speaker
Right. It's such a cheap excuse, isn't it? Yeah. It's such a cheap excuse to put off our dreams. It's always the, I'm busy, right? It's like one of these like, um, kind of, um, I don't know what he said, like automatic pilot responses that we do and we end up using it all the time to put off what we really truly are desiring to do. So that is okay. So you make the real realizations. It's like, I'm always busy. So then it's funny because.
01:14:47
Speaker
lot of people you know friends and other people that have I've spoken to about my life were asking how did you end up here everyone asks me how did you do it and I said I just did it I just you know I just plunged myself out of my comfort zone and said let's go to Kenya and so I
01:15:10
Speaker
Then I keep having this same conversation and they say, some people have come to me and it's like, oh, you know, I'm so fed up with my job. I hate it. And then I met this guy in Paris when I was doing this master's degree and this or whatever, blah, blah, blah. And I just don't know what to do. I said, well, follow your dream. Just, you know, if your job.
01:15:33
Speaker
But you know, getting a job is so hard in Colombia. You just said you hated it. And it's fear. So I realized it's fear. We live with fears, irrational fears. So actually putting something off, like me putting off writing my film, is the fear of failure. But you only grow when you fail. And that's the thing. And so...
01:16:04
Speaker
What I decided with this diary is, okay, let's just do it. I started as a fun thing. January 1st, I filmed my house, like January 1st, nothing is happening. And then the kids, they're running and playing with the dogs. And then I thought like, oh, how do we make this more interesting? Or just have a shot of all the cake we've eaten and then put it there before they
01:16:28
Speaker
kids you hear this screaming they're running and that's like sugar rush yes and then the second day i did another film i saw my daughter doing the dishes and i thought you know she's always doing her dishes with her headphones and i said i'm gonna turn you into a rock star because she's been saying i want to be in america's got talent so i said okay you're gonna be in nairobi's got talent you know i'm gonna make your rock star and then it turned into this thing and i said okay i'm doing this i'm doing a film per day
01:16:56
Speaker
And because it's been so much fun, so challenging. And then I realized, you know, that fear of killing it, which is a fear of failure. I don't care about, you know, like every day I do a little film, it's for myself and other people watch it. But if it's not great, so what? But I did something that very few people do, which is
01:17:22
Speaker
I'm doing a little film per day. So it's my own thing. And it's been amazing because I've had this surge of creativity. I just look around and I start seeing stories coming out. And they can do it very experimental or very straightforward or you know, but it's this thing about looking at your own life. And it's a diary. It is a diary. But
01:17:53
Speaker
But then there's so many things I'm learning, right? Ah, I can, you know, I can have the discipline. I'm very disciplined working for other people. I've never been disciplined with my own words. And now I'm like, I could do two or three hours a day, my own thing. So I could write a script when I'm done with this. And, you know, just say, okay, it'll take a year, but I'll do it every day. You know, I'll put the time.
01:18:19
Speaker
So was it January 1st of this year that you started? Oh, January or January 1st of last, of this year. This year. Okay, this year. So it just started right now. Yeah, and they're quite intriguing. And you were talking about like the little things and nuances. And I was texting you saying how the one about the closing of drawers and stuff like that, how it relates to some things in my home, like anytime my husband sees a drawer that's open, like closing it.
01:18:47
Speaker
So it's like really simple, yet like in just a few minutes does tell a story. It's just a minute. A minute? It's a minute? Oh my gosh. It's a challenge. They're only a minute long.
01:18:59
Speaker
And yet there is a story in just that minute and it makes us wonder just in life, really, like you just said, there is a story even in the, what is it called? The maybe monotony in somebody's day that they may think that the day looks the same as yesterday. You mentioned before Groundhog Day.
01:19:23
Speaker
type of thing. Yet it isn't. There is always some nuance that is different, some nuances. And that's what you're capturing in your little vignettes. And so I really do invite people to go check them out. And I'll definitely, if you allow me to share that link then in the... Absolutely.
01:19:41
Speaker
in the show notes so that people can go click and view these because they're so entertaining and also thought-provoking as well, too. Also, the fact that you are out there in the bush filming also animals and stuff, too. Was it a stampede? You have a stampede, right? Did you do a stampede? I know you have one of the birds. I don't have a stampede yet, unless I forgot about it.
01:20:09
Speaker
Okay, but you do have a flock of birds. Okay, so there's different things like that. So anyway, so I invite everybody to see. Any closing words, Dronan, and I'm just so grateful again for you coming on and again showing us really that even though fear might hold us back from stepping into something new,
01:20:29
Speaker
It's in that stepping out of our comfort zone and knowing that, yes, there can be fear associated some of these steps, fear in going to a new country, but yet there's a world of possibilities of what can come. Is there something else you'd want to add to that? Yeah. You know, like the thing about, it sounds so simple stepping out of your comfort zone, right? It's like telling someone,
01:20:58
Speaker
When they're angry, don't be angry. Or when they're sad, don't be sad. It's cheap. It's so easy to say that. And it's not easy stepping out of your comfort zone. And it gets harder because as you step out of your comfort zone, your comfort zone gets bigger. And it gets bigger and it gets bigger. And then the fears can become bigger.
01:21:24
Speaker
So at the end of the day, it's all about fighting your own fears. It's about finding the irrationality of these fears. And also, you know, not ever stopping dreaming. I have to say that I took a life insurance a couple of years ago. And I thought, it's funny because I thought all the time, well, if I die today, I mean,
01:21:55
Speaker
It will be, of course, very sad. But in terms of my own life, I have outlived the dreams I had when I was a kid. And which, which I don't know if, like, growing as I did, you know, like, for me, those dreams were big. And I'm not talking about like, I want to be president of the United States. I mean, talk about that dream. But about your personal dreams and, and I,
01:22:23
Speaker
you know I've surpassed my personal dreams because it has been a very different life than what I had expected and I've achieved more you know like I never expected to have my own house at the age of 42 my property and no debts but then your dreams change and and now doing these little short films I'm like
01:22:51
Speaker
Okay, yes, I if I die, I've had a life that I never expected. But now I'm thinking like, Oh, wait a minute, I cannot die. There's still so much more to do. Because I have found a renewed source of energy physically, I'm exhausted. Because it's quite demanding. I don't have the stamina I used to have. But like my mind, I'm just, you know, it's surging. And so
01:23:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's very important to, no matter what, always try to break the pattern and do something a bit different and do something for yourself. We don't do enough for ourselves.
01:23:36
Speaker
And I think that in that, in that aspect of tapping into our creativity and doing something for ourselves is where you feel energized. That's why you feel that renewed sense of energy, even if you're physically exhausted because you're doing something that is fulfilling your dreams, right? Like you feel like, okay, I just came back from filming, but I'm gonna do my, I'm gonna finish my own little vignette of my own short movie today.
01:24:04
Speaker
So there's a sense of purpose. And like you said before, there is definitely difference. And I learned something from you. I tend to be that type of person that when it's doing something in a group environment that others depend on my work, I am very committed. I'm very committed and I will do it. And it's very few things that I feel that I do because it's mine. And actually this podcast has shown and I'm going to get emotional.
01:24:32
Speaker
Now, as I'm saying it, creating this podcast almost a year ago has shown me that I am actually capable of doing something that is really just based on my own doings and following through, and that it's not because somebody else depends on me putting it out there, but it's because of something I'm doing. And that's wonderful. And I relate to that because, look, every day I get messages from different people.
01:25:00
Speaker
And my doctor, we called Dr. Gandhi, he's very, very old. He sent me a message this morning and I sent him the videos every day on WhatsApp. I asked him, like, are you happy to get this? And you don't have to reply ever. He said, yeah, send them. And he's not said anything and he wrote this morning. Thank you very much, Joanne. I watch your posted clips every day.
01:25:24
Speaker
Your eye for details, artistry, sound effects are all very captivating. I am beginning to see a side of you that I was aware of all this time, but not in such details. Please keep sending the clips every day. And I had tears in your eyes. I got chills. Somebody that's known you for so long, yet that he's seeing something completely new in you. That's right. And that's one of the things I felt like
01:25:54
Speaker
One of the things that I'm getting out of this is that people are getting to know me better. People are getting to understand like, you know, I'm the, I have friends say, ah, Colombiano! They see me and they just stereotype me. And people, you know, like in the media is like, oh, oh yeah, he's a doc. Oh, you need an interview? He's a documentary filmmaker. And I'm like, I don't do interviews. I make films. And so this, now people are going like, oh,
01:26:23
Speaker
Okay. Uh, this is what you do and understand a little bit more about where I come from. That's awesome. That's awesome. So yeah, your storytelling. It's funny because I looked at your podcast and I thought, you know, this is Ken that doing this podcast for herself. And I was looking at, I was like, Oh wow, this is amazing. And it is pretty cool.
01:26:47
Speaker
Thank you. Well, I'm glad that you're a part of it. Thank you for coming into my little world here, into my little bubble of the podcast and sharing your story and to everybody else that listened today. I hope that you took as many nuggets as I did in this conversation.
01:27:06
Speaker
Thank you once again. And with our time difference, I'm so glad we were able to still be able to manage it having it done. This is when I edit. I'm going to get off and start editing. And start working on your short film. That's awesome. Thank you so much. Gracias, amigijo. Gracias.
01:27:33
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do so.
01:28:02
Speaker
Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.