The Practice That Turns Everything You've Already Done Into Your Biggest Asset

Message me to lead a Mindfulness workshop for your team or speak at your event. https://elysiaskye.com/contact

This episode is about why the work you've already done is your biggest asset and how to stop overlooking it.

In 2013, Maris Lidaka made a short film. That one project got him a job, launched a collaboration that led to a Netflix grant, got two films qualified for the Academy Awards, premiered work at the Smithsonian, and now has a feature film in development. Twelve years later, that first domino is still falling.

In this conversation we get into why most creatives keep starting over instead of building on what they already have. You’ll learn why knowing your "why" will sustain you longer than any metric, how the five-year reflection practice works and why you should steal it, what it's like to be a filmmaker navigating an industry that still doesn't know what to do with diversity, and why the person behind the work now matters more than the work itself.

If you've been sitting on something wondering if it's too late or too small or too slow, this one is for you. You're closer than you think.

Contribute to the making of Maris’ next film: https://www.concreterivermovie.com/

About Maris Lidaka: 

Maris Lidaka is a filmmaker with over 20 years of experience in the entertainment industry. He continues to master a variety of cinematic crafts including directing, editing, producing and cinematography while working on commercials, feature films, and digital series for several companies such as Fullscreen, Disney and Maker Studios. He has also worked as a producer and director for large companies such as Verizon, AT&T and HP. He is the creator of The Blended Future Project, which explores the intersectionality of race and culture and teaches aspiring content creators how to find their voice. His films under the company have screened at several high-profile film festivals (including the Cleveland International Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival and PBS Shorts Showcase), received Academy consideration and been showcased by large institutions including the NAACP and the Smithsonian.

Follow his substack: https://marislidaka.substack.com/

Connect with Maris: https://blendedfutureproject.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marislidaka/

About The Brilliance Method: Hosted by Elysia Skye, intuitive guide, speaker, and creator of The Brilliance Method. Elysia has worked with Google, L'Oreal, YouTube, and Paramount Global leading mindfulness and leadership workshops. This show is where you learn to trust yourself, stop holding back, and actually move on what you already know.

Join the community and the Spiritual Think Tank: patreon.com/TheBrillianceMethod

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Theme song music "Sweet" by Kalen Chase https://open.spotify.com/artist/7ffJrTeAtFZb6KsuKLCRkD 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The people who build something that lasts aren't waiting for permission, a bigger budget, or the perfect moment. They just keep creating. Today I'm talking with Maris Littica, filmmaker, editor, and founder of the Blended Future Project. We talk about what separates the creators who last from the ones who burn out, and it has nothing to do with talent. So this is for that person building something real in the margins of their actual life, wondering if it's gonna matter. It will. Let's get into it. Maris, hi.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Hi.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

For everyone tuning in, we've known each other so long. I officiated his wedding. We are such good friends. He's my go-to editor. He's uh an amazing filmmaker. Yeah, it's just it's always like fun and awkward when you're here with friends, too.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Yeah. It's like we talk all the time, but now there's like a camera and a microphone.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

So that's true. So this is what reality television feels like.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

So, Maris, what is the Blended Future Project?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

So the Blended Future Project is my personal mission company championing stories either by or about the mixed experience, uh, both in America and globally. So if uh you're watching and you're wondering, well, that guy looks like something. It's because my mom is black and my dad's family is from Latvia. And I grew up in the suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, which shot out Frank Lloyd Wright houses because that's pretty much what Oak Park is known for. Uh and growing up in that environment, it was kind of like, well, what are you? Well, are you are you black? Are you why? What what what's going on there? And then in uh ninth grade, when I was 13, I moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, which that's a story.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

You didn't know that?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

No, I don't remember that.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

All right. So we'll go over that story. So uh when my parents were getting divorced, my mom kind of kidnapped my sister a little bit and took her to Amsterdam where they knew some friends and didn't really tell her that they weren't coming back. And then I got a phone call like six months later, like, yeah, your mom's in Denmark. And I was like, what is she doing over there? And then uh this was in eighth grade, and then the ninth grade, my mom was like, Do you want to come live here? And I was kind of like, uh, I'm not doing anything except go on to American high school, and I kind of hate it, so why don't I go over there? And which was a very eye-opening experience because when you you know, you look at the census and you like tick black, white, or whatever. They don't have that. They just want to know, are is one of your parents Danish or are they not? Like, and what country are you from? Like, are you from a country that we like? Are you from a country that we don't like, which is usually like Turkey or Pakistan, which I got mistaken for like a lot. But then once they would hear American, well, this is back then. I don't know how they feel about us now. But back then they were like, ooh, tell me more.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Not great.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Yeah, it's really not great right now. I mean, they were like fascinated because they get a lot of American media. So they're like fascinated but still critical at the same time. So it's like, ooh, you guys do this thing, but also you guys shoot each other a lot. Like, is that true? Kind of be like, yeah. Like I one guy asked me if Americans eat with knives and forks because they assume that we eat like pizza and hamburgers and hot dogs all the time. So I had to explain to him that yes, we are aware of how to use a knife and a fork. That is like a thing that we do.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Wow. So embarrassing. Hey, rest of the world, we're sorry. It's not our fault.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

It's not our fault. Okay. What you see on television is not always real.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Amazing. And then there's other cultures, especially in like certain Asian cultures, that like love us and are obsessed with us and our you know, celebrity and our pop culture and all that stuff and our food. And yeah, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

I think it's because we're like the media juggernaut, and you know, Hollywood consider you know, the industry that we work in, like exports a lot of our culture over there. So they just get exposed to it like a whole lot. So there's like aspects that they love and they find fascinating, and then there's aspects where they're like, yeah, this could be better. You guys could do better. What's wrong with you?

SPEAKER_00 4:12

It's fair. It's totally fair. We could do better.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

We could do better.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

We could do better. Okay, so you went to Copenhagen. And, you know, it's interesting because with your project, you know, I I know a lot of people who are mixed, but they might not be bringing it to the forefront or they're not as passionate about it. So hearing your perspective growing up, it makes sense that you're on the trajectory that you're on. So continue.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

So getting to live over there, you get to like escape the American brand of racism. There's the European brand and there's the American brand.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Can you tell us what those are?

SPEAKER_01 4:47

The American brand is like what do you qualify as human? Like, for whatever reason, we think that like all these different racial categories are like the best way I can put it is like the elves and the orcs in Middle Earth are mating. And it's like different species of something. And the European brand, it is like, well, our culture is just superior because you know, either we were Vikings or we've got the Louvre or what or whatever. And you practice like that cultural practice, and that's like inferior. So it's kind of the same, but kind of like different, but still a little refreshing.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Uh-huh. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

It's, you know, it's it's a new variety. Uh, but also at the same time, I went to an international school and I got to meet people from like all over the world. We all spoke English, but it was like, oh, here are these people who come from all the different places. And when I say different, I mean like I had I knew people from China, Russia, Turkey, Pakistan, Morocco, England, Finland, which by the way, the Finns are a little weird. But it's like, oh, all these the Finns will admit they're weird, all right? If you ask a finish person, like, yeah, we're a little hot. We're we're our own people. Um but you meet people from all over the world and you just start to realize, like, oh, there's you know, different cultural practices that are different, but we're essentially like all the same. And I got to escape that whole like American high school dynamic of like these kids who do this thing, they don't hang out with those kids, and we stuff these kids in the locker. Uh, and like this group doesn't like talk to that group, and because that group does that thing and we don't like that thing. It's like it was more so like we you navigate towards the people who you jive with or vibe with, and the other people they're just they just have like different interests, and that's okay. They're just not your interests. And then coming back to the United States, it was like, oh, oh yeah, it's different again. We're like in these little groups, and uh you're either on the A team or the B team, and the one team has to like beat the other team and and that whole thing. So trying to navigate what my mindset is into what like Hollywood's mindset is and trying to be a filmmaker in that environment has uh been a challenge. Uh and it's only started to really advance once I decided to start this whole blended future project thing and kind of do it myself.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Wow. That takes guts.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

It started as uh a blog, really. Our mutual acquaintance, Alex LeMay, uh, encouraged me to start leaning into that more because when you're here in Los Angeles, your people try to like push you in a certain direction. They want to know, like, okay, what is the thing that you are? Like, how can I package you in a certain way? So you try to, you kind of try to find a lane that is, well, you gotta pay rent. So it's like, I do this thing. That's right. So just pay me to do this thing. Uh and then I actually talked to somebody who has done some marketing for me, and she was like, I listed all the different skills that I had acquired from producing to editing to directing, and she was like, That's those are all very valuable skills, but they're not marketing you as a person. So I decided to lean in on my mixedness and just started like writing articles about it. And it didn't amass like, you know, a huge following, but enough people were interested that they wanted to know more. And once they found out that I was a filmmaker, people started like asking me to do stuff. And then in 2022, a friend of mine got a grant from Netflix for the LA Latino Film Festival program, where they take 10 filmmakers and they give them a grant that they go make a movie. So she wanted me to produce this movie for her called Gabriella. And so I was like, all right, I guess I should formally start a production company now. Uh, because I wasn't going to be personally responsible for managing all that money.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Yeah, I've done it, I've done it.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yeah, this is not fun. Uh so I just decided to officially incorporate and start doing my company and mission uh for real.

unknown 9:09

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

I've been doing it kind of ever since.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Amazing. Real quick, because I'm applying for a bunch of grants right now, and I did receive a $5,000 grant from Comcast.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Thank you. Yeah, for the podcast. Uh, we're doing yeah, 5,000 cash, uh business coaching sessions. They're giving me high-speed internet for one year, new uh computers, tablets for me and my team. They uh gave me a year of LinkedIn learning and a television commercial that's gonna run for six months.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Nice. Yeah congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Thank you. So receiving a grant is a big deal. Yeah. And yeah, we can we can talk more about it perhaps, but I'm curious, what was the grant that was given from Netflix? How much was it for, and what were the parameters?

SPEAKER_01 9:54

It's it's their filmmaker program for the LA Latino Film Festival that they do every year, which they at that time the grant was for 20 grand. And you were the idea was that you take that 20 grand, you make a short film. Uh, they gave it to her. She found it in December, and we had to concept, shoot, and deliver the film by the end of April. So that's well I'm so kidding.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

For reference for everybody, that is a really short time to make even a short film. And the hell that uh I and also Mars have been through in the digital production world when we're told concepts to air time is sometimes like five days. Uh with bigger budgets, yes, but um sometimes no budget. You know, what I did in 2020, that you know, that was that was a lot. So there's a whole episode about that. It's called Lights, Camera, Impact. If you want to go watch more about that, so it's all perspective, right? And if you want to do a film well, you want as much time and money as possible.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

We had to go raise some more money because I looked at what she was trying to do and I looked at the budget, and I was like, yeah, you can't do that on that amount. So we had to go raise some more funds, which she went and did. We shot the movie in North Carolina, because that's where the movie takes place, and that's where she's from, it's where she lives now over four days, and it premiered at that festival, and it got into a bunch of other festivals like the Atlanta Film Festival, uh, it premiered at the Smithsonian for like a special exhibit.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Wow. Uh that's phenomenal. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Thank you. Uh it got uh we premiered a theater, and we also got it qualified for uh the Academy, which uh it was unlike the the initial round. We didn't make it to the second round, but still the fact that it qualified is great.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

That's very cool.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Which is like actually, it's the second film of my short of mine that has had that uh prestige since I opened the company.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

So yeah, that was kind of the catalyst. And actually, uh a friend of hers got a grant for another filmmaker program sponsored by Walmart, which I just produced her short, and our budget was it was the same thing. Like the bud the they got like 50 grand. We couldn't go over, we couldn't raise extra money, and we only had two days to shoot, but we just finished that and that premiered in Miami, uh, and also here. So it's just been like this kind of whirlwind of uh you set an intention for something, and then you just kind of like see what happens, and then things start happening. It's peaks and valleys, of course. You know, not everything is like sunshine and roses, but you have it's given me like a purpose and a direction to like go in, which is very important if you're going to be any kind of creative person. You need to have a purpose and an intention of where you're gonna go because otherwise it's a easy to get distracted, easy to get um misaligned in what you actually want to do. So yeah, that's that's what I think is important for all creatives and creators out there.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

I mean, that's what this show is all about, like what you just said. And you know, we think, oh, we're starting a company and it's 2022, and now we're fast forwarding three years and a few months later, and things are moving, like you're you're getting to do these incredible opportunities. There's more on the horizon. When someone just starts a company or a brand and they think, well, first they're optimistic, and then they think, wow, is it gonna happen fast? Is it gonna take forever? And some people don't start one because they're like, I don't know how long this is gonna take. I can't afford to do something like this. Can you walk us through a little bit of that mindset and how you stuck with it? Even if, like you said earlier, you got to pay rent and there's things to do, and you have other jobs that you take on and people you work with. And so many people want to create something for themselves like this, whether it's a book or a course or a movie or a podcast, and and they don't do it because they're like, oh, I'll wait till I have extra money and I could take time off to fully focus. And I get that, and what a dream that would be. But to be able to plug away lunch breaks, nights, weekends, time between gigs takes a certain, I don't know, the Jews call it Hutzpah. That like when you you just do it, right? And so I want to hear your perspective that will shine a light on this for people who are on the fence.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Well, I mean, kind of the way that I'm wired is if you're gonna give me two options and one is like easy and one is hard, I will always pick the hard thing because I know that if I do the hard thing, even if it doesn't succeed, I will learn something that will help me in the long run. So that's kind of the attitude that I take is like, I'm not doing this, you know. Obviously, we have immediate needs that we have to take care of. You know, we gotta pay bills, we gotta feed ourselves, uh, we gotta have housing. So I'm sort of taking care of it. Feed our dogs. Gotta feed our dogs, kids, in-laws. Everybody needs food and shelter. So we have to take care of those immediate needs. But if you're not looking out for those like future needs and like future plans, you will wake up one day and say, Well, what did I do? Like, where did all where did all the time go? So that's kind of what I keep in mind. And then when I do that hard thing, I know that maybe I won't reap the benefit now, but at some point in time in the future, that thing that I did 10 years ago uh will be helpful. Uh case in point, the very first film that I made was called Sprout. Ironically. Uh, and it kind of it sprouted my career. It was the same person who got the Netflix grant starred in that movie. And that movie actually got me the job uh at the same company where we met again at uh INE.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

And then like two years ago, a company was like, Yeah, we'll pay you like a thousand dollars to put that film on our platform.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

I made it ten years ago, I made it back in like 2013. So you never know how so it's just about continuing the effort because the results eventually compound. And you look back 10 years ago and you're like, oh, that thing that I did back then now is bearing fruit now, and this thing that I'm doing now, I'm gonna look forward at some point in time, and you'll be glad that you did it and you stuck with it. And it's also about, again, being aligned and the purpose that you have. When you know, like I want to say this thing and I want to move in this direction, that gives at least it gives me the energy to keep going. Because I know it's not about like ticking off a certain box or getting a certain reward. I know American society, especially, is we're wired to do that. It's like I'm only gonna do this if I like get this thing out of it. Um it needs to like have a certain amount of impressions or make a certain amount of money. But when it's like I have this intention that I want to set forth and I have this mission that I'm on, and you just keep doing that, those other things eventually will come into place.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Yeah, it's so fun, you know. Even thank you for that. And I needed to hear that today too. You know, there's so much that I'm building and creating and going, is it happening yet? You know, and uh and I do the hard thing too when you're like, Am I gonna do the hard thing or the easy thing? I'm like, this is why we're friends, because we just fucking do the damn thing, you know. There's two things there I want to touch on. One is us reconnecting and INE, you know, that was and and and wonderful, and I'm so grateful. And that was you and me. And we've continued to do work together, and and and here you are now. And, you know, I'm so happy that you're in my life and you're my friend. You weren't just a wedding client. And, you know, I I officiated a lot of weddings. So most of them were just clients, you know, in the end, not all of them became friends, and even though I love them all very much, but it's not just me, all the all the people you met through that domino of you did that film, you hired her, here you are, you know, and then like everything that kind of sprouts out from there, you know, grows from there. So we think, oh, do I really want to just do this? Do I really want to take this job? Do I really want to have this experience? You just never know. You never know who you're gonna meet. I really try to say yes, as long as it's not an abandonment to myself. I really try to say yes. And I remember when I was offered the job at two university to produce online courses, and it wasn't glamorous. I had been in Hollywood for almost 18 years at that point, and I was like, or 19 years, and I was like, am I really gonna go produce online courses for uh a little bit less than I was making previously at NBC and uh shockingly, not a lot less. This is a whole nother conversation and kind of sad. But I was like, what's you know, and my friend had said to me, just do it, just do it to pay off your credit cards. You never know what you're gonna learn. I'm like, you're right, you're right. And then that changed my life. Like then I learned how to create courses, and then I helped other people create courses and I created courses, and you're in you're in one of my courses helping to teach editing and certain things. And, you know, it's like, gosh, you just never know. You know, you you, my friend Elizabeth Gamza said to me, you always get more when you show up than when you don't show up. If you choose to do something out of your comfort zone or just say yes to something new or different or unexpected or uncomfortable, you're going to meet someone, you're going to learn something, you're going to change even a little bit, and it'll be worth it. And if you stay home and just watch YouTube all night or Netflix all night, you know what your life looks like tomorrow. And it's the vanilla carbon copy of the life you don't want. I think that's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

So, yeah, I mean, I also want to touch on the fact that the fact I met you at IE, and then I and E got me the job at Full Screen, where I met a guy named Chris who shot that movie Breakaway, which was the first one to get qualified for the Oscars, and he's also now the executive producer of this feature film that I'm trying to put together. So it's a whole string of dominoes that happen shooting a short film back in 2013. So you never know. But also I think it's about it's not only about doing the thing, but also like positioning the things that you do. Uh, I try to take a practice of every like five five years or so, I should probably do this every year, but just taking a look back at the work that I've done, uh curating it and kind of seeing what patterns lie beneath it, so that way I can like better position myself as I move forward and tell people about it. Like that thing that maybe you weren't so proud of in the moment when you analyze, like, okay, I did this with it and this outcome, and I would have done this better, but this was great, and this is what I learned from it, and this is what they got out of it. You start to realize, like, oh, that thing that I thought wasn't that impressive, like actually now really it.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

That's a really cool practice. You know, once a year I gather my clients and my Facebook community. If you're not in it, it's the Trailblazer community, and we do a reflection on the year, and then we do we plan a year ahead. And we plan the year ahead based on, first of all, holidays, birthdays, time off, always prioritize yourself first. And then we look at what really worked the year before and what do you want to do more of and finding ways to put that in and then build it backwards, Gary Keller style. If this is what I want to accomplish by June, then I have to accomplish this by March in order to get to that by June. But I really like what you're saying about this five year reflection. And I think if you did a five year reflection every year, it still is effective. You know, because you're not just doing a one year reflection, you're really looking back. So, like, let's do it right now and find a nugget.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

So does that mean we look at the end of 2020? That could be kind of c crazy.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Yeah, it could be. What were we doing? Well, we were all trapped in our houses. Oh, I was all over the place. I was too. It was the kitchen and then this office, and then sometimes walking the dog, and then sometimes the living room back to the office. I was editing for Kin, which made me really, really fast as an editor.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Oh my god, you're so fast.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

No, no. That job, like, because we had to deliver, uh, for those of you who don't know, Kin Community was a production company that produced a lot of uh digital lifestyle content on YouTube. We had a lot of celebrity shows like Tia Maori and All Things Adrian. And I think you did the show. You came on like a year, you came out in 2021 to do Caitlin Bristow's.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

That was another random thing, too, because I didn't come in through you. I came in through Gwen and you were working there again, you know?

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Well, I told Gwen to hire to reach out to you.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

I thought they were like, we need somebody who's in Tennessee. Call this person.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Thank you. Thank you. If I didn't say thank you, then I would. I remember she posted on LinkedIn. She's like, I need a producer in Tennessee. And I was like, Gwen, me, because I knew her through Leslie. So all the world's collided, but thank you. So walk me through this five-year process and then I'll do it. And everyone listening and watching can do it. So what happens?

SPEAKER_01 23:29

So I ended up editing. I start that's when I started writing the Blended Future Project blog. That's when I was writing articles. Uh in 2020, I did an online event uh that was just about celebrating the mixed experience of somebody who I met online who put her guide on my website. So, and I also met the head of the Multiracial Association of Southern California, which they are responsible for why we can check more than one racial box on the census because of their lobbying work.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

So I met them and then I did some more online events for them. Kin kind of fell apart in 2022. They they did the thing that a lot of production companies did, which was their everybody was locking their houses, so they spent a lot of money because everybody needed to watch more things, so there needed to be more content for them to watch. So a lot of people ran up their credit cards making all these things, and then when everybody could go outside, they were still stuck with all the money they had spent and people were watching less. So eventually I got laid off. Uh, so I was like, well, I guess I have to figure out something. So I just decided to pivot from blog to production company because I produced Gabriella at that time. I produced three more shorts until by that time I started working on this feature film. I edited Alex's documentary, uh, and I started consulting and working with more filmmakers one-on-one. And now sitting here about to go into 2026, I've kind of managed to figure out what is the alignment between all the different skills that I have and also who I am as a person. Also started therapy, so there's that as well.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

That's great.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Uh and kind of what I've come up to or come up with is that I refer to myself now as a creator autor, because I've managed to understand not only all the technical aspects of creativity and media, from producing to editing to directing and even like sound and camera, but also all the inner aspects that go into it. Because when you don't understand like what it is that you want to say and why you want to say it, all those other things don't really matter. Because you can have the nicest looking piece that look technically looks wonderful. And I experienced this early in my career. I made a lot of things that looked very nice, but they didn't like speak to uh what I was trying to communicate. They were mostly speaking to notice me, notice me, notice me, this is great. So that's what I try to bring to people that I align with. Like I recently talked to a screenwriter who was writing a coming out story, and it was kind of like 15 movies like all in one. And then I asked her, okay, tell me about you. And she started telling me about her personal story, and I was like, Well, that's your movie right there. Lean into who you are. So it's about knowing how to get people's like inner work into their outer work, and also understanding how the different aspects of media all relate. Because if you can understand the editing but you don't understand the producing, then things could fall apart. And but if you understand the producing, you don't understand the editing, then things can fall apart.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

That's right. Were you inspired to ask them about their personal story because your marketing person asked you that?

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Maybe. Uh but I think part of it was I was reading the story and she was kind of giving me little like nuggets and hints of who she was. And then I just straight up asked her, like, did this story, like, where did the story come from from you? Like, how did the story come about? And she originally the story is about like a girl who's trying to like get the guy, but she's really trying to hide her queer identity. And I was like, Does that come from you? And she's like, Yeah, well, tell me about you. And apparently she's like an adopted Asian kid who lived in an all-white town in Florida in the Everglades, and had people come up to her and say, You're the first oriental that I've ever met. And uh thought that she had to like hide her queerness from everybody and that her family was going to kick her out when her family, I guess, was like taking bets on when she would finally admit uh her sexuality to everybody. And I was like, Well, that's your movie right there. Like, make that movie. Like make it specific to the character, but that is a better movie than the one that you have written so far.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Wow. I wonder if I know her because I grew up in the Everglades.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Well, she's like 20.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

So Oh no, I left. I left long ago. I left 25 years ago. That's where we're at. Uh the other thing I wanted to ask you, you shared a philosophy earlier about meaningful work and doing hard things and doing things that are important to you and going for them. And you know, I think some people would say they don't want to look back at the end of their life and regret the choices they didn't make. But where did that drive come from? Like what inspired you to go, yeah, I want to do the hard work and I want to go for things that are meaningful to me. Because I think that's what more people need to learn about and hear about, because most people are scared.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

There's a way to do things that are hard because you're scared, and there's a way to do things that are hard because there's something that you want to achieve. Because that's where the whole I don't want to wake up and regret X, Y, or Z the statement I don't want to, you're trying to avoid something bad happening versus trying to make something good happen that you feel good about. And it's two different mindsets. And you if you do the one where you're scared, then say I I think that things turn out a certain way because you're trying to avoid something versus trying to face something. And I think, I mean, honestly, I think it comes from doing martial arts since I was a kid because that's hard. And everything is like you're gonna do this hard thing and it's gonna be really like physically taxing. Uh, but you're gonna like eventually your body is gonna be able to do something that it hasn't done before. It may just like take a while, and you have to like learn patience because you're not gonna be able to like do a spin kick in class one. It may be like class 110 where you finally are able to do that. So I think that's kind of where the foundation of it uh comes from. And the rest of it, I think, is just I think also going to Denmark helped because being an immigrant, it's hard. I know people say that people like come to America because they want a better life and they should be like grateful. But when you come from a place where you're used to like living and operating and speaking, which speaking is really just a way of communicating your thoughts a certain way, and then you have to essentially do things an entirely different way, that is very, very difficult. It's more difficult. It's not just like learning the language and getting a job, it's like rewiring your brain almost. And having had that experience, it's like, well, if I can like do that, I could probably do almost anything. It may not look the way that I think it's gonna look at the end of it, but I know that I can do it.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

So you've thought about this and reflected on this a lot.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Yeah. I do a lot of uh I have a substack. I do a lot of writing about it. Uh so I I write a lot about like reflecting and looking because that's where all the art really like comes from, at least the best ones I think come from. It's reflecting on who you are and why you do the things that you do and why you say the things that you say and why you think the things that you think, and trying to use your particular uh gift or talent or method in order to communicate that with the wider world, because that's how we learned as humans from like the beginning of when there were humans. It was like, I'm gonna tell you the story about this guy and this bear, so that way you don't go get eaten by the bear.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

That's right. Yeah, storytelling is the oldest form of education that there ever has been. It's the oldest form of communication that there ever has been that we can trace back archaeologically, uh sociologically, anthropologically. And it's so fun. And when you combine storytelling with being an artist and having uh spiritual philosophy, here we are.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Here we are.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

It's it's awesome. And I remember, I mean, you got married a long time ago. What year did you get married?

SPEAKER_01 32:08

2013.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

2013.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

2013. I remember. We thought about 2012, and then we were like, uh, you know, we'll wait, we'll wait a year.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Okay. Cause you never know. Let's see if we're still around in 2013.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

You never know.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Gosh, if anyone remembers, just like the 12, 21, 12, right? Was it 12, 12, 12 or 1220? It was 12, 21, 12. Yeah. And everyone thought the mine calendar was gonna end.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

And I was like Which I went to Mexico uh and I was like, the mine didn't disappear, they're like right there. Selling calendars.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Selling calendars. I know it all reminded me of Y2K. I might be aging myself here. Oh I remember. Uh right, and like Conan O'Brien in the year 2000. Like that whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

I like that that bit also after the year 2000 just kept going for like another five years.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Oh my god. We recently brought back Charlie Sheen's winning. We've been saying that in my household.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

So fun, so funny. But yeah, it was such like a Y2K moment. And it's it's so fun that we remained friends and we had a few years where we didn't see each other, not that long though. And like I said, it was a year. Yeah, I officiated I officiated a lot of weddings. And I mean, like over a thousand, Mars. I think you might know that. But I remember yours so well. I remember I didn't want to deal with the shuttle, so I parked in the neighborhood even though I wasn't supposed to. I remember just like the I the way I see it in my memory, it it almost looks like these like ancient pillars, which wasn't what it was. It was a beautiful house in Hollywood Hills, but it was like you and her were on these opposite sides of these pillars, and and then you were together, and it was just so cool, you know, the little the balconies and then the the the room with the the stage and the dancing and all the stuff, and you talk into your friend to make sure everybody was mic'd up properly to film it properly, and like us planning the ceremony and bringing in Buddhist philosophy into the ceremony and how special that was. And I promise you, I didn't like go back and look at any of it. Like I just remember all of this because it was so sacred. And the two of you appreciate mindfulness and being present and the karma of things and the journey of things. And I just love that. I love that about you, and I love who you are and how you see the world.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Thank you. I mean, that's why we got married, also, because we have that alignment. Yeah. Uh and that same philosophy, it's just continued to guide me through what I do. I can honestly say that like life got better after I got married than before. Yeah. Because before, I mean, before I got married, well, one, we were in like Chicago and trying to struggle in that environment. And me trying to be in the film industry in Chicago was uh rough for a bit. Actually, I had the reason why I moved out to Los Angeles was because I had a job at a company called Intersport, which for those of you who had sprint phones back in the years 2007 and 2009, I and another cameraman worked on the very first like video content you could get on your phone. It was through sprint, and they had like music news and sports news. So, and then the 2008 crash happened, and then everybody got laid off, and I was like, well, I don't want to go back to like doing camera work in the winter. So why don't that was the whole impetus? I was like, I don't want to shovel the car out of the snow like two hours before call time because I have to thaw the car out and then drive it down to set and then like be frigid and then like try to hustle for like jobs. It's like, no, just move to where the warm is.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Yeah, and more opportunities. That's true. You know, I so I left and I didn't leave to pursue entertainment in Nashville. I left to just have a simpler, better life with more opportunities outside of the entertainment industry, even though it's called me back a hundred times and continues to do so. But now I get to use my production skills as a podcaster and I'm producing another podcast. And once in a while I create content for Singleton or Groove or different, you know, companies that want me to and and I only do it for those who I believe in their mission, and it's important to me. So, and you and I have talked about, you know, do you stay in LA? Do you move to Atlanta? Do you come out here? You know, so like what's the if anyone is listening to this and thinking about moving to LA to pursue filmmaking or acting, what's the landscape like right now?

SPEAKER_01 36:36

I mean, the landscape is pretty dire if you are trying to work inside of the I mean, we've all seen the consolidation that's happening. I mean, Paramount bought a bunch of stuff. It's all uh I heard this on a YouTube channel where it used to be this pyramid and now it's like a tower. Almost. It's like a tower and it's it's very like insular. I mean, I I read an article where most of the movies that we see that are the big ones are made by the same people. So and they're all like 50 and up. So what does that look like going forward? Like, are we gonna be relying? We're gonna dig up like Martin Scorsese and like shock him back to life so he can like keep making movies for us. So there's no development of new talent, really, and all the windows are shuttering. So, but what you can do, because the technology is now accessible, is you can kind of start doing your own thing and just do that wherever you are. And also, I think the industry itself is recognizing that that is the way the world is moving. Because think about it, like 20, even like 20 years ago, just making anything was super impressive. They're like, Oh, you made a movie? Like, oh my god, how did you do that? Now it's like, you made a thing? Okay, that's great. Is it on YouTube? And I watch it, where is it?

SPEAKER_00 38:06

That is such a fair point. I went so deeply into debt making Donut Run, my first short film I produced. And I think we spent five grand on it, but it was like I was 24, 23, 24. It was like all the money that I could possibly scrounge together as a bartender. And we went and bought lights at Home Depot. And uh huge apps. Yeah, we shot on like a Panasonic and then we edited together with like with real, you know, we we were using tape. We're using like, I don't know, it was like high eight little tapes, right? And then we were editing using laptops and tape machines and moving it back and forth. And it was friggin' hard. It was hard. And then we had to go in and do some ADR. I was a nightmare. And now it's like, oh yeah, hold on, let me just like pop into my office, go in the closet, do this on my phone, throw it through Adobe, yeah, text, text it to you.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

So if the what is no longer impressive to most people, because anybody can make the item or the what, the thing that becomes the differentiator is the person, the who, and also the why. Who is the person making it and why are they doing it, and how that makes me as an audience member feel. That's why people want to know more of like about the person who made the thing. That's why I mean you're you're even seeing like I heard a lot of things when Sanders came out that Ryan Klugler does not have social media, which yeah, he doesn't have it because he has Warner Brothers, so he doesn't need it. But also he's doing a lot of interviews so that way he can get from behind the camera to in front of it. And if you are making something, you you're gonna have to get real comfortable being out in front and like talking about it because people want to know who is this person who made this thing that I like and why did they make it? I want to know more about them, which is kind of how I feel about also about like generative video, because it's uh kind of the antithesis of why people resonate with things, at least right now.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

Yeah. Do you remember when uh VH1 did storytellers, you know, behind the music and all that?

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Yeah, behind the music. My when we came back from Denmark, my sister would like binge, it would be on like all the time. It was like that and sister's sister was on all the time.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

All the time. And like I loved MTV Unplugged because they would tell stories of like, here's why I wrote this song. And you know, I love going to concerts, and when I'm when the the someone in the band talks about here's the story behind this song, I'm like, oh my god, now I feel like a personal connection to that. And I get to tell that story to people when I hear the song in the car, and you know, and it's it's the the curious mind wants to know, and we get we want to feel like things matter.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

I think that's a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

And I think that's why kind of knowing why you want to do something, what you want to say, and why you want to say it is important work to do, which I'm helping more and more people discover that. Because once you know that, you have a direction that you can go in and then that will resonate with people more. Now I can't guarantee that that's going to give you like a million followers, but the people who do follow you will feel connected to you because there's also the old the adage of you only need like a thousand true fans in order to have a decent life with anything that you're creating.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

That's true. I mean, could you imagine being in a if we had this conversation on a stage in an auditorium with a thousand seats sold out with a thousand people sitting in there? I have over a thousand people that follow my podcast between all the platforms and quite a bit more than that at this point, but not tens of thousands by any means. And just to think, like, oh my gosh, even my YouTube right now at the time we're recording this has just under 500 subscribers. And that doesn't feel tiny to me. I know in the grand scheme, and I have friends who are YouTubers and we've produced for big YouTubers with millions of followers. And it's like, if you and I were having this conversation in a room with 500 people, if if there were 500 people in my house right now listening to us talk, we there would be everyone would be pouring out into the the yard, you know. It's like that's so many people.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Yeah, and then we'd be like, who are all these people then? Why are they here?

SPEAKER_00 42:34

Well, I'd say half of them are my friends and family who are like, yeah, I'll subscribe to your stupid show, Alicia. And so thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. Comment, let us know who you are, where you are. Um, it's so funny. And of course, your Substack, your LinkedIn where you post a lot of thoughtful content and share your resources, well, all that will be linked in the description in the show notes. And um, and I want to ask you, just for my own curiosity, as a somewhat naive white person who's not really in the entertainment industry anymore, is it getting better? Because when I produced Donut Run in 2004, and I'm a Screen Actors Guild member, and they're we're all trying our best and they're trying their best. The requirement when I was casting was that one person who spoke. I could have a hundred roles, but there needed to be one person who wasn't totally white.

SPEAKER_01 43:31

Yeah, they're trying to get rid of that.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Yeah, I thought that was like so shitty. And why only one? And the fact that we even have to put that requirement in is a I mean, it served its purpose. It probably needed to be put in. I couldn't believe that. I was like, wait. And then I looked around at all my friends who I had put in my movie, they were all fucking white. And I was like, oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

Well, here's part of the problem is that Hollywood thinks of diversity as like this gift. That they are giving to the people who are a part of it.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

I remember after Black Lives Matter, every commercial was like white wife, black husband. It was like snow in our face. I'm like, okay, guys, we get it. You're trying to not get canceled. But it's like not realistic.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

Now they're trying to like do the reverse of that, which uh actually I I interviewed with somebody for the LA Times and they quoted me by saying that first it was like this gift they thought they like had to give, like, see, we're great. Don't like we're not bad people. And now they're trying to do the opposite of like, yeah, you never mattered anyway. But like DEI and all that, it's never a thing that people of color really wanted. We wanted just the same opportunity to tell stories from our perspective. And if we didn't want well, a lot of what happens is what I call window dressing, which is like we have a character who was like basically written from the perspective of like somebody white, uh, but we're gonna like put a black face on it. And we're not gonna listen to them. We're gonna like any feedback and how they personally see this character. It's like this is what it is. Uh say the lines and be a brown face and shut up, take take the money and go home. But what we really wanted was like, why don't you just give us the chance to tell our stories? Because it's not just like a nice thing to do, but it's also what will make Hollywood more money. There's this report that comes out every year. It's called the UCLA Diversity Report. And every single year they say like the movies that have diversity at the forefront make more money than the ones that don't. And this is a trend that's been happening since like the year 2010. And for whatever reason, well, I know the reason, but for whatever reason, they're just like, uh, we want to make uh more landmans and uh Taylor Sheridan shows. Like we we can't, it's too risky to do that, even though the data says the opposite. Uh and it's not too risky from a financial standpoint, it's too risky from a uh social structure standpoint. Because if you start having a lot of media where there's a lot of different diverse faces and people start to recognize in this country that they're human, well, that kind of upends the entire social hierarchy that we've built. But we could we can go down that rabbit hole if as far as narrow as you want to.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Yeah. I remember when it was I don't remember what year it was with the Oscars, but it was sometime around 2022.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Oscar so white 2021.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

Well, it was there was a montage done. It was a man on the street interview standing outside a theater, and he was asking each person who went in what movie you're going to see, just to make a point that all the black people were there to see the Tyler Perry movie, and all the white people were there to see the Brad Pitt movie or whatever it was, right? And then the point was like, why aren't we seeing each other's movies? Why are we only like why and it's you know, some of it is uh bias, unconscious bias, similarity bias, social constructs, like you've said.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

Some of it's availability.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

I mean, availability, like how do we solve this problem?

SPEAKER_01 47:20

I mean, yeah, I mean, if you're waiting on like the Lard Industries to do it, I wouldn't hold your breath. Um I mean, the problem is kind of getting solved a bit. I mean, I was just noticing that uh I mean, think about the most popular kids movie out there. It's K-pop Demon Hunters. Could you imagine 20 years ago that the most popular kids movie was about Korean pop artists? No. Or the fact that like Squid Game was the number one show that's not even it's subtitled. Like 20 years ago, you couldn't have paid people to watch a show, let alone a movie that had like subtitles. Yeah. And now that's a thing.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

My husband and I loved Iron Chef and we didn't care that it was subtitled. Like it was just amazing to see the content. But that wasn't everybody. You know, it took a while for that to hit in America, and I don't think we would have known about it had there not been an American Iron Chef.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

But that's good to know it's getting better.

SPEAKER_01 48:19

I think it's getting better from like a creator standpoint. Like people who just go do their own thing. Because if you look at like the creator landscape, like if you put up like the top probably 100 creators out there, you're gonna see a wide variety of people. Um gender, sexuality, uh, ethnicity, all of it. You put up the top 50 filmmakers who have made like the past movies, and it's all gonna look the same. So you've got one industry that does not recognize that the way the world is, and you have another one that's actually it's not even really like an industry, it's just like a platform, which has its own issues, but whatever. Uh and the industry itself, I think, is starting to recognize like we need them more than they now need us, because we used to own the means of making the thing, and now we don't. And now the thing is accessible to everyone, and we are making less money. So I think they're still gonna like hold on to the lack of diversity as like as long as they can. Uh, but these things naturally have a way of just working themselves out.

SPEAKER_00 49:31

Yeah. And I I I want to comment earlier, you said um accessibility too, you know. Uh when I think back to every acting class I've ever been in, there were hardly any people of color of any of other of diversity in those classes. Um, I don't know why, now that I think about it. I don't know why we didn't have more people in class that weren't white.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

I mean, I will also say that uh art is not something that is really encouraged in a lot of uh communities of color. I think it probably is more now because of things like YouTube, so people get more access to it. But like back then it was like uh uh it wasn't because there weren't a lot of people like doing it, first off, and when you don't see yourself, you don't see that it's even possible. So there's only like a few that are there. So you just you're just like that's for them, that's not for me. Like that's why you saw more. I mean, as far as like entertainment, more people became like athletes and comedians, really, than like actors or directors because you just didn't see it.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

That's an interesting thing. That's for them, that's not for me. So if anybody has that thought, even if it's subconscious rising to the surface, pause and break that down for yourself and know that it can be for you. And you know, there there were so many kids when Obama was president, going, wow, he just gave all of us permission. And I love that. And I want there to be more of that.

SPEAKER_01 51:01

And I think that's part of the uh escape from the US kind of helped because uh it's almost as though I can look at Americ American media from the outside. And while I was there and trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I mean, first the thing I thought that I wanted to do was be like a fantasy author. That was the thing that I wanted to do. Um, but then I started learning more and more about like film and how I worked, and I was like, I want to go do that because I got to like almost look at myself like separately from the social structure that is in the US because I was in a different one. So it was like I was an outsider looking at a foreign place that I could go back to.

SPEAKER_00 51:48

That's cool. Yeah, so get out of your environment, people. Go shift your perspective. It's truly the definition of a miracle.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

Yes. Get out of your environment. I mean, you don't have to go all the way to a foreign country. Uh you could just go to like the next town over. But I think just meeting lots of different people helps. And I also will say something else that I heard on the same uh YouTube video where they talked about the pyramid versus the tower, which is start because everything is so accessible, just start telling stories about people in your local community. There's a ton, I'm sure there's especially like if you work in documentaries, but even if you do narrative or whatever, there's a ton of people who you've probably met who are interesting who do not realize that they are interesting. Or there's things about the place where you live that are unique that people don't know about. I've been thinking for a while now that cinema and filmmaking is hyper local, but also global. So it's about making something that is so super specific to a particular area that somebody from like across the world can go like, I have never seen that before ever, and I want to know more about that.

SPEAKER_00 53:09

That's awesome. Yeah, do more of that. Amazing. More of that. Any last words?

SPEAKER_01 53:16

I think just again, finding what it is that you want to say and why it is that you want to say it. And using that as a way to communicate, to learn more, obviously learn more technical skills, but also setting that intention of why you do everything that you do, because that will sustain you in those times where you're doubting, like, am I doing the right thing? Uh is is this gonna work out? It's like, no, I have to say this thing. I have to do this thing because of this reason. That will give you the energy to keep going versus trying to hit a certain metric or number.

SPEAKER_00 53:54

That's awesome. So, how can people work with you?

SPEAKER_01 53:58

So obviously, uh, if you've got some videos that you want me to edit, you can hire me to do that. The Blended Future Project is a full stack production company. So we take things from end to end, so from conception to completion. I am a certified uh editor in DaVinci Resolve and Black Magic Design, uh, which has been a long time coming. Uh, but I'm also looking to mentor and coach people how to not only teach them the technical skills of filmmaking, but also the personal skills, how to take who they are inside and bring that to the outside. Because, as I've said, knowing who you are and what you want to say helps your story and craft become more magnetic. And a lot of times people, they're putting up a little block of like, I don't want to say that thing, or I don't want to reveal that part of myself. But when you go inside and actually reveal that thing about yourself that you're afraid of, it makes people come to you that you normally would not suspect. Personal example, for a long time, I did not want to talk about what it was like being mixed. I was like, I don't even want to go down that rabbit hole because I was afraid of how that would make me look. But once I actually did it, well, here we are.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

Here we are. And it just gets better and better. This or something greater.

SPEAKER_01 55:19

There we go.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

Be sure to connect with me at patreon.com forward slash the brilliance method. The only way I'll know if you're loving the show is if you leave a comment, five stars, and subscribe.