Today as I was e-mailing, phone calling, and doing all the things that I do to try and get movies funded, and therefore made, I cruised to Facebook to see what the rest of my friends were doing. Robert Dagnall, resume builder and cover-letter specialist, had posted a key note speech delivered by author Ray Bradbury. It was a speech that Robert had seen live and he has spoken about before so I was excited to see it for myself. It is just under an hour long but, regretfully, I couldn’t listen to it all in one go. Even in pieces I found it inspiring.
The speech is delivered conversationally with only the beginning feeling like a prepared, albeit loose, speech. The remainder of the hour falls out of his mouth like a story from your grandfather with the flavor and weight of experience and a life well lived. He tells of his start as a writer and how he wrote and accomplished what he did and I noticed as I listened that I had heard the story before but from different people. There is a theme in writing called the hero’s journey. If you’ve seen more than one movie in your life or read at least two books then you are familiar with the hero’s journey, it is literally as old as the written word (see THIS LINK if you need more). I decided today that there is a “success journey” that actually happens in real life. It is the path that people take to achieve greatness. Extraordinary people, like Ray Bradbury, who, despite all the trials, tribulations and hardship soldier on to reach the goals that they set for themselves and, usually without knowing it, exceed their original vision. It’s a thing that I aspire to.
If you are in need of a push or motivation to follow a dream or a reminder that just because something is hard doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing, watch this. After all, if the things that we love weren’t so hard to do everyone would do it.
Today’s picture is the screen as I watched part of the video.
And I’ve included the video in this post.
See you tomorrow!