James Cameron tells filmmakers to embrace failure as necessary, rejecting NASA's "failure is not an option." Rich describes his fear of appearing on camera and how he had to face it anyway. Evan explains that awareness and deliberate practice can rewire your instinct to avoid discomfort.
Chapters
Good morning, Believe Nation!
Today's message is: Failure is an option, but fear is not. Over to you, James Cameron.
I have young filmmakers come up to me and say, you know, give me some advice for doing this. And I say, "Don't put limitations on yourself. Other people will do that for you. Don't do it to yourself. Don't bet against yourself. And take risks." NASA has this phrase that they like: "Failure is not an option." But failure has to be an option in art and in exploration, because it's a leap of faith, and no important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks. So that's the thought I would leave you with, is that in whatever you're doing, failure is an option, but fear is not.
So what do you think?
You know what, I think that's a really great message, and I can really relate to that because in life, you know, you're gonna fail repeatedly, and every successful person always says, "Fail your way to success," which pretty much means Try, you're gonna fail. Try, you're gonna fail. Try again, and then ultimately you're gonna succeed. A real failure is one that never really tries, just fails before he even tries. Fear, I can really relate to because for me, being in front of the camera was a big fear, like something that I would never do, 'cause I'm a behind-camera guy. I shoot films, videos, photos. I'm never in front of the camera. So I mean, with you, I mean, we worked on it for like over a year. Yeah, it was a long time. Right, I think over a year Evan tried to encourage me to be in front of the camera and I gave him every excuse excuse, and then you're rocking it now. And then something snapped over you because it haunts you. Whenever you don't do something you're afraid of doing, it haunts you. It's always there, a nagging thought, nagging voice in the back of your head kind of saying mean things to you. So you better just nip it in the butt and just do it anyways. Feel the fear and do it anyways, and the fear diminishes, and you feel so much better about yourself. And the fear thing may actually be your next move, that thing that you wanted to do in life that you don't even know where it's going to go. So as long as you're fearful, you kind of— you're blocking your good out in your life.
The thing that I might add to that is we have instincts, we have natural instincts. When something is uncomfortable or we're afraid of, we just naturally say no. We naturally block it out. We naturally run away from it. Logically, it makes sense. Logically, it makes sense to say, yes, that thing that I'm afraid of, I should go and do it. But in the moment, you don't think logically. You think emotionally, right? You think with your heart and you like, you want to, you want to run away from it. And so I think what helped me was training myself to when I get uncomfortable or when I feel a little bit afraid to recognize it. Like awareness is the first part. I don't, I don't necessarily agree with the comment about fear is not an option. I think you will be afraid, but it's feeling the fear and doing it anyway. And so if you can recognize in the moment that I'm afraid of this, but I, I feel like I should go for it, I want to start challenging myself, then you get more and more comfortable doing that. So now being in front of the camera is not as scary as it was before. It may still be a little scary, maybe it's not scary at all, but like it gets more and more comfortable and now you're ready to stretch your comfort zone to the next level. So getting used to feeling uncomfortable and being okay with it and pushing yourself to go for a little bit more.
So the question of the day today is: What fear is in your way that you need to overcome?
It's a deep one. Rich asks the deep questions.
I love it.
Leave it in the comments below. We'll join the discussion. Thank you so much for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe, and we'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso.
