53. From Breakdown to Breakthrough — The Final 5 Beats That Change Everything

This moment of adversity, everything that led up to it has taught you something. There's a lesson, a pull everywhere. What is it for you? And can you use it right now to get yourself out of that internal collapse? So in our lives, we have to think, wow, I gotta be more open. I gotta be radically open-minded now because I'm in a position where I'm vulnerable and I can easily slide further in the hole. And of course, this means my wife says this intro sounds like a conspiracy. So I'll stop that voice and I'll just tell you, this show is here to give you some cinematic fuel, tools, and excitement so you can stop drifting and start directing your life better than any movie. Welcome to the Direct Your Life Podcast. I'm Tony Suriano. I'm a film director and author of Direct Your Life or Someone Else Will. I'm excited to share The next part of our 15-part episodic miniseries within this podcast. If you haven't listened to the last 10 episodes, please do, because once you binge those, you'll kind of get some context and relevancy to this episode. But either way, you're going to find value in here. I really, really will do my best to clarify what's going on. So what's going on? In the previous episodes, we talked about the beats in filmmaking and how you can apply them to your life to make your life better than any movie. And I'm just providing steps, takeaways, aha moments so you can start chipping away at the life you want to build. Last episode was all about the bad guys close in beat in film, right? You're watching a film and you see all these bad guys close in, the hero has to fight them off. Everything's collapsing and problems arise everywhere. That's testing all the strength of the hero. And in your life, you're the hero. There's so many things that come in your life and you have to stand your ground. You're going to knock down, but you just got to keep getting back up. Now, beat 11. This is really the collapse, also known in filmmaking, in the world of writing It's called the all is lost moment. This is where everything all at once is just gone. Everything you dreamed that could happen did, and the negative part, not the good dreams. So this is a true testament to your strength as the hero of your own life. So you first have this external world, whether it's your status that's gone, whether it's your car that is now totaled, whether you lost your job or your relationship, that's beat 11. You have to get through that in the movie and in your life movie. But the hardest moment is in beat 12 when you're pretty much worse than you started. So if you started and you were kind of low off over here, now you're down here. This is that reflection moment in a film where You feel like, should I keep going? Should I give up? Should I jump off a bridge? I mean, you have all these thoughts racing through your mind. And for example, in the movie, it's a classic, It's a Wonderful Life, the main character, he feels like a loser. He feels like, why should I stick around? I should— maybe I should jump off a bridge and get my family to have the insurance money. If you're listening, don't do that. Life's amazing. You're amazing. But there's these moments, there are these suicidal moments, if you will, in a film and in life. But if you can reframe it, you won't jump off the bridge. You'll actually realize, oh, that bridge leads to my next level of advancement. It's just a little reframe. But if you reframe it You will act accordingly. So in that film, what happens is there's this angel character that comes down and he walks him around town and through all of the past interactions he had with other people he cared about. And he shows them, listen, your life had impact. You said this to this young kid. They grew up and they were a nice person. Then they helped someone. And it's a ripple effect. But we go through life and we don't give ourselves credit. I know that I don't, or I haven't. Now I've been starting to a lot more than before. And you must give yourself credit. You've impacted people's lives whether you know it or don't. So if you're in a dark night of the soul moment, if you're feeling bad because all is lost externally and internally, I urge you to reflect on those in your life, those that you've come across. And if you don't have anyone and you just can't think of anything, The next best thing is to just put on your darn role model hat, because there's always someone watching. Not in a creepy 1984 way, but in a way that if you're out and you get berated by someone at a supermarket, maybe for some reason you bumped into them and they were just irate and they were calling you names. If you react and you start a fight or you start yelling, And then there's a younger soul over there, 10, 11-year-old kid. They're watching you, seeing what you do in that situation. How would you feel if the youngster that's watching you uses your example of being irate and hateful towards this other person, and then they grow up and do that, and then they have a terrible ripple effect? You wouldn't like that. I know that. So So those are the moments you can control. You can actually think, wow, this individual is effed. Something happened to this person. No one loved this person. Oh my gosh, I feel sorry for this person. Let me just not react. Let me just respond with a little kindness and just let it go. That goes a long way. So think about these things. Where are you in your life? Did everything collapse recently, or is your life amazing? Things are going well. That's amazing. That's great. I hope that's happening for you. Just remember, this is life. It's a fun roller coaster, and you're on it. You go up and you go down. So you have to be ready for these collapse and these dark moments. Are you? Are you writing things down? Are you journaling about the good things and also the bad things and how you can handle them better? That's something that is important to me because when all hell hits, you want your nervous system to be ready to not react but to respond. And if you do something long enough, you think, let's call it the positive way, long enough, it's proven that your reactions turn into a response that's more positive because you're conditioning and rewiring your body and brain. I love this stuff. This is just a fun way to remember what you're going through is a test externally and internally. So for beat 11 and beat 12, you have some questions, some simple questions you can ask that can help you navigate these times in your life or the times that will inevitably come. The first one is when everything externally collapses, Who's still going to stick around and what still sticks around inside of you? Who are you still, no matter what? When everything collapses, there's something inside you that no one can take away because you're unique. And that's the cool thing about being you and being me. We are all unique. We have these things, these remarkable traits inside us that were developed and some implanted in us. And we have to remember that doesn't go away. Even if our car gets totaled, even if our house gets destroyed or our relationship ends, we're still us. So value that. And then for beat 12, the dark night of the soul, is there any 2 AM question that's circling your brain? Something where at night you're just having trouble? Not thinking about it. How can you attend to it? How can you declare that this is the time that you won't stand for it anymore and you're going to take control? You're going to stop beating yourself up and you're going to start directing your life better. Because if you don't, what's the alternative? Here's a sentence I would like you to complete. Ideally, you should write this down and complete it. I will persist in what matters to me because the alternative is— and then complete that sentence. So I'm saying, if you don't tend to this thing and push towards the thing that really drives you in life, and you dwell in this internal and external collapse, what's going to happen? You're going to reach the end in regret. And we don't want that. That's what this is about. We have 3 more beats, and I'm going to share a little bit about them right now. Beat 13 is when the main character in a film goes into Act 3, and all the chaos and the fun and the relationships from the previous beats and acts, all those lessons now are going to be truly Put into action from here till the end of the movie. If beat 12 was about the dark night of the soul, feeling like, wow, I'm worse off than where I was, beat 13 represents a new piece of information, a new insight, a new spark of motivation to take action. And this is when the hero moves into act 3 of the film. So in our lives, we have to think, wow, I gotta be more open. I gotta be radically open-minded now because I'm in a position where I'm vulnerable and I can easily slide further in the hole. So I need to be open so I, I can use this new information to cross that bridge, to climb that new cliff, because I'm not jumping off the cliff. I have a new cliff to climb. And this is exciting because now you get to test and push past and use all the lessons you learned up until this point. So when you think of your life, this moment of adversity, everything that led up to it has taught you something. There's a lesson, a pull everywhere. What is it for you? And can you use it right now to get yourself out of that internal collapse? And of course, this means there's going to be some more bad guys. You're going to have to try new things. You're gonna have to overcome fear, uncertainty, and doubt again, because that is just what happens. And this is also when you have to knock out your ego for a certain amount of time and then keep learning, keep trying. The ego gets back up. It's trying to protect you, but it's really not. Beat 14 is truly the moment where you have to prove all the lessons that you've learned were real. And this is the moment you have to slay the dragon, fight the bad guy, do the thing you've been putting off and ignoring that's been eating away at you. This is the time to use all the things you know instead of knowing the things you know but not acting on the things you know. This is your time to be the director. There's no turning back now once you decide To use that new information in beat 13. You get into this finale in life and you just keep going because you're so close. All you need to do now, after slaying the dragon or fighting that bad guy and winning, you go into beat 15, which is your final image. And this is the best part. This is your reward. You are the reward because you've transformed through all these beats. You've learned from this adversity. You've learned from the mentors. You've learned from relationships, the ups and downs. You've had some fun in life. You've had some games in life, and those are lessons too. But you put them all together, and now this is the new you. So what's fun about this in filmmaking, the final image, it semi-mirrors the opening image, the very first beat of a film. But usually they're complete opposites. So if you look at life, you need to give yourself credit for where you are, one, but where you are going. And once you get there, give yourself more credit and look back. Wow, beat one, I was a wreck financially. And here, while I'm not a loaded millionaire, I have my finances in order. I have a nice house and I have a nice car and I eat healthy. I can afford it. That's the comparison. And that is why the final image is so important. Now, what I want you to remember is this 15-beat system isn't just your whole life from when you were a teenager till now. There are little moments, little movies and big movies in your life. I like to think of each year as a movie. And I think that doing this 15-beat exercise every year is really powerful because you can see, wow, I was here, I was here. Oh man. And sometimes you're at the end of the year and you're like, oh my God, I'm here. I have 7 beats left. That just happens. But when you apply this framework and you open your mind more, you're more aware, it makes it kind of fun. You remember fun? You gotta have more fun in life. You have to be playful. You have to be curious. You have to bring that kid out, 'cause I know sometimes we just adult too much. We have too many responsibilities. There's distractions in the world. But when we bring that kid heart out, life gets more fun and a little easier, even when we have bigger challenges. That's all we could ask for. We're not trying to get rid of our problems. No, problems are gifts. Life is a gift, but we want to be able to navigate them smoother so we can enjoy the ride instead of be dragged all around through hell, right? I hope you enjoyed this succinct— I hope— episode on the last beats of the 15-beat framework for making a great film, and I hope you can apply this to your life. That's what it's about. You now have some steps that will help you direct your life better and help you make your life better than any movie. Now, I have a book, it's called Direct Your Life or Someone Else Will, that goes into depth on all 15 beats. There's cinematic stories, there's frameworks. You can pre-order the book right now. If this is in the future, it might be for sale. Go to directyourlifebook.com and you'll be able to grab your copy. This is something that's important to me, and I wrote this book not for dabblers or spectators. I wrote this for people like you that are done dabbling and you want to take action. You want to make your life more fun, and you want to make your life better than any movie. I got the steps in there for you. I got some stories for you so you can remember it easier, and there's some easy-to-do frameworks that are waiting for you. So if you're done drifting Get the book so you can start directing your life better than ever and get back into the director's chair. That's it for this episode. Thanks again. Please follow and subscribe so you don't miss another episode in the future, and get out there and direct your life.