Professional growth doesn’t happen overnight (obviously).

Over the past few years, I’ve been working on a few things…

1 – Understanding the process behind my art, refining it, sharing it, adding skills to my repertoire and working to find ways to champion others in my field.

2 – Being more involved in the production community as a whole.

3 – Overcoming my fear of public speaking.

While I’m proud to say I’ve made progress on all three, I’m only going to touch on number THREE today.

The pandemic has offered me baby steps in being more “out there” when it comes to public speaking. From searching for ANYONE else on stage to pass the mic off like it was a hot potato, to avoiding a film festival entirely, I have really gone lengths to avoid public speaking. When I decided I didn’t want to do that anymore, I honestly didn’t have the opportunity again until the pandemic hit. IG Live became a new way of practicing for me. When @wildbirdstudios asked to chat with me live, I jumped at the opportunity. Still incredibly nervous about it, with lots of encouragement from my husband and friends, I went into it with no real expectations. I planned to just be myself, treat it like a conversation with friends and not something other people would be watching (baby steps). I actually had fun! I had screen recorded the interview and shared it with my whole family, hoping it could shed some light on what I do for a living. (Watch the full interview HERE) When I received this text from my mom after she watched it, I knew I had to keep going.

“I absolutely loved your interview. Cried through the whole thing. Love you so much … so proud of you!  I loved hearing what you actually do and how much you love it … the Creative, Emotional, Passion for your work. I always tell people you’re an editor but I’m not really sure what you do. I always knew we had a lot in common but I didn’t really know how much alike we are. Mine is the music. I could never sing or play anything that I couldn’t connect with. Becky Martinez once told me that I was very musically talented, but that wasn’t the hook. It was the way I interpreted it and how I presented it to the people. I touched their hearts and I see that’s what you do, too. What an eye opener for me. Our smart, talented, beautiful daughter.❤️😍😘”
Of course my mom is proud of me… but to know that she truly had no idea what I actually do day in and day out only meant that I don’t truly know how to talk about it. (We won’t even go into the time I vented on the phone to my parents about an issue with B-Roll and at the end of the vent, my dad asked who this Zorro guy was 😂🤣).

Ultimately, at the end of my first IG Live, I was left with a new understanding… it doesn’t matter how many likes or views I get because, even if my mom was the only person I truly reached and connected with in that IG Live, WOW… it was TOTALLY worth the fear and discomfort I felt doing it!

Transforming my number THREE – work to share my passion with all those who will listen, with the hope of finding that “thing” we can connect on.

With the progress I’ve made on number THREE I’ve been more encouraged to work on number ONE, because the more I understand my own process the better I’m able to share it with others.

To be clear, I have not overcome my fear, but I feel I have found a way to harness it and choose to use it to find ways of connecting with others.

Since my first IG Live, I’ve been on a Live Panel Discussion for the Arizona Production Association, another IG Live with @chrisheck, have been featured on an episode of AZ Creates and was an instructor for a Live Arizona Production Association Post Production Workshop.

As my comfort zone expands and the pandemic eventually comes to an end, we’ll just have to wait and see how I fair on a real stage.