From the Back Row to the Red Carpet
I remember seeing John Wick in theaters back in 2014.
I was already living in New Orleans at the time, pursuing being an actor but had recently been introduced to the stunts world.
Seeing this film sealed the deal.
As I watched John Wick debut a completely new type of action and fight choreography, it lit a fire in me.
I wanted to be a part of that world.
That was the beginning of my pivot into stunts.
I knew what I wanted, but I had zero idea how I was going to get there.
And maybe thats where you are, something has lit the fire, but the path forward is still dark.
The reality around that is, you don't need to have it all figured out.
The most important part is to believe that it's possible and then take a step.
For me, this past week marked a full circle moment.
I was able to attend the red (black) carpet premiere of Ballerina, the John Wick Spin off, as the Fight Coordinator.
Surreal doesn't even begin to describe it.
From the outside, someone else's journey can feel like a time machine. And because of the nature of social media and
how we keep up with people, their path can seem like it's just milestone after milestone.
But what people didn't see on my journey to that moment last week:
Moving to LA only to file for bankruptcy almost immediately after
Begging my way into training at 8711 for years while working at theme parks making less than my cost of living.
Training for 6 hours a day for 2 years straight once I finally did get into 8711, pushing my body to the absolute limits.
And this doesn't even include the process of working on the film itself.
The stress of designing sequences worthy of the John Wick Universe
The pressure of working with legendary stunt people with double my experience
The constant internal voice (as well as some real-life external naysayers) telling me "you're not ready for this"
Every step of the way there were reasons to give up. To succumb to the voice inside saying that working at this capacity
is for other people, not a small-town kid from Arkansas like me.
But as I stand on that black carpet last week, living in the moment, you know what I realized?
That you can't pull off anything extraordinary without first believing it's possible, and then breaking it down to the smallest
step you can take to just begin.
I've talked about this before in a past newsletter, The Time Will Pass Anyway, but the one thing that separates people
that are able to achieve extraordinary things from the ones who don't is that they believe deep down that they can achieve them.
Or maybe even to take it a step further, they may even have this underlying feeling that they are meant to.
In my opinion, this is the linch pin of leading an extraordinary life.
Once you have the belief, the rest is just collecting failures to stand on top of until you reach the top of your mountain.
And that’s my purpose now.
Not just to teach storytelling.
Not just to show you how to shoot cinematic content.
Not just to build a brand or make courses.
But to help you believe at your core that you can set yourself free.
That you can build a life around your passion.
That your story, your skills, and your scars are your power.
Everything I share from shooting cinematically to finding the stories in your life, are what I used to climb my mountain.
And I offer them to help you start your own climb.
I hope this helps.
