MADE Magazine Issue 8 | Page 20

MADEFEATURES MADE XXXX would say look at the people you aspire to be most like and look at their path of success. And history is littered with people who had to take their time to get to their destiny and their purpose. MADE: So what type of practical things would you suggest? DF: Let’s just say for example you want to get promoted but it hasn’t happened yet... what do you do? I tell people, start finding a way to add value to the people you work for. Start finding a way to add value to your bosses. Because if you’re adding value to your bosses, and you are helping who you work for and their lives to become better, I promise you that is a key to help you find success in the long run. And it’s also a great way to utilize the waiting period productively. So I do believe that waiting on your career is a good thing because it really, really, really, helps prepare you. So many times we’re focused on where we want to be. It’s one thing to get there, but if you don’t have the skillset when you arrive, you’re gonna blow it. MADE: And part of the value along the way is to (1) know what your skillset is, know what you have to offer, feel very confident in that, feel very good about who you are, and also commit yourself to the process. And when you say “Hey, I’m going to give myself over to the process of success,” that requires time. It requires commitment. It requires determination. It requires patience. It requires persistence. These are the ingredients. And the fastest way to lose sight along the way is to become frustrated. And to become bitter. And to also become prideful. And to also say “I should be/I don’t deserve this…I should be here by now.”It’s one thing where you’ve been in a situation where you literally have had a track record for a number of years, you’ve made contribution, and then you know “Okay, I’m not where I want to be at, and I can’t necessarily get that from my current job, so maybe I do need to look for a new job that will help me get there. But you should never make a decision out of “this is taking too long.” It should really be more out of….you know what...it’s like a cost-benefit analysis. MADE: So, when you don't have the position you hope for yet, how does one continue to know their own value while adding value to their boss? So, how do we conduct our own cost-benefit analysis? DF: So before I left Sony to start my own DF: You should know your value. Look at the people you aspire to be like. Look at the success in their lives. And when you look at success, people who have been successful, it never happened overnight. It just never does. And so, the idea that we would be frustrated that things aren’t happening fast enough...I production company, I did do my own costbenefit analysis. Which is: “Is the benefit of the experience that I’m getting with this job greater than what it costs for me to stay here?” For ten years, I was like no, “I’m getting the benefit out of it.” And I’m getting more benefit than it’s costing. But it got to a point where I realized, “Wait, it’s starting to cost me more than what I’m getting out of it because I know that I wanna produce." I’ve done a lot of films in the mademagazine.com made-magazine.com 20