so have you ever looked at successful people like big filmmakers or YouTubers or entrepreneurs and thought they just have something that I don't well that's something that I used to struggle with all of the time but the longer I worked in the industry and the more creative people I met the more surprised I got by what I actually saw happening all of the time and after 10 years of working in this industry I feel like I finally learned something that no one told me before so this is the first episode of seven life lessons from
10 years of film making and today we're talking about something big something that I really wish I realized much earlier because this changed my whole perspective so if this is the first video you see from me hello my name is Tim runia I'm a filmmaker from the Netherlands and I co-founded a video production company which I ran for about 7 years but in 2024 I decided to quit to chase something more fulfilling and a long story short is that decision led me to finally start this YouTube channel crazy enough the first video got me over
10,000 subscribers it's still so crazy if I think about it and for everyone that has seen my videos welcome to this new series in this series I want to talk a bit more raw to you get a bit more personal and yeah tackle the biggest life lessons that I've learned in my film making career and during this YouTube Adventure which is pretty small still but I think there are some valuable lessons and hopefully they can help you a little bit in your own creative Journey so when we started with our production company I felt really
small because we were just two friends with a camera figuring things out and I assumed for some reason that people running big production companies had it all planned out I really thought that that they knew exactly what they were doing that they just knew how to deal with every project and I remember going to their websites or Facebook back then or Instagram watch show reals and think damn they really know what they're doing they're so professional and they must really understand how this whole industry works and because I believe that so much I constantly felt
like we were behind as if we were just doing something while these other companies had had real professional way of doing things so whenever we got the chance to work for a client or a company I felt like we really had to look as professional as possible because you know we didn't want people to see that we didn't know exactly what we were doing but then when we actually started working with these clients and bigger companies something really shocked me the people inside those companies they were just doing something too project after project I saw
the same things like last minute decisions being made meetings where no one really took the lead plans that were being made up on the spot and even when I worked on professional sets with DPS or other creatives that I really used to look up to I kept seeing the same things people just figuring things out on the spot and a lot more chaos than I ever expected so when I saw that over and over again it's really when I started to realized that the image that I had in my head all the time that these
companies and creative professionals had everything perfectly worked out really wasn't true there was chaos trial and error last minute calls all the time and things going really wrong behind the scenes and what I really just found was the companies and the people that I admired most were just the ones who were okay with figuring things out along the way and kind of embracing the chaos instead of fighting it and I don't know once I realized that I really started questioning like all the things that I kind of believed about creativity and success so even after
realizing this um I still didn't fully believe it because nearly the whole seven years that I ran my agency I still felt like I didn't know enough to be truly professional and every time I worked with a new cameraman a new client I was kind of afraid that they would sort of find out that I didn't really know what I was doing and I really believed that there had to be some sort of Industry standard on how to be a director that does his job well or that there were some Universal rules that I did
not know about um and I don't think that people would necessarily see this insecurity of me but it was an insecurity that I felt with in every shoot I was directing um yeah the more I worked in the field the more I really started to realize something that no one tells you and that is that there are no rules there is no right way to do things there is no Universal playbook for film making or for business or for life so yeah the production companies I once admired they were just making it up as well
and the biggest agencies I don't know there was also a lot of all the time so eventually the problem was that by believing that others had everything figured out or knew some kind of rules that I didn't know I really created this high standard for myself where I'm trying to keep up with something that doesn't even exist and this realization didn't just change how I saw film making but it basically changed how I see everything so now you would think that int years of film making I would have learned my lesson right well I kind
of fell in the same trap with YouTube because I would watch all these other creators and think W they just have it or they just have some natural way to look on the camera or some kind of insane work ethic that's only possible for like a handful of people so yeah now that I actually started with all of this myself uh meeting other creators other YouTubers seeing how everything goes be behind the scenes I can really Ure you this nobody has it all figured out no one even the biggest YouTubers they are experimenting making mistakes
and pivoting like all the time so the thing is you just don't see this and some people are just better at making it look like they have everything all figured out and to be honest it kind of makes sense because that's kind of the best marketing you know me telling you honestly that I'm just figuring it all out is probably not as strong marketing as me pretending to got it all figured out so that you can learn from me how to do it as well but all you ever see is the end product from other
people you know the polished videos but I really believe that in reality there's not as much difference between you and the people you admire the only real difference is in many cases that they've had more practice and they Embrace figuring it out along the way and honestly I'm also still fig figuring things out you know I mean I'm sitting here right now in this small room in my house and trust me when I say I really overthought this so much should I do it here should I film in my office which looks way more professional
or is it more personal over here uh and yeah it it still feels scary because this is new for me I've never done a Talking Hat series like this before so I really want to be transparent about that because I think if I waited until I had everything perfectly figured out this video wouldn't exist and that's exactly why if you want to get better at anything you have to start before you feel ready you have to embrace failing and learning and figuring it out along the way so how to actually apply this well I can
tell you what I would tell myself 10 years ago right away and the first thing is that there are no rules there is no right way to direct or to run a production company or to build a creative career and I don't think there's one right way to live your life either so your way the way that aligns most with your own values that's the right way second thing nobody has all the answers so you can really stop waiting for them you know the people you admire they don't have all the answers they don't have
a secret formula they just started a lot earlier than you did third thing stop waiting for permission because no one is going to tell you okay you're ready now you have to decide for yourself to take action you know even when it's scary so good luck on that and the fourth thing maybe even hardest is stop comparing yourself because you're just seeing someone someone's highlights not their struggles and probably if you would know the full story of the people that you admire you would not even want to trade places with them so I know this
all Probably sounds way easier than it's done and if you if you are someone who wants to create but overthinks a lot and struggles with starting or finishing your creative projects I created this Stu to start guide It's a decision tree it's free and it's to help you to break through creative resistance and take action on the things that you want to create so grab it for free the Link's in the description let me know in the comments if you like it if it helps you that would really mean a lot to me anyway the
biggest takeaway is I think that once you truly understand that nobody has it all figured out that everything changes because you stop like feeling that you're not good enough you stop like feeling like you need permission and you stop looking for rules that don't exist so whatever you've been putting off because you think you're not ready you are so just start I hope to see you in the next episode and until then keep creating
