Believe In What You Are Doing

Believe In What You Are Doing

Brittni Daniels
Devin Miller
The Inventive Journey Podcast for Entrepreneurs
7/19/2021

If you have a passion, and you're super passionate about it, and you believe in yourself, don't allow anyone to ever minimize or diminish what you are trying to accomplish and what your overall goal is. Even though that partnership may end your passion and your drive, you will find yourself along the way. It took me five years to get to the point of just filming a documentary. But there will be so many people along the way that will doubt you and probably laugh at you that will say what you're currently doing is making you money why aren't you happy? But, if you believe in yourself and believe in what you are doing, don't allow anyone to take that away from you. Always keep going and push through that.

The Inventive Journey

Starting and growing a business is a journey. On The Inventive Journey, your host, Devin Miller walks with startups along their different journeys startups take to success (or failure). You also get to hear from featured guests, such as venture firms and angel investors, that provide insight on the paths to a successful inventive journey.

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truly like if you if you have a passion and you're super passionate about it excuse me and you believe in yourself don't allow anyone to ever minimize or diminish what you're trying to accomplish and what your overall goal is because even though that partnership may end your passion and your drive you will you will find your way you will find yourself along the way because it took me five years to get to the point of just filming a documentary um but there will be so many people along the way that will doubt you that will probably laugh at you that will say hey you know what what you're currently doing is making you money why aren't you happy but if you truly believe in yourself and truly believe in what you're doing don't allow anyone to take that away from you and just always keep going and push through that [Music] everyone this is devin miller here with another episode of the inventive journey i'm your host devin miller the serial entrepreneur that's grown federal startups in the seven and eight figure businesses as well the founder and ceo of miller ip law where we held startups and small businesses with their patents and trademarks if you ever need help with yours just go to strategymeeting.com and we're always here to help now today we have another great guest on the podcast uh brittany daniel give you a quick introduction to brittany so as it was raised in the divorce home in her own words and uh who lived in there was raised in two different worlds so um kind of or saw both sides or two different worlds and uh got that as an initial education well i went to college in jacksonville florida and got a degree in business with the focus on international business and then started in regulatory compliance with deutsche bank um wasn't her pa or wasn't her passion so after about two and a half years investment banking uh started developer on exit um and then applied for i think he's there you know applied um for about three and a half years had a ton of rejection but wanted to go work for accenture um then uh out or decided to um get into or talk with i think a friend i mean craig maran got into consulting there um still wasn't her passion so moved to new york about five years ago when was getting into a production company the side hustle and then decided to uh start to make that side hustle more full-time gig and with that much as an introduction welcome on the podcast brittany hi thanks for introducing me that was a great introduction devin absolutely so now i gave kind of the the short version of your or the shortened version of your whole journey but take us back a bit in time kind of um growing up and then going to college and how your journey got started from there yeah well um as you mentioned i grew up in the south so jacksonville florida most people don't consider florida the south well but um where i grew up in jacksonville it's more like southern georgia um yeah so i grew up in jacksonville was raised um by two moms um two from totally different socioeconomic backgrounds um one mother had nine kids the other mother had zero so i was her child um so yeah i grew up there um it was a bit of a um an interesting um upbringing because i was always um paralleled between two totally different worlds um so ended up uh i guess i can fast forward through graduating from to heist from high school um where i was sort of thinking about okay where did i want to go to college and um landed on a community college initially and then um went to a four-year university after that um landed on business didn't really know exactly what i wanted to study in school so i just kind of had to figure all of that out landed on business management after a few years in school international business became sort of my focus studied in france for a bit during that time came back to the u.s and decided that i should probably focus on graduating and getting it and getting a job so um after graduating from from college i graduated from unf uh university of north florida um so after graduating from unf i started working at deutsche bank and um as you also mentioned um it was cool initially you know your your first job out of college you're excited that you know you have all these great um promises and ambitions and so um after being there for a few years i did realize that you know a being in jacksonville wasn't my passion and then b um being in the the role that i was currently in um i i realized it did not have um any sort of forward progress so i started to prepare for my exit and i thought okay well i want to be in new york big city better opportunities um so just every single day i would spend about three to four hours after work before work just applying for jobs tons of interviews tons of rejections and that lasted for about three and a half years until i landed the role at accenture so now one question i do have on that that's a long time to slog through lots of lots of interviews lots of rejections lots of you know submitting resumes and everything else so when you're going through that you're saying okay i'm going to plan my in there plan my actually going to start working that direction you take those three and a half years to go through that as you're going to did that was it no job offers was it just job offers and hey these aren't ones i'm excited about or kind of you know that's a good that's a good amount of time either you have a really good grid about rejections or you uh just curious kind of you know how that three years went when you're spending a lot of time trying to find that dream job if it was just it was couldn't quite find the right one didn't match never got the right offer kind of how did that and how that worked out well yeah i mean it was a little bit of both right so there was there were a few offers um on the table but it's just what it didn't seem right um maybe i think the first year and a half i had several rejections but the offers that um that i received was more aligned with my um my background and what i was currently doing and i think what made it more difficult for me is because i was trying to totally transition from doing sort of back office work to to go into like consulting and working with clients and um you have people who went to like cornell and all of these great business schools and here i am with my unf education so it was very difficult so a lot of those were rejections and um it was it was a lot of hard times because i had to reassess well is this something that you know is this for me is it is you know do i keep going and um you know that small voice in my head always you know led me to you know keep trying because i knew that there was something greater for me out there cool and i give you absolute props that's a a good long time to have to deal with rejection but saying hey i'm going to it's going to work out i'm going to find out what i love and i'm going to keep with it until i find it so so now you do you know you you slog through that get lots of rejections keep it with it and finally get you know the job but i think you said it was accenture and you did that for a period of time but if i remember right and you can correct me if i'm wrong even after all that you still found that that wasn't your necessarily your passion was that right yeah um actually interesting enough i'm still with accenture um yeah so i've been accenture for five years so um it was a transition period right so once i got the job um within the first like three months that i was in new york you know i you know just a little background i moved here alone i didn't have any family any friends um moved in with a roommate on the upper east side um total stranger new job new career didn't have any sort of support system around me and um you know i did start feeling like oh my gosh you know i'm lost you know i thought this would make me happy i thought i was on like you know on this path to like you know just you know solidifying my career and just you know up from there but um you know i like you said i i wasn't happy and so um you know my mom from from jacksonville would try to be encouraging they're like you know maybe it's just you feeling homesick and um you know and it wasn't that i just realized even after all that there was something more there was something else that was missing and um so one day i decided to it was a saturday morning i decided to go out and um search for furniture i was like you know maybe if i make this place a little more homey because my roommate she actually didn't really care about making the place you know look nice at all so i was like maybe if i made it homey i'll love it you know i'll start feeling better and um i ran into this guy there who was actually a producer and i just started chatting with him about you know some of the things that i have been doing in my spare time that i never really shared with anyone um and that was just like kind of like these thoughts and in these like you know show ideas and these movies movie ideas and um that's when he really um kind of opened my eyes to you know what my true passion is and what i'm currently um working on right now so now one question just backing up and okay sure the story is you know so you went to the first job in new york and you know it's always exciting and fun out of college initially to you know any of the first jobs it's always kind of you know an exciting time and then decide okay that's not quite my passion you know quite what i'm excited about or what you know gets or drives me the more or drives me throughout the day so you go to accenture and accenture sounds like it was a better situation you're still there and still are getting a good income um but you're also saying it's still not it's not quite what i want your my passion or what i want to do or at least to have that drive and to kind of have that thing so you know what was how did you go about figuring out that that wasn't what you're passionate about is it more just hey it's not fun to get up in the morning or is it you know especially the first stop because the deutsche bank you know it's a big bank it's a you know it sounds like a good opportunity what was it was you know calling for the right it wasn't the right circumstance it wasn't the right you know job or kind of how did you go about recognizing that that wasn't your passion and then deciding how to get to work to where you did find your passion um i think for me it wasn't the college situation because everybody around me were you know they were all very encouraging they were great people um it was um i guess this feeling of you know when i when i showed up to work um i wasn't excited about it um i was just like oh my gosh you know i'm kind of like going through the motions um this doesn't necessarily um make me happy and just that that feeling of you know what there's still something more there's still something more so all of those feelings that i had when i was at deutsche bank all came rushing back within those first three months it's just like you know this is great the pay is amazing the people are great but this still doesn't bring me joy i'm still not happy at the end of the day i'm still not happy showing up at work um but that conversation with that guy um in the furniture store and me writing my first screenplay i realized how excited i was to go back home every day just to work on it no matter how late i had to stay up so one two three o'clock in the morning losing sleep um that's when i realized that that was my true passion and my true love that you know doing something that you know you don't mind losing sleep over that brings you that happiness and that internal jewelry so now so no and it definitely makes sense and you know it sounds like it you know took a little what what a little while to widen through the journey to figure out where you're what you're excited about and really you know those uh staying up late at night and retired in the morning but still you know definitely worth it it makes it fun so now that you find your you know find out what you really want to folk you know focus your time or time and effort on and you start to go down that route you know has it been one that has just been you know from a business perspective it's been successful or said hey i'm not in it for the money i'm doing the film because it's a passion project or how is that gone has it been you know great opportunity and it's just continuing to build has it been one that's hard or difficult or kind of how's it been once you've identified what your passion is um so once i identify what my passion was um so it's been a it was a bit of a mixed bag because um even with accenture you know me expressing what my troop they were really helpful you know after i expressed them what to them what my passion was just trying to put me on like you know more creative projects more express you know being able to express myself in that form so that has been great in that sense um and then on the other hand with my passion um it's interesting because the more i started working at it you know refining my skills the more people entered my life in new york um i would wake up every saturday morning and spend all day after cafe writing and i've met but you know several producers and writers who you know really saw really see a talent in me and i would say long term um this is definitely something that i would want to make as my longer term career i love working on documentaries i love screenwriting so this current documentary that i'm working on right now we're hoping to circulate it in the film festival to hit the film festival circuit um and hope that you know we can at least get some traction so um overall you know being a filmmaker that is my my my i would say that is my overall goal in my dream and hopefully that income can replace my current one fair enough so now with that is you know tonight you've been working on the film here and i think we talked about you're also looking maybe doing a tv series or documentary in addition the film if people are wanting to check it out or get more details you know kind of give us idea when is that you know coming to pass when there's the film going to go live is it all shot and you're editing or you're still shooting are you still getting the concept or kind of okay where's the field of math in the process yeah so um we were actually we're supposed to do a um launch uh campaign last year um actually was gonna start in march right when they shut down the whole country or the whole world shut down um and we were going to begin filming at the end of last summer um so that sort of pushed us through the beginning of this year where we um started crown crowdfunding and raising money to get the team um actually to uh to jacksonville that's where we're actually filming so we've raised um a lot of money we're still raising money um and we begin filming july 21st um so the team is set to start uh to fly down to jacksonville july 21st and we'll be there for a few weeks so right now we're still crowdfunding but we're also moving forward um with filming so that's where we are currently well sounds like uh an exciting time and uh lots of uh opportunity to continue to chase chase the passion in the we're going dream bring this a bit to where you're at today and a bit kind of where you're headed and where things are at so with that we always it's a good trend or time to transition to i always ask two questions at the end of each podcast so we'll jump to those now so the first question i always ask is along your journey what was the worst business decision you ever made and what did you learn from it uh i would say one of the worst business decisions i've ever made it was one of my it was it was going into um this deal with with the guy and um kind of you know showing him all of my i guess my creative work and and showing him the blueprint to everything that i wanted to do and i felt as though um i was used in that sense being naive thinking everybody just wanted to help and you know they were truly passionate um the way i was and i believe that a lot of my ideas were stolen because of that so i i think that that was a really bad decision that i made because i had a lot of cool things that i was working on um which is another reason why i had to to refocus but yeah i would say that that was a bad decision but i think it's an easier one to make than maybe it sounds like and you know on the front end in the sense that a lot of times i think if you're going into being an entrepreneur doing things or doing a passion project or you know doing a side hustle to start out with you always think everybody will work as hard as you will they're all in it together and then you quickly come to find out that oftentimes everybody isn't quite at the same level dedication and they don't have all the same bandwidth or the same resources or any number of things but you know that you know sometimes where you go into it you find you'll have to learn that lesson that there's everybody at varying degrees and what they're willing to contribute and what willing to do and how that works out so i think it's a great lesson to learn from so the second question i always ask is if you're talking to somebody that's just getting into a startup for a small business what would be the one piece of advice you'd give them oh wow um what would be the advice um i would say i mean i know this is an easy thing to say but truly like if you if you have a passion and you're super passionate about it excuse me and you believe in yourself don't allow anyone to ever minimize or diminish what you're trying to accomplish and what your overall goal is because even though that partnership may end your passion and your drive you will you will find your way you will find yourself along the way because it took me five years to get to the point of just filming a documentary um but there will be so many people along the way that will doubt you that will probably laugh at you that will say hey you know what what you're currently doing is making you money why aren't you happy but if you truly believe in yourself and truly believe in what you're doing don't allow anyone to take that away from you and just always keep going and push through that well great piece of advice and something that our people should certainly take to heart so as we wrap up if people want to uh find out more they want to be part of the film they want to be a investor in the film they want to um work with you on it they want to come on they want to be your next best friend any of all the above what's the best way to reach out contact your find out more great well um two ways you can reach out uh there's the website it's www.janedoefilms.com that's j-a-y-n-e-d-o-e-f-i-l-m-s dot com so www.jaindlfilm.com or um you can email me at daniels.britney gmail.com so that's d-a-n-i-e-l-s dot b-r-i-t-t-n-i gmail.com all right well i definitely encourage people to check out the website reach out to brittany if you have any questions or you want to help or get involved and definitely a great great resource to connect up with so well thank you again brittany for coming on the podcast it's been a fun it's been a pleasure now for all of you that are listeners if you have your own journey to tell and you'd like to be a guest on the podcast feel free to go to inventiveguest.com and apply to be on the show two more things as listeners one make sure to click subscribe to your podcast players so you know when all of our awesome episodes come out and do leave us a review so everybody else can find out about all of our awesome episodes and last but not least if you ever need help with your patents trademarks or anything else just go to strategymeeting.com and we're always here to help as well thank you again for uh brittany for coming on and wish the next lego journey even better than the last thank you so much you