Getting back to MY WHY....Introducing Sweet Rain Summertime Films

Have you ever heard the saying "the cobbler's children have no shoes”?  I refer to it often when I tell people I am a filmmaker and get the comment “you must have a million amazing films of your own family”. I always have to take a second to respond and come up with a really good excuse why I don’t have a million, gosh probably not even ten actual films (5 second iPhone video snippets don't count!), I am talking actual edited films.  

How embarrassing right?

The saying refers to those people who are successful at a particular craft or profession but don't demonstrate that same passion in their own personal lives.

I am so guilty of this. 

Since my youngest was born, I have been building my business and have somehow gotten away from capturing my very own precious memories.  I have been so busy capturing them for my clients that by the time I am done working for the day, the last thing I want to do is work on my own projects.  

So sad right?

A few weeks ago I sat down with a business coach and she asked me a few simple questions that really got me thinking.  She had me jot down every minute I spent during an entire week.  Doing this forced me to take a good hard look at my daily workflow and find the areas where I needed to scale back, things I needed to cut out completely and areas that I needed to spend more time on. 

In doing this I realized I was wasting precious time while my kids are in school on things that don’t promote my business or benefit my home-family-life balance.  AT ALL.

I put myself a strict “work diet”.

I immediately turned of ALL notifications on my iPhone and my computer, logged out of Facebook, closed the 28 internet browser tabs, made a plan to check and respond to emails only twice a day and forced myself to close the door to my office at 5pm and not go back in there until the next morning.  

And after the kids went to bed, instead of working late into the night (often until 3am), I forced myself to relax (this meant NO working on my laptop on the couch), got a good nights sleep and finally realized that the "urgent" email, text or phone call that I used to jump up and respond to ASAP could wait until the morning.  The planet wasn't going to starting turning if I didn't answer that email or text within 3 minutes.  

I created boundaries.  Man, was that liberating!

For the first time in over five years, I was finally PRESENT in my own life.  And I was running my business, not my business running me. 

The following week I increased my productivity, had more energy and felt 100% more focused.  And all this extra free time that I wasn't glued to my phone and computer freed up quality time with my kids.  So instead of picking them up from school and getting back to work, I decided to "be present" in my own life for the first time in a long time.  

And most importantly, I got back to MY WHY....the whole reason behind why I am passionate about filmmaking and started my business in the first place.

In being so busy working on my clients projects, I lost sight of my own passion for my craft.  And I realized while I preach to my clients about getting their digital images and videos off their phone and onto their walls or edited into a film, I wasn't taking any of my own medicine.  I was the cobbler whose children didn't have any shoes, so to speak.  I had completely neglected capturing and creating MY OWN family films.    

With this renewed sense of passion and purpose I took the kids to the beach and the park once a week after school. And I took my camera and captured MY OWN life in video.  I began creating short 30 second to 1 minute films of MY OWN family.  

I cried as I sat back and watched them. I had to forgive myself and give myself grace for being so "busy".  

So going forward, I promised my kids that I would be more present in their lives, all the while capturing those special moments and creating treasured family films for them to cherish for years to come.  

The way Silas loves to run and dance. His sweet little voice and giggle.  

Raina’s sweet demeanor as she blossoms into a beautiful young woman.  

A simple hour at the beach after school one afternoon. But oh such precious memories to me that will soon be forgotten had it not be for this film.  

So, without further ado, the first in a series of many “Summertime Films” of MY OWN family.  

Ok, I know its not officially summer here yet, but let's be honest, in Hawaii its pretty much summer 24/7/365.  More info on Summertime Films to come in a future blog post.