Leadership Value of the Day: Understanding life as a
production triangle.
When I was starting out as a
videographer, I knew very little about the business of production, and I knew
even less about the uphill battle I would face to change my life after sitting
out of school for ten years. All I did know was that I wanted to do something
that I had always dreamed I could, but had been told was impossible. From the
outside in it looked simple. Pick up a camera film some stuff edit it and there
you go. It is like life that way. We can often see the things others should do
but have difficulty knowing what steps to take on our own. Then one afternoon
as I was explaining the production triangle to someone else as it was explained
to me it dawned on me that this simple break down could also apply to
life. Maybe I am getting ahead of
myself. How many people reading this know what the production triangle is, ok
by show of hands now… Oh, I see. Please allow me to explain then. The
production triangle is a triangle, of course, but it represents the three main
aspects of a production. On one side there is Time, on another Money, and on
the final side Quality. Now the deal is you can only have two sides of the
triangle at any given time. For instance you can get something done fast and if
you want it to be quality work, it will cost you more money, or you can save
money and it is going to take longer to get the same quality, or you can get it
fast and cheap but needless to say the quality won’t be there. Do you see how
this works? Ok so where was I … oh yea ok so life is just like this. You can
choose to work hard and sacrifice and pull yourself closer to greatness, or you
can choose to have a good time and indulge all of the little things that you
want but you will sacrifice the ability to become great. The point of it all is
that in this life you have to choose what it is you are willing to sacrifice to
get to where you want to be. If you can’t remember all of that just think of it
like this; at any given time you will only get two of the things you want, so
you should make sure that the two things you choose are helping you reach your
goals and not a sacrifice that you will have to make up for later and possibly
never gain the ground you lost. After ten years out of school I was blessed
enough to be surrounded by people who saw the potential in me to do something
more with my life. Sometime we don’t get a second chance, so we don’t have the
luxury of mindlessly wandering hoping it will all work out in the end. Be
diligent in your journey and intelligent in your decisions if you desire to be
great.
