Leadership Value of theDay

Leadership Value of the Day: Being Grateful

I will keep this one short, because I know many of you have pies in the oven, and family to great. This time of year many people are sharing how thankful they are for the many blessings in their lives. I in no way want people to stop this. However to be a great leader you must be thankful everyday, not just on a holiday. We so often take for granted the many blessings we have that are abundant in our lives, and we get so caught up trying to achieve our goals that we forget to celebrate the small victories. To reach a level of greatness you not only have to practice principals that enhance your knowledge and understanding, you have to exercise the spirit. Being humble and grateful for all your blessings help to align you with the path to greatness.

Leadership Value of the Day

Leadership Value Of the Day: Patience, Perseverance, and Attitude

Many people like to believe that they possess these attributes. However once you learn what they really are you will realize we all need some work from time to time in these areas. Let's start with Patience. Many people believe that just because they are waiting and complaining about not being where they want to be or where they are striving to be they have patience. However patience is working towards your goals, even though you are denied with a positive attitude; I bet you are starting to see how this post will go. It is embracing the trials and tribulations as learning experiences, and not curses. It is something so simple to print but harder for us to practice, because we all want our success now. We all feel we deserve it now. However we don't know what the future holds for us, and that is why we are made to wait. The things we want for ourselves maybe actually selling ourselves short of what we will accomplish, so patience is needed to learn through and from each trial. Perseverance is simply application of what one has learned and the refusal to quit. Many times we think that we are not making any adjustments to our approach, but we are we are learning with each failed attempt. We learn to get up and try again. We learn how to keep going in the face of adversity. This is a skill that can not be learned from watching others. It is a skill that has to be learned through hands on methods, to truly be effective. Perseverance is a muscle that has to be exercised with every new task and even some old ones. Finally Attitude. A positive attitude is what makes the other values of the day easy. Without a positive attitude the other values become daunting tasks. I am not suggesting that everyday is or will be rainbows and sunshine. However I am saying that even at our lowest points we should maintain the ability to smile to laugh and to understand that we generate our own air. If you are positive you will attract positive people, if you dwell on the negative you will invite more negativity into your space. Then you will have to exercise the other values of the day in a negative cloud generating even more trials for yourself on the road to greatness.

Leadership Value of the Day

Leadership Value of the Day: Time and Understanding

There is an old saying that says there is no fool like an old fool, or maybe that was a lyric some where. Either way the saying holds true. Time alone does not make one wise. It is only through practice of principals and an understanding of people, relationships, and the symbiotic nature of all things that we are ever even capable of getting close to greatness. Notice I did not say achieving it. It takes time to develop in to greatness, however time alone will not bring you any closer to that goal. Wisdom is not the attainment of a certain age, it is the culmination of practicing and understanding why we do so. It is the application of that knowledge that makes one wise, and therefore brings you closer to greatness. You need time to develop the proper prospective, and to see the many different facets that bring a leader closer to his or her ultimate goal. Understanding means that you have grasped the information, or the situation, by truly accepting and learning from it, and planning for any similar situation. These plans are not always going to work, but with each one you will refine your approach. With each successful execution you will draw closer to your goals.

Leadership Value of the Day

So I want to start something new that I am already doing on my social media sites. It is a leadership value of the day. Just my take on the things you have to go through to be great, as a leader. So here is the first post on this blog, with many more to come, I hope you guys enjoy.

Leadership value of the day: Prepared through Adversity No one just wakes up great. Endowed with skills they did not have the night before. Greatness is achieved through diligent preparation and struggle. It is only with practice that we are prepared to seize and opportunity once it has presented itself. If we don't practice then we will never be prepared to act on any given situation. This is a fundamental block of building to greatness. This is not just practice when you feel like it or when you want to it is going hard at your craft everyday, making a way to push forward when you think you have nothing left and the tank is empty. That leads us to the second part of the value for the day. ADVERSITY. Most people when they meet adversity they run. It gets too hard and they quite, they feel the resistance pushing back and they give in. That is why most people never become great. They settle, they give up, the are happy with just good enough. I can only tell you from my own experiences that once you give up it takes 10 times the energy to get back in the game. It takes 20 time the dedication, and it takes something that you can't measure. FAITH. Adversity forges you like steal. Purifies you like fire to gold, and solidifies you like pressure for Coal that is meant to be a diamond. However it only works if you push through it. You can be a great leader but first you must conquer your own trials, face them and move through them, and you can only be truly prepared through adversity.

Supporting Indie film is not just about money...but it helps.

Greetings everyone!!! I know I know it has been a while since my last blog post. But I promise I have a good reason...Really I do. Since my last real post I and my team have been working on a very big secret project. I couldn't say much about it until we had confirmation that we were going to be able to really do it. Well now the time has come to get everyone on board. We are going to be shooting an adaptation of a Stephen King short story. Yes you read that correctly, and yes we do have permission from the man himself to make this film. That is the great news. The not so great news is that we have a lot of stipulations that make it hard to try and engage people in this project. The first is that we cannot make a dime from this film. That's okay because on the films we normally shoot we don't make any money on anyway so, ha ha ha(that was my Peter Griffin laugh). The real bad news is that we only have a year to make this. Some of you are saying right now oh a year that is plenty of time. Did you see that, I gave you the slanted eye look, hold on you missed it let me do it again..... Now you are looking at me like why, why is he giving us awkward eye. Well I'll tell you it is because we have been trying to get a push for this film since April. Some of you are doing the math right now and you are almost.. yup there it is you got it. April is fast approaching again and we don't have a complete cast nor do we have our budget yet. So you see we are in a state of emergency!!!!! CODE RED CODE RED; DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER!! So you realize you are our only hope Ben. . . . Was that too much? Alrighty. So here is the issue we need to raise about $5000 dollars, we need to finish casting and we need to secure the rest of our locations. With that being said, this is where you guys can come in. Yes we need your money. I think that has been established and most people take that as a given. However more importantly we need you to participate, we need you to get involved, share with friends and join the team if you are already part of the indie film scene that is great; if you are looking to learn than we would love to have you too. The money is just a small part, well it is a large part, but it does not mean as much as the support of the people that live here and see you everyday. Living here in South Carolina we are all well aware of our states past. We have seen artist and other talented people that are from right here leave and claim another state or city for their success. It is time that we break that cycle.Help us to make something that can stand out, and put South Carolina on the map for something positive, for coming together and making a work of art. “We are all products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.” ― Rick Warren

Fanatik about 48

This past weekend Fanatik Productions was fortunate enough to put a team together to compete in the 48-hour film festival. For those of you who do not know the 48-hour film festival is a competition that spans several cities world wide for the chance to be shown at the Cannes film festival. The team assembled has 48 hours to make a film based on the elements provided by the producers of the individual cities. The competition is fierce but there is also a chance to network and a sense of support for local and visiting artist. Without giving too much away about the film we did this year, I would like to tell you just a few of the funny things that happened to us while making this it, however I won’t. What I will do is post a documentary of the production of our film “Intrepid”. However if you just can’t wait to see how it turned out or some of the other great films that were made this past weekend than please log on to http://2012atlanta48hfp.eventbrite.com/ to purchase your screening tickets if you will be in the Atlanta area. Tickets are just $10 online and 12.50 at the door. The screening location is The Plaza Theatre, 1049 Ponce De Leon Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30306 so if you are going to be in the area please check out the festival and show us and the other artist some support. In the mean time show us some support on our web series the builder which started out as a 48 hour film festival short, If you have not seen it you can view it at our kickstarter campaign I have posted the link below http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fanatikproductions/the-builder-web-series-first-season

New Web Series The Builder

Many people all over the world want to make films and be creative. South Carolina is no different in that respect. However we are very different in many other facets, the least of which being an outlet to show creative work in. I have had the pleasure to work with many people from all over the country, and by far I have found the people of South Carolina to be just as well informed and adept at there jobs as any other group of citizens from any other location. However there is one issue that continuously keeps South Carolinian's from joining the ranks of Georgia and North Carolina. That is a lack of support for their own natives. I have sat back and watched others put in work and bring great opportunities to the table for all to enjoy the fruit only to have that fruit spoil on the table waiting for people to get involved. I am hopeful that we will be able to break this trend with this project. The Builder was inspired during a 48 hour film festival in Atlanta. It is about a scientist who has the ability to bring peoples loved ones back, however the procedure does not always work properly then the builder is forced to reclaim the rebuilt individual, to the dismay of the loved ones of the newly resuscitated person. Check out the pilot and leave your comments. We need everyone's support to build something epic here in South Carolina. The Executive Producers, Director, and Editor of this series all are graduates of the University of South Carolina. Two of the members involved have also earned Master's Degree in entertainment business form Full Sail University. Let's prove to everyone we have what it takes and are capable of getting be hind our own people. click on the link below and support the kickstarter campaign. Your help is greatly appreciated. There are some great incentives being offered to supporters, so take a moment and tell a friend