Growth rarely feels like growth in the moment. Most of the time, it feels like confusion, ineptitude, and your brain struggling to keep up. With a new year here, I’ve been thinking about that uncomfortable phase, the moment you step into something new and suddenly feel out of your depth.

That’s exactly what happened to me on the first day of directing our rom-com vertical series, and it taught me something important about what real growth actually looks like.

The first day you try something new, your brain may break.

I was on set for Day 1 of directing my first ever narrative shoot. Tara was acting with her co-star, and the director of photography (DP) and I were setting up the shots. We had tens of thousands of dollars of gear, professional actors who did this for a living, and then… me.

And I had a problem: my brain was breaking.

Tara and I had spent months setting up the shoot. We wrote the script about six months previous, and had spent the last six weeks finding our co-star and actors, polishing the script, and trying to figure out who was going to work the camera.

There was a moment where I was going to try and shoot it (thank goodness I didn’t), and we ended up with an absolute legend of a DP. The script consisted of about 18 pages, broken into eight episodes, 90 seconds each, to be shot vertically (for your phone instead of your TV).

Easy peasy right? Not so fast. Because I’d never done anything like this before.

If it’s truly new, your past experience doesn’t really apply.

See, I’ve produced dozens of car commercials. Handled budgets up to $300K. Shot all around North America, from sound stages to busy roads. But those were cars.

And during those shoots, I had an epic director by my side who was the creative engine for each project. He thought in visuals and could SEE the edit before he even shot anything. That kind of visual mind is something I don’t naturally have. So, much of the success we had creatively came from him (thank you Chris, you legend).

This rom-com shoot was a different beast. This was TV (at least Tara and I wanted it to have the feel of TV). It’s the stuff I’ve been dreaming about making since I was 18-years-old.

And now, on the clock with our actors ready to go and our DP looking for feedback to lock in the shot and get going… I froze.

It was like someone had shoved a stick into the spokes of my brain. The gears just weren’t turning. Even if I could have articulated my thoughts, I didn’t have any coherent thoughts to begin in!

So I did what anyone else in Hollywood would do.

I faked it. 

I smiled, nodded, said everything looks great, and to shoot it. And we did. We shot three episodes that first day and it all worked out fine.

Your brain isn’t failing. It’s rewiring.

It was only after that first day was over and I was able to talk to Tara about how the day went that I realize what had happened.

My brain was just overwhelmed with information. 

I was trying to take in the blocking of the scenes, the emotional beats of the script, the tone of the actors’ performances, the production design, the shot selection, the lighting, all while monitoring audio to make sure we could use everything we shot!

No wonder by brain crammed up! It was literally trying to form new synapses as I stood in the middle of a whirlwind of creative decisions.

That night, Tara and I looked at the footage from the day’s shoot and we talked about what we’d do differently. We built a game plan for the next day, wrote some notes down, and went to bed exhausted. As I lay there, my brain continued to swirl with all the things I should have changed.

And here’s the remarkable thing: when I woke up, my head was clear. My mind was sharp. The synapsis had formed and for the next two days of the shoot, I clearly and consistently articulated what I wanted. Ah the power of the mind!

Growth feels like incompetence at first.

Why am I telling you all this? Because all the success in my life has come from doing things that break my brain. Learning to write a movie was the same experience. The first year of screenwriting was a complete brain-bender. But once those synapses start to strengthen, everything gets easier.

It’s scary to put yourself into these kinds of positions, though. You risk embarrassment. You risk failure. You risk looking like a freaking amateur. But that’s the price of admission for growth.

So, think back and try to remember the last time you were truly overwhelmed. When was the last time you put yourself into a new position and really struggled to say afloat? If you haven’t had that experience in more than a year, I suggest you seek it out.

I’ve by no means “learned to direct” after my first shoot. But I learned SO MUCH so quickly that I have the confidence to do it again. And again. And maybe even longer, eventually doing it for the eight or so weeks it takes to shoot a movie.

Tara and I will be releasing the rom-com series in the next few weeks, and I hope you watch it when it comes out.

Thanks for reading. Now go break your brain.

- Thomas

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