Change My Mindset – A Short Inspirational Video
The key to overcoming fear is to change my mindset. I made a short motivational video telling the story of how I overcame my fears after nearly severing my thumb in a sheet metal accident. Right now, there is a lot of turmoil in the world and my life. I thought this was also a good opportunity to remember past mindset victories in tough situations.
Let’s get the story and then what was in my mind when planning this video. Of course, as I always say, “Plan the Film, Film the Plan.”
The Story
The real-life fears began in November of 2018. It was the night before American Thanksgiving and I was at my business Overland Trailer putting the last 30 minutes of work on a teardrop camper for a customer. Just a bit of trim needed installing on the stainless steel exterior of the trailer. While installing it, my hand slipped and went right into the stainless steel. It sliced cleanly through my Kevlar gloves (they’re not all made the same I’ve learned) and nearly severed my thumb. It was not that painful but it was pretty messy.
A week later, I had surgery to put the bones, ligaments, muscles, and other tissues back together.
I was told, “You might hold a cup of coffee again someday.”
This is devastating news for anyone to hear. My immediate thoughts were what I do with that hand that brings me joy and I was fearful, terrified, that I’d never be able to do those things again – film, work with tools, and play guitar – holding a pick.
Just a month earlier, a friend called me and told me he was making me a guitar. This is amazing. He’s made guitars for Sammy Hagar, Granger Smith, and other famous musicians. It is an unbelievable honor to have a guitar that he’s made. And then, I cut my thumb.
Changing My Mindset
Of course, when hard times come, our little fearful reptilian brains like to play and replay the worst possible outcomes to us. The physiology of fear stresses our bodies and we are more prone to depression, sickness, and a host of other physical issues. After wallowing in my sorrow for a bit too long, I determined to change my mindset and attitude.
One of my favorite ways to change my mindset for success instead of failure is to remember previous challenges and how I conquered them. I conquered the fear, I changed my behavior and slowly overcame that challenge. That is why I made this video. I needed that reminder again.
Change My Mindset – A Short Inspirational Video
As of the writing of this post, there is a lot of trauma going on in the world -with sickness, economics, politics. I learned, a long time ago, those news agencies will show viewers tons of fear-filled information to keep viewers engaged and watching ads. Fear does weird things to us in large groups. But individually our little psychologically fearful brains are also stoking the fire. The truth is, there are threats, there are challenges for all of us, and we need to be in the best shape possible to overcome fear, to overcome our doubts. So I reminded myself with this video. I also know that good video is personal so I went with a personal story.
Recovery
You see, I have recovered from my thumb injury as far as can be. I can grip a guitar pick (a remarkably hard accomplishment for me) and I can use tools again. The ultimate evidence of my recovery is the ability to play guitar with a pick and to have the grip strength to blacksmith again. So those two pieces of evidence became the features of this short inspirational video.
The Mood of the Music
I have this debate with clients, friends, and family all of the time. What inspires us to do something? My answer is always, “Perspiration leads to inspiration.” By that, I mean that my work inspires me more than anything else. I wanted the music in this video to really drive home the idea that it takes raw guts and work to overcome a challenge. It isn’t about pretending to be happy or waiting for victory to land in our laps. It takes dedication, persistence, and a dogged determination to overcome our fears and challenges.
I subscribe to artlist.io. Now, this isn’t an Artlist review or an Artlist commercial but, for me and my film making, they’re the best original stock music site. (Check them out here: artlist.io). So, I looked at Artlist for music that could fit my video’s mood of work, persistence, and grit. As I did this, I thought that I needed to play guitar on this soundtrack as additional reinforcing evidence that I’ve recovered well enough to actually play guitar and not just pretend to for a camera.
So I chose a song with a good beat and a nice baseline that I knew I could edit, adapt, and riff on top of with my guitar.
The Narration
Telling a good story requires patience. With this project, I already had 20 -30 different shots in mind and wanted to get shooting right away but I needed to stop and respect the process of telling a good story. I needed to write the story.
For this video, I decided to go simple with “Change My Mindset – A Short Inspirational Video” and to put together and refine narration that I strongly believe and live by.
The ultimate line for me, in this instance, is that tough times let us know what we’re made of. We either give up or get up. I get up.
I say that because I’ve decided that is the way I want to live. Never giving up.
The Feelings & Mood of the Image
For the look of this short inspirational video, I wanted it to evoke the darkness and the focused light of working through something tough. For that, I decided a contrasting cinematic look was best. I chose to also challenge myself by using only one light and one camera to capture all visuals.
I knew the glowing hot metal and the guitar would share similar colors and wanted those colors to be the dominant thought in the film so I dressed very simply to keep the focus on those bright colors.
How I did it?
In a future post, I’ll break down my exact process for how I shot this. The secret to this look and video is two-fold:
- Killer audio (music and narration)
- Camera position relative to the light
How about you?
Life can be difficult. That’s a guarantee. As I end this posting, I can’t help but ask you to think of a tough time in your life that you changed your mindset about and then overcame it. You’ve done tough things before, you can do this newest tough thing too. Fear never wins the day. A strong grit and persistent determination through the pain will win the day.
I challenge you to remember your past victories and start to overcome fear, conquer anxieties, cope with disaster, and refocus on getting your head straight in a mindset for success. Better yet, make your own “Change My Mindset – A Short Inspirational Video” and then share it! I’d love to hear your story.
Cheers,
Mark
