The Day Reality Destroyed the Story I Told About Myself
I was a national champion.
Karate. Kung Fu. Two black belts.
I had been competing in martial arts since I was nine years old.
So when I walked into a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school in California for the first time, I wasn't exactly lacking confidence.
I knew who I was.
Or at least I thought I did.
About four minutes later, a 145-pound man completely destroyed that idea.
I weighed around 200 pounds.
It didn't matter.
He folded me into positions I didn't know existed.
There was nothing I could do.
Nothing.
And then someone else did it.
And someone else.
Everybody beat me.
On the drive home, I had to pull over on the 405 freeway.
I got out of the car...
and threw up.
That's how thoroughly I'd been humbled.
But the most important part of this story isn't what happened that day.
It's what happened the next morning.
I went back.
Everyone Eventually Meets the Mat
I've thought about that experience for years.
Not because it taught me something about fighting.
Because it taught me something about identity.
Eventually, every one of us has a moment when reality collides with the story we've been telling ourselves.
I call it the mat moment.
It's the moment when who you think you are meets who you actually are.
And sometimes there's a gap.
A painful one.
You think you're a good writer until someone whose opinion you respect reads your screenplay and takes it apart.
You think you've made a great movie until you sit in the editing room and realize half the things you imagined aren't on the screen.
You believe you're finally gaining momentum and then twenty festival rejections arrive.
Or you open Instagram and discover someone ten years younger doing something you aren't sure you'll ever be capable of doing.
Then the question arrives.
The one every artist eventually asks:
Maybe I'm not as good as I thought I was.
We usually treat that question as dangerous.
I'm beginning to think it can be one of the most useful questions an artist ever asks.
The Problem With Being Talented
Being talented feels wonderful.
It's also dangerous.
Especially when you're young.
People tell you you're gifted.
Promising.
Special.
You win an award.
A teacher tells you that you have something.
People begin predicting what you're going to become.
And without realizing it, you start constructing an identity around being good.
That's fine...
until you aren't.
Eventually you enter a room where everybody is talented.
You submit to something and don't get accepted.
You work with someone much better than you.
You attempt something beyond your current abilities.
Suddenly, the identity you've spent years constructing is threatened.
And that's when a strange thing happens.
Instead of protecting the work...
we start protecting the identity.
We avoid challenges that might expose us.
We become defensive about criticism.
We explain away rejection.
We compare ourselves only to people we're better than.
We stop being beginners.
Because beginners are allowed to be bad.
And somewhere along the way, we decided we weren't.
Humiliation Can Be Useful
There's something interesting hidden inside the word humiliation.
It comes from the Latin humus.
Earth.
Ground.
We usually think of humiliation as being diminished.
Made small.
Embarrassed.
But I've come to think of it differently.
Sometimes humiliation simply returns us to the ground.
It strips away whatever elaborate structure we've constructed about ourselves and leaves us standing on what's actually true.
That can hurt like hell.
But the ground has one enormous advantage.
You can build on it.
You can't build on an illusion.
That day on the mat, I learned exactly where I stood as a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner.
Nowhere.
I was terrible.
And strangely...
that was useful information.
Because now I could learn.
“I'm Not Good Enough” vs. “I'm Not Good Enough Yet”
I think this is where artists get into trouble.
There's an enormous difference between saying:
"I'm not good enough."
and...
"I'm not good enough yet."
The first is an identity.
The second is information.
And information can be acted upon.
Maybe your screenplay really isn't good enough.
Okay.
What isn't working?
Maybe your directing isn't at the level you thought it was.
Okay.
What don't you understand yet?
Maybe someone else's work really is better than yours.
Okay.
What can it teach you?
None of those questions require you to pretend you're better than you are.
They require something much more difficult.
They require you to believe you can grow.
You Don't Need to Believe You're Great
This may be one of the most liberating things I've learned after a lifetime of making things:
You don't need to believe you're good in order to continue.
You certainly don't need to believe you're great.
You need to be willing to find out where you actually are.
That's different.
We hear an enormous amount about believing in ourselves.
And yes, self-belief matters.
But sometimes "believing in yourself" quietly becomes:
"I need to maintain a flattering opinion of myself at all times."
That's not confidence.
That's fragility.
Real confidence can survive bad work.
It can survive rejection.
It can survive someone being better than you.
It can even survive the realization that something you believed about yourself isn't true.
Because your identity isn't:
I am good at this.
It's:
I am someone willing to keep learning how to do this.
That's much harder to destroy.
What Happens the Next Day?
I studied Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu on and off for another six years.
I wasn't particularly gifted at it.
Certainly not in the beginning.
But I kept going back.
And that's the part of the story that matters to me now.
Because your mat moment doesn't define you.
What you do the next day does.
You can spend the next day defending the person you thought you were.
Or you can begin building the person you're capable of becoming.
Those are two very different lives.
The first requires you to protect your ego.
The second requires you to occasionally let reality destroy it.
The Director Within
This is becoming one of the central ideas behind The Director Within.
Every creative project is making two things at once.
There's the film.
The book.
The screenplay.
The painting.
Whatever you're trying to create.
And then there's you.
We spend most of our time obsessing over the first.
But I'm increasingly convinced the second is the more important work.
Because the project will eventually end.
You won't.
Every rejection, mistake, bad cut, failed screenplay, difficult note, and humiliating encounter with someone better than you is asking:
Who are you going to become because of this?
That's the film underneath the film.
And sometimes the scene where everything seems to fall apart is actually the moment the protagonist finally discovers where they're standing.
That's not failure.
That's the ground.
And the ground is where you build.
So if you're having your own mat moment right now...
If something you've made isn't as good as you hoped...
If someone else's success has made you question your own ability...
If a rejection has left you wondering whether you ever belonged in the first place...
don't rush to make yourself feel better.
Look around.
Pay attention.
Ask what the moment is showing you.
Then decide what you're going to do tomorrow.
Because maybe you aren't as good as you thought you were.
Yet.
And that might be the most useful thing you've learned about yourself in years.
If you want to explore more of the philosophy behind the way I approach creativity, storytelling, and building a life as an artist, download my free Storytelling Starter Kit. It's an introduction to many of the ideas that have grown into The Director Within.
And one last thing.
I've recently opened a limited number of one-on-one consultations for filmmakers, writers, and creatives. If you're stuck on a project, wrestling with your career, preparing to direct, or simply need an experienced outside perspective on where you are and where you're trying to go, we can work through it together.
If you want to work with me one-on-one, here's the link:
And remember:
Don't just direct your movies.
Direct your life.
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