Realizing You Are Meant To Do Something Else

Here's a hilarious clip of Judd Apatow from his Inside the Actors Studio episode last week. He has talked often about how failing -- well not failing, but realizing that he would never be as good a stand up comedian as the people he was coming up with (Sandler, Jim Carrey, etc.) and how it helped him to get on the right path. It took him not really getting what he wanted to help him find his way to being a writer/director and that's taken him pretty far. I left the entertainment business in 1999 for about 5 years or so and headed to the Silicon Valley during the first boom because tech and business had always been my two other passions. I had burnt out on the business and thought I would get on a new track to happiness. I did well and got promoted at a at a big media company, but I wasn't really that happy. I would go to see a movie and my heart would ache a bit to be back in LA and in the business. My promotion proved to be a mixed bag, as I had ended up in a much more vulnerable position and many rounds of layoffs later, I lost my job. I thought about staying up north, but eventually I found a job back in Los Angeles working for a director and came home. At that time, I finally really got my nerve back to give writing a shot. I still haven't quite succeeded yet, but I'm making some progress and working as an assistant to pay the bills. I'm hoping that I ended up not staying in the Silicon Valley because this is where I'm meant to be and that I will eventually succeed. Who knows, but I still have a tiny bit of hope. Keep this all in mind when you get thrown off your path a bit because you might end up right where you belong.