When I executed content strategy for the Talenthouse blog, I was always trying to get inside of my intended audience’s head. I would ask myself what they wanted to read and try to put myself in their shoes.
I also consider myself a creative, and personally love the advice that I’ve found on sites like Letters of Note and the Animator Letters Project.
In one of my favorite posts, I compiled 8 letters into different life lessons.
Disregard the odds
Here’s an excerpt from the letter by Pixar animator Aaron Hartline that inspired Animator Letters Project founder Willie Downs to start his noble effort. Aaron most recently worked on Brave, Up, Inside Out, Finding Dory and Toy Story 3.
When I took a tour of Disney right out of high school, I showed the tour guide/animator my work. She said, ‘It’s easier to get a job as a professional basketball player than getting an animator position at Walt Disney Studios…’I knew that if I worked hard then one day…someday…I could do it! Took me 14 years of trying but it happened.
Follow your future
From a letter by Farenheit 451 author Ray Bradbury to schoolteacher William Stanhope dated October 28, 1991. Read it in its entirety here.
Fall in love with the Future! I did just that. And after that never listened to one damnfool idiot classmate who doubted me! What did I learn? To be myself and never let others, prejudiced, interfer with my life. Kids, do the same. Be your own self. Love what YOU love.
Be persistent
Austin Madison, a Pixar animator who worked on Up and Ratatouille, wrote this beautiful To Whom It May Inspire letter.
Work through that 97% of murky abyssmal mediocrity to get to that 3% which everyone will remember you for!
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