Documenting The Journey Experiment
It's been almost five months since I posted the first video of Document The Journey with ONMAN on Facebook. I am actually about to edit episode number ten and it's a great reason to celebrate a small anniversary of this 'Experiment' by writing the first LinkedIn article.
Everything Starts Somewhere
Growing up on the movie set developed passion in me to visual storytelling. I don't know whether I can call it a talent or something which appeals to me strongly enough so I could invest a massive amount of hours to learn the craft and still enjoy it. Either way, it helps me to express creativity and see the progress over the years.
Turning Experiments Into Opportunities
Being a small fan of running life experiments from time to time, in February 2017, I promised myself to post content on Instagram stories for at least three months in a row. It was a great opportunity for exercising my discipline and the right time to learn new social media platform in practice. As far as I know, it's still the only way how to do it.
The experiment changed from three months to ten and counting. As far as I remember I missed 3 days... that's a different story. Every single day I was wondering what interesting I can post. How would I like my day to look like? How could I take the most of each day and show it in a creative way? If anyone would watch it, would they say this guy is deadly serious about what he is after? Using it as a leverage to wake up early, make the most of my day and turn it into content led me to new opportunities.
Pieces of Advice and Cautions
One of them was a pleasure to have a longer conversation with @kevoneil, a founder and CEO of 29 Studios, about not content creation but documenting. The point he made that Instagram stories are great but they last 24 hours and then... no stories. How can you create something long lasting to refer to it in a month, a year or ten years? How can you leave a trace and allow it to live its own life in social media space?
Being still at the early stage of creating ONMAN I was advised to find a better way to tell the story and warned
"If you didn't film it, it didn't happen."
Taking most advice seriously I found the first excuse not to do it which was lack of time. Then I reminded myself that I am pretty good at making the time and decided to label it as a new life experiment.
Leaving Comfort Zone
Almost ten episodes later I can say it was the right move to run Documenting The Journey Experiment. It helped me to take my skills to the next level through practical application of creativity. I had plenty of fun trying to figure out how to get certain shots in public places. Some of them were pretty challenging. However, the most important was to leave my comfort zone to record myself and then post it knowing it won't be gone in 24 hours. As easy as it sounds, it's not. Sharing my thoughts on the entrepreneurial journey and exposing to positive and negative comments wasn't my second nature. As with everything in life it came easier with practice. A great experience to learn from to become a better at everything I do.
The last one is once we make ONMAN in the way we believe we can I would be able to track it back through videos and prove it no matter where you start if you work hard enough and learn along the way you will make it. Time and patience will speak itself.
The worst case scenario to have in mind - If I'd not filmed it, it would have never happened and that would have been pretty bad.