A filmmaker asked me over a call this week: “What’s the one thing that most helped you find success as a filmmaker?”

I didn’t even hesitate to answer: Patience.

But later, I realized that was only half the answer. What I really meant was relentless patience – a very different thing.

For better or worse, I have always been very comfortable with things taking a long time. I was never discouraged if something didn’t happen right away, I just figured I would find another way in.

This didn’t just apply to filmmaking, but well before. Even as a kid.

My birthday is in the winter, and I grew up in Canada, so my parties were always indoors. One year, my parents gave me the option of waiting until summer to have my party so we could celebrate outside. I patiently waited the long 6 months, but to this day it’s one of my best memories.

My wife is a year younger than me. She went to the same middle school, and I had a crush on her when I was 13. But it took 12 years until I was 25 for us both to be single at the same time, and to ask her on a date. Three years later and we moved to LA together and got married.

My dream of moving to LA started when I was 8 years old. I would see the Hollywood Hills on TV and desperately wanted to be there. Little did I know, it would take 20 years. And even after I moved, another 8 years to move from temporary visa to citizenship. 

In all of the above, half the battle was being willing to wait it out.

The other half, was relentlessly pursuing whatever would get me to the finish line – which usually meant working on myself in some way.

It’s especially top of mind this week, as I’ve had some of the most incredible opportunities come my way in recent days.

An investor reached out, completely out of the blue, wanting to finance my next feature film.

A couple of big commercial projects landed that are going to be huge wins for my business and my portfolio.

I had a major writing breakthrough on a script I’ve been trying to crack for months, now putting the finish line in sight.

And I got some amazing news about my last feature, that I can’t share just yet.

When these moments happen, it feels like good luck. But luck is always the cumulative effect of incredible patience and unwavering work ethic.

The investor I mentioned first sat down with me over 5 years ago.

The commercial projects landing on my plate were a result of a 10 year relationship with another client.

The writing breakthrough came after countless sessions that felt like they were going nowhere.

And the success with our feature can be traced back 3 years.

People tend to overestimate how quickly they can achieve their goals. They think they’ll get it right on the first try – when in reality that almost never happens.

At the same time, they tend to underestimate how much they can accomplish with a longer time horizon. Over the course of a year, let alone 5 to 10, you can transform your life in profound ways.

To get there though, you can never take your eye off the prize.

You have to be stoic on one hand, but aggressive on the other. 

You have to direct every bit of available energy, every single day, on the things that will serve your goals.

And you have to be prepared for those things to not work out, time and time again, in order to make space for the successes to emerge.

If you would have asked me as a teenager, I might have told you I would have reached this point in my career 10 years ago.

Had I held onto that belief too rigidly, I would have quit when that didn’t happen.

Instead, I remained blindly optimistic about the future. Never assuming I would get everything I wanted all at once, but knowing that I was capable of getting there if I just stayed the course and enjoyed the ride.

When I bumped into a friend from high school a couple years ago, he said: “You should write a book on vision! All the things you said you were gonna do came true.”

But I said “Vision was the easy part. Waiting for it, and working toward it – especially in the face of rejection and failure, was what mattered.”

So whatever it is that you’re after – don’t rush it.

As cliché as it is, “good things come to those who wait” rings so true.

The only guaranteed way to fail is to set unrealistic expectations on an aggressive timeline.

But if you’re willing to change your timeline, you can be as unrealistic as you want. 

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