Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Lessons - Finding Your Life-Changing Mentors | Tressa "Azarel" Smallwood - CEO of Megamind Media

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Lessons - Finding Your Life-Changing Mentors | Tressa "Azarel" Smallwood - CEO of Megamind Media · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this Lessons episode, learn how to build a strong foundation for any venture by aligning
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  with the right mentors, filtering out distractions and staying committed, discover why giving back,
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  building genuine relationships, and lifelong learning are essential to success.
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  This episode also redefines success for young entrepreneurs, focusing on practical knowledge and long-term growth.
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  That's an incredible story, and I think there's a lot of things that have come naturally to you
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  that I think people should pick up on, and if they don't come naturally to people,
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  they do want to be successful. They have to pick up on these clues, like these hints that you dropped,
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  about building a solid foundation, aligning with mentors, but the right mentors, and ignoring all
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  the bullshit that's out there that you just have to stay away from, but also leveraging and learning
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  from people that have done it before. These are all great lessons. In summary, building an incredible
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  book and film empire is no different than any other entrepreneurial venture, obviously, and all the
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  things that you... Sorry? Yes, I know. It's honestly the same thing, because in the beginning for me,
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  I can't... Self-doubt will sink in when your journey to doing something new. It was always
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  going to be that little person on your shoulder saying, you can't do it. You don't know how to do it.
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  Don't do it when you're wasting your time, and so it's good to know that you can. It's good to hear
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  from... If I can do it, anybody out there can do it, because I literally did not have a background,
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  and anything film related. Nothing. Let's ask some classic entrepreneurial questions, and I want
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  to figure out your motivations for some of the... Not motivations, excuse me, your drivers. How do you
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  stay motivated when, for example, things aren't going well, or you're not getting, for example,
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  results that you're looking for? What's your go-to? Yeah, I think for me, it's my faith. My faith is
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  strong. I do realize that every single thing that has happened in my life, then my steps are
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  ordered by God, for sure, because none of this is normal. I think you and I've just said,
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  over and over again, no, that's not normal. No, that's not normal. The realization for me is that
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  nothing that is happening in my world is normal, so I need to just stay the course. I spend a lot of
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  time helping people and giving back. I do believe that that is a big key to my success. I get a lot
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  of great... I get a lot of great things coming my way. You know, phone calls that come that I'm
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  like, is that such a such calling me? Why? But I do believe it's... I'm getting back what I put out,
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  so I do believe that people need to understand that if you're someone that you're looking for help
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  to start your business, but other people have reached out to you to ask for your help,
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  how did you handle that? Because you get back, you get period. Energy is everything.
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  I love that. Okay, another, another tip. How do you find... You said you found people that have
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  done it before mentors that have really helped you? How do you separate the good versus the bad?
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  What's your process? Yeah, so I think number one is gotta start with credentials, right? That's
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  the number one. And then what... For example, IMDB Pro. If you're... This is for all my creators. I
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  know this is a podcast, but tons of entrepreneurs, but if you're in the world of... There's some out there,
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  for sure. Yeah. IMDB Pro. Look at somebody's credits. Right now, my publicist could have emailed
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  Scott and said, hey, trusted us all these movies, etc. You can go to the IMDB, and if I only have two
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  movies there, it's like, well, you said you did 14, but I only see what's going on. Ask questions,
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  ask questions. I get tons of people who send me messages, and it's never... It's not true,
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  but I research everything. So, I would start there. Number two, after credentials, let's move to
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  just personality and who people are. Before you go into business with someone and ruin a situation
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  or get yourself tied up as it's something that you should not be tied up. Again, research,
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  who is this person? Sometimes you can learn a lot about a person just from our lunch. And it's like,
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  oh, okay, I see now. You just punched the waiter because you didn't get the lemon in your water.
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  Okay, may not. Business. Yeah, you got to... Because people are so hungry now for what I wanted.
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  I want it. I want it so bad, but you have to step back and make sure that it's right for you.
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  You can get yourself into a lot of really bad situations if you don't study it and research
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  the situation. And if it's specifically, I'm speaking to my younger entrepreneur is out there
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  right now. The younger folks tend to want the microwave success stories. I want it right now. I see
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  this person on social media. They are over here in Dubai. And I'm like, no, they fell to shop there.
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  They were acting not in Dubai. So, I always try to tell my youth, stop wondering,
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  stop watching what everyone else is doing. Run your own race, worry about what you're doing,
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  and do what makes you happy. Because all of that other stuff is short-lived. But the
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  goal of down to what is true, what is factual, so check credentials.
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  And then the last question I had about some of your processes was for education and for research,
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  how do you research? How do you educate yourself both on people you work with? But also
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  something new you want to do. Yeah, so I can start with the people that I work with. I
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  fact check everybody. I mean, at this point in the game, I have a lot of relationships with
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  different network, different executives, other producers, well-known directors. So, you know,
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  the industry, although it seems massive, it's very close, it's close knit in this small. So,
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  you know, Scott, if you were a director in the industry and I wanted to get to you,
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  I would literally go to your IMDb and say, oh, Scott worked with Marshall. Oh, I know Marshall.
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  Oh, he did a movie with, oh, let me call him. And I mean, it's pretty easy now. You can really
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  get to anybody. So, I typically will ask questions, how, you know, what was it like working with them?
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  You know, would you hire them again? Like, I asked the real deal questions before you even go
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  to the person. So, that's how I typically bring people into my world, whether they are a crew
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  for me, whether they are even for actors, you can be the best actor actress ever. And if you have a
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  band rep in the industry, I probably don't want to hire you for my set, because what's the point?
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  What's the point? Don't need to do it. It's too short to work with city people. So, hey,
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  I'm not really interested in that. Yeah, my family will see me working. I want to stick with it.
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  So, that's for me hiring other people. And then for me educating myself, again, I share,
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  I'm a big one education. I will never stop learning. I will never stop learning. If I'm this,
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  I have been to business school, I have business degrees. You know, I shared, I have masses of
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  education, undergrad degree. I mean, I am always learning. I'm thinking about going back to film
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  schools, Scott. I just got a car at the time. And not necessarily because I want to be a director,
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  but I just want to add another layer of knowledge so that when I'm on set and hiring certain
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  people, I have that knowledge behind me. That's just what I love. I think I'm a professional student,
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  for sure. Yeah, and I think that's what you have to be successful. And you want to be successful
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  in your career or in building your own business. I think that's a really good attitude. I love that
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  professional student. I really love that. That's good. And then something that you mentioned about
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  young creatives, let's talk about the education that is a status quo versus what type of education
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  people should be learning when they're young. What's broken in education? I'm sure you have
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  opinions on that too. Yeah, I really do. I mean, when I think about all the things that you should
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  know, I'm coming out of school. Most of our youth, they don't know. Let's just talk about something
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  basic like writing a check, right? I remember I sent my daughter to deposit a check for me and it
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  was a pretty big check. The money never showed up in my account. And I was like, well, it's not
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  here. She deposited that like three days ago. So I'd go to her bank account, it's in her account.
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  Now she didn't do it maliciously. She was like, well, you tell me that you need there's a certain
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  account number for certain, and I'm like, no, but I gave you this deposit slip. So I didn't know what
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  that. So certain thing, they don't teach you those kinds of things in school. How many, how many
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  students are in school learning that about investing? You don't learn that, right? You learn. So
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  I just feel like in education, you're taught the basics. So for me, a child that is only learning
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  when they're at school is your education is going to be broken period. If you don't, learning
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  does not continue when you get home. We have a plan. And what do you do to? No, I agree. I agree
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  100% to how do you how do you fix that? How do you how do you fix that? Our parents and communities
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  have to step up and understand that's why I teach, you know, entrepreneurship, you know, often
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  every summer I partner with the mayor's youth program in the Washington D area. And I do
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  mentorship classes. Last year we did them all on zone because we were in in COVID prior to that,
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  we had them face to face. But this was so great for the students because it's youth between the
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  ages of like 17 and 21 and they're right at that stage where they want fancy cars. They want all
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  these things that they see, but they don't understand the process how to get it. They don't understand
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  well, you need good credit to have to get a good interest rate to get this car. And you don't
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  understand when you drive that car off the parking lot, it's now depreciating instantly. So
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  when they learn this from me, the reason why it's very relatable coming from me is because they
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  desire to be authors. They want to be movie producers. They love the world that I live in,
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  so they both receive it from me. Like, hey, I like nice cars too. I like these things, but what's
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  important in life? And let's start there. This is what you do. This is how you make it happen.
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  You want all your own business? This is where you start. So by the time they leave, they have
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  names for their businesses, they leave with an incredible amount of motivation. And a lot of them
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  follow through, you know, they DM me on social media and they're like, hey, I got you know, I did it.
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  I started my blog or did this. And so it's really inspiring for me just to know that I could have
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  an impact on the students and not still teach in the class. So, you know, although I'm not a teacher
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  and no longer in the classroom, I am still doing it on a daily basis out here while still
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  following my dreams. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that
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  subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation,
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  check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.