A second down the nostalgia lane.

It's 2017, and I'm freezing like hell. We're about to start the first production day of Maintain My Focus. Nothing is on schedule, some people got lost while driving to the set, and we're already over budget. But it's impossible not to feel the excitement in the air. I'm about to enter my final year in university, and Focus is on the way to becoming my professional breakthrough (or so I think).

Nothing happened, though. We've got some views, but not in life-changing amounts. This mediocre success did not lead straight to another - our team waited almost six months to settle and negotiate the second project. But ultimately, none of that was important. To this day, my first professional shoot is still my favorite and quite foundational. During those weeks, I learned more than while sitting in class during my five university years. My heart has a lot of warmth when I revisit these memories, especially considering how this experience has shaped me.

Producing is the fastest way to learn that the most valuable currency on the planet is time. In talking about time, creativity isn't often the first trait that comes to mind, but the minute you set foot on a production set, you understand what a valuable asset it is and how to, well, be creative with it. Each lost minute is a fuck-up. With a producer’s pants on, you learn to think outside the box and "find" time when necessary, or rather "create it" out of thin air. That's how I understood the value of routines: a well-oiled content-creation machine can do anything. In the field, where deadlines can make or kill any project, planning and managing tasks efficiently to deliver on time is essential.

Producing taught me to connect with people from all sides of life. Imagine: when a particular project launches, across the following weeks, you're supposed to talk 24/7 with team members, clients, accidental people on set, and vendors to ensure everyone is on the same page and that the project is progressing smoothly. It's not about who you know but about getting stuff done in seemingly impossible situations that appear each time you wake up. A mere act of human connection in finding the right key to a person is essential to achieve your goals for a particular thing. Money cannot buy a warm relationship and a feeling of belonging with a trusted group of professionals. But a solid collaboration is everything.

Producing taught me to recharge once in a while. My many personal conversations with production people constantly return to the notion of "how awesome it is to build something out of nothing every time you step foot into a brand-new project." It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to bring a creative vision to life, as getting discouraged along the way is so damn easy. That's why producing something successfully of any scale requires endless passion and drive - and learning to recharge occasionally is a skill that forces upon you with that realisation. When you have a deep passion for every little piece within this machinery of content creation, it fuels your drive and helps you push through even the most challenging obstacles (or toughest people). It's still surprising to me how this trial-by-production-fire can help you become more resilient and determined in all other aspects of life, as well as better able to bounce back from setbacks and keep pushing forward.

And ironically, experiencing the production set was the only useful personal finance education that helped me to become more mindful of my spending habits and more creative in finding ways to make the most of my resources.

A second down the nostalgia lane.

It's 2017, and I'm freezing like hell. We're about to start the first production day of Maintain My Focus. Nothing is on schedule, some people got lost while driving to the set, and we're already over budget. But it's impossible not to feel the excitement in the air. I'm about to enter my final year in university, and Focus is on the way to becoming my professional breakthrough (or so I think).

Nothing happened, though. We've got some views, but not in life-changing amounts. This mediocre success did not lead straight to another - our team waited almost six months to settle and negotiate the second project. But ultimately, none of that was important. To this day, my first professional shoot is still my favorite and quite foundational. During those weeks, I learned more than while sitting in class during my five university years. My heart has a lot of warmth when I revisit these memories, especially considering how this experience has shaped me.

Producing is the fastest way to learn that the most valuable currency on the planet is time. In talking about time, creativity isn't often the first trait that comes to mind, but the minute you set foot on a production set, you understand what a valuable asset it is and how to, well, be creative with it. Each lost minute is a fuck-up. With a producer’s pants on, you learn to think outside the box and "find" time when necessary, or rather "create it" out of thin air. That's how I understood the value of routines: a well-oiled content-creation machine can do anything. In the field, where deadlines can make or kill any project, planning and managing tasks efficiently to deliver on time is essential.

Producing taught me to connect with people from all sides of life. Imagine: when a particular project launches, across the following weeks, you're supposed to talk 24/7 with team members, clients, accidental people on set, and vendors to ensure everyone is on the same page and that the project is progressing smoothly. It's not about who you know but about getting stuff done in seemingly impossible situations that appear each time you wake up. A mere act of human connection in finding the right key to a person is essential to achieve your goals for a particular thing. Money cannot buy a warm relationship and a feeling of belonging with a trusted group of professionals. But a solid collaboration is everything.

Producing taught me to recharge once in a while. My many personal conversations with production people constantly return to the notion of "how awesome it is to build something out of nothing every time you step foot into a brand-new project." It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to bring a creative vision to life, as getting discouraged along the way is so damn easy. That's why producing something successfully of any scale requires endless passion and drive - and learning to recharge occasionally is a skill that forces upon you with that realisation. When you have a deep passion for every little piece within this machinery of content creation, it fuels your drive and helps you push through even the most challenging obstacles (or toughest people). It's still surprising to me how this trial-by-production-fire can help you become more resilient and determined in all other aspects of life, as well as better able to bounce back from setbacks and keep pushing forward.

And ironically, experiencing the production set was the only useful personal finance education that helped me to become more mindful of my spending habits and more creative in finding ways to make the most of my resources.