Taken from The Lesfetz Letter, James Cameron (yes, the Avatar JC):
"...But what James Cameron said was:
"'Failure has to be an option.'
"Whoa, isn't this what killed the major labels? They wanted to eliminate all the failure! You can't trust the act you sign, you've got to hook 'em up with famous songwriters, you've got to use the name producer, you've got to buy insurance.
"'Failure has to be an option, in art and in exploration. Because it's a leap of faith. And no important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks.'
It hurts to fail.
But if you come to bat more than once every two or three years, you're gonna get better, you're gonna learn something, your odds of success increase."
Read the rest of the post here. I think Lesfetz has said everything I could say. Cameron doesn't wait around for producers in Hollywood to present him a script and a budget -- he goes out and writes his own (Avatar, for example), invests in his own equipment (3D Cameras, which was like a $70MM+ expense), goes out there and gets it done! I'm doing that now and will continue to do it until I reach a similar level of success. It's not always about money, but I do believe it's always about succeeding.
"Failure is an option, but fear is not" -- James Cameron
You can watch James Cameron's video here too (2:45)
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