I fell in love with what I call “the creative process” — the process of taking an idea from someone’s mind and turning it into a physical, digital or visual thing that others can see, touch and interact with — before I finished high school.

My dad, who is a graphic designer, got me a license for Adobe Illustrator, and I began messing around trying to figure out what I could create. Soon after that, I got a copy of Adobe After Effects and started learning how to bring ideas to life. This tinkering turned into a bit of an obsession — I would spend hours working on projects, diving into online courses, YouTube videos and learning as much as I could about how to create beautiful content.

Looking back, what I created at first was far from beautiful content. But it was a start. 

I eventually started volunteering on the Media Team at my local church and this is where I really started to develop my skills in all areas. It wasn’t long before I was working on short film style videos, creating websites and brainstorming marketing strategies with a team of other creatives. The work I did volunteering basically became my business card and before long I was getting requests to work on paid projects.

Up to this point I had yet to make a dime doing what I now called “my passion”, and so I started to take on freelance projects while I volunteered at the church and worked at a restaurant as a line cook to pay the bills.

I truly fell in love with creating content and all of the technical skills required to develop effective marketing. It was a passion that fuelled me to work late nights, solve problems and sharpen my skills.

Fast forward a few years and I began working full time in the field. These full time roles are where I started to develop the strategic side of my skills and begin to unearth the passion for business. I was given leadership roles leading teams, more responsibilities and a greater breadth of work.

I failed a lot. Like a lot. But that’s a huge part of the creative process.

All of these experiences and failures helped me develop what author David Epstein calls “Range”. In other words, I became more than just a specialist creative, but truly a creative director.