STAYING AFLOAT IN TODAY'S CRAZY WORLD

Running a business these days often feels like playing a game where the rules change every week (every day?). No matter where you’re based, times are tough. Budgets are tighter, competition is fiercer and in industries like TV and media, pitching new ideas can feel like trying to sell ice to penguins (not to mention finding freelance directing or producing gigs!) You can have the most brilliant concept in the world and a killer trailer, but either...a war 'suddenly' starts (Dubai/ Middle Eaxt) or you hear the same sentence over and over: “We like it, but we don’t have the money.” Unless you walk into the room with a brand sponsor already attached, getting something original financed can feel like winning the lottery.

That’s why many businesses - especially creative ones - learn quickly that flexibility is key. It’s about the smaller jobs that keep the wheels turning. Corporate work becomes the bread and butter: branded, internal films, campaigns, filming events, the kind of projects that may not win awards but definitely pay the bills. Those projects certainly keep me in business and the coffee machine running while I quietly keep developing other stuff in the background.

Then there’s the world itself being… slightly chaotic. Wars seem to pop up everywhere, economies are wobbling, currencies swinging all over the place and suddenly the place you planned to base your business in doesn’t feel 100% stable anymore. But on the other hand - there is NO stable place in the world right now. Running a business today means learning to keep your hand on the pulse, not just in what you do, but sometimes in where you live and how you operate. I'm glad I do like to travel.....

And if you’re a millennial like me, there’s an extra layer to all of this. Many of us started our careers during one crisis, built companies through another, and now find ourselves navigating yet another wave of uncertainty. Some days you genuinely feel like you’ve been through enough already and just want to stop, lie on a beach somewhere and relax for five minutes. But you keep going. Because in the end, the real rule of earning money and running your own thing is simple: whatever happens, never give up (PS I still sometimes manage 5min here and there on the beach, so it ain't THAT bad I guess ;)