5 valuable Steven Spielberg lessons from anecdotes

Steven Spielberg Lessons: He’s certainly one of the finest movie makers of all time. Even today, when I turn on a Spielberg movie, I know that it is one of great quality and something I’d thoroughly enjoy. Some of my favourites from him are Schindler’s List,Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,Jurassic Park,Jaws,Catch Me If You Can, etc. The list goes on.

You might also like the collection Steven Spielberg quotes. In today’s article, we will focus on 5 broad themes which form Steven Spielberg lessons for life. I’m afraid there won’t be much lessons about technical or film making in this article. This will only be to relate with motivation and personal improvements

Here are the 5 lessons we can learn from one of the finest motion picture maker

1. Dream big or go home
2. Take one idea and make that your life
3. You don’t need to be a top graduate or score high marks to succeed
4. Stay hungry, stay foolish
5. Rejections and failures are important for success

You can learn more about Spielberg here.

Dream, dream big

Spielberg struggled from dyslexia and couldn’t cope up with studies and was dropped out of school. He loved daydreaming and spent most of his time in his world of imagination. We can see it in his movies today. He dreamed of making movies and bringing his dreams into reality.

Dreams are your visual experience of seeing the desired future you want. They connect you to your inner self, they open up the possibilities, and they encourage you. Dream more and dream big, all your dreams will come true when you show up the courage to pursue. Dreams transform into thoughts and thoughts into actions – Abdul Kalam. This is the foremost story in the collection of Steven Spielberg lessons.

Take one idea and make that your life.

After discovering his love for movie making he made a short film on world war 2 at the age of 12 and the by the age of 17 he had made 4 movies. He spent most of his teens working on his movies in his bedroom which he had converted as an editing room. He would find ever way to make a movie and work on it.

It takes a lot of self-involvement, struggle, passion and hard work to make an idea work. But this was all to do with specialisation, working on a single idea with a deliberate purpose to succeed and progress.

You need not be an A grader to be successful.

Spielberg was rejected from the two best film schools, UCLA and USC for his poor grades.An A grade would make things a little easy for you but it’s not the only thing which is going to help you.

We associate an unnecessary importance to scoring high marks in school. It will set you apart and give you a great platform. But life happens outside of school as well. It is only one of the many avenues that we can take to prove ourselves. The main purpose is to follow our interest, passion and convert that into excellence if we can.

Stay hungry, stay foolish

After his clerical internship job got over he would hung around every department watching movies being shot. Most often he was kicked out of the sets but he still continued doing it to learn. He wasn’t approved right away by the film makers, he was rejected many times.

He still hung on to his beliefs and tried over and over again. How many of us would go back to the same place after being embarrassed even after knowing how important it is to go again. The hunger for learning is what made him do it again and again. We all want to do that something which means so much to us but we hold ourselves back for either being rejected or embarrassed.

Rejections, failures are important parts of success

He had an 8mm film that he wanted the studio executives to watch. They said they would watch it if it was only 16mm film. He went back to them he was asked to come back with 35mm film. He worked on it again and went with the 35mm movie. (Related: Overcoming failure to succeed)

The executives were impressed with his determination and relentless efforts. He has been rejected many times in his career but he still hung on to his dreams and tried over and over again.

We get irritated when people ask us to come up with minor changes. We wouldn’t really feel like working on the same old things again and again. We get rejected and we take it way too personally to even try again. It’s all a part of success. You can say it as the most important part. You got to work hard, work better even after dozens of rejections and failures to see your dream come true.