500 days of chasing my dreams

what do you want to be when you grow [Music] up do you remember the last time you were at rock bottom for me it was January 2023 3 months into this journey I was just fired for my first job out of college a job that I thought was going to change my life as a kid we all had big aspirations I dreamt of being an NBA player from the day I picked up a basketball at age 10 but somewhere along the way our dreams die and we end up spending a lot of Our Lives not

knowing what we really want to do and here I am half a year out of college feeling the same pain I did when I got cut from my high school basketball team my freshman year picture yourself chasing your dreams for a second you probably do have a passion or idea that you want to explore further you've done your research have some sort of plan and all that's left is just doing it so what's holding you back it's quite scary taking the first steps into the unknown and even if you started the reality is you'll have

to execute better than 99% of the people around you to reach your dreams however in a world where we're crowned for success but clowned for failure we of to let our fears get in the way of figuring out what we're really capable of getting fired ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me because without these 20 days of Rock Bottom I wouldn't have experienced the best year of my life [Music] so how did I turn my life around after being fired land a project with the NFL work on a music video with

Metro boomman and who even am I let me introduce myself hi I'm Justin or better known as shenny visuals I'm a 23-year-old filmmaker from Portland currently living in Chicago after graduating from college 2 years ago I wanted to answer one question that's been in my head for the last few years could I make a living through my creative passions over the last 500 Days life has taken me on quite the ride while I went viral traveled the world had tons of new people and I even made the news I also went through self-doubt break and

probably the toughest year of my life through the highs and lows I wanted to make an honest video about the reality of chasing your dreams in your early 20s and the 10 lessons I learned in between the journey all started when a company asked me to be their full-time creative director but how does a 22-year-old business school graduate even get this kind of opportunity [Music] all right hey guys crazy game here welcome back to another episode of Minecraft from a young age I realized that creativity is in everyone's blood while my NBA dreams died at

age 14 I got inspired by my favorite YouTubers to make Minecraft videos mess around with 3D animation and learn how to video edit with the new aspirations of becoming a famous YouTuber as you can see that didn't work out eventually I went to business school where I felt like a bit of an outcast I never got the best grades and while all my peers were extremely confident and extroverted I realized that I wasn't the best at expressing myself through small talk and quick witted conversations which felt essential to Making Connections in business school however everything

changed for me my sophomore year when the world shut down from Co during the long periods of isolation I found solace and looking through memories from college which gave me the urge to edit videos again it's a way to express my [Music] Nostalgia being away from Friends made me realize how valuable capturing each memory was so when the summer came around I decided to buy a camera with the help my parents to start documenting life through my eyes and it truly felt like love at first [Music] sight in the blink of an eye my camera

will be with me everywhere capturing Precious Memories for me and my friends as we explored the Great Outdoors during the night my camera will be by my side while I stayed up editing photos reliving every moment from our latest Adventure this new creative world made me feel so alive life Not only was it the outlet to express myself that I couldn't find in college but for the first time in my life it felt like the walls of my world were being torn down so when I went back to campus that fall I made it a

goal to make the most out of my newfound Passion by following one simple rule let your curiosity lead you places I wanted to share my creativity with friends so we documented life and went on spontaneous photo shoots all throughout campus I wanted to be involved with my sport again so I asked the basketball team to work for free I wanted to start freelancing so I networked around campus to work with businesses and organizations and over time my once mundane college life started feeling full of joy and excitement I bonded with friends met new people lived

new experiences ran my own business and reconnected with the game I love but more importantly it was the first time in life I felt a strong sense of purpose through the thousands of pictures and videos I took I saw the smile I put on people's faces and I felt like I made a change in the world for the first time but once I graduated life got real as much as I wanted to dive head first into the creative sphere I couldn't help but feel like I reached the end of my Runway and for now the

corporate job I had lined up will be the smarter and more comfortable path to a stable life [Music] do you ever catch yourself running for the train from a young age I've always been fascinated by trains although we all have different aspirations growing up most people end up waiting at the same stations boarding the same trains to end up in the same predetermined destinations as others but once in a while a different train will show up unexpectedly it's not on the map as you know and the tracks have never been tested what would you do

if it promised to take you to your dream destination just a few weeks before my corporate start date one of my old sportsware clients from college offered me a job to be their full-time creative director this was my unexpected train I knew the tracks wouldn't be as safe and there was no sign of the route on my map but as I've done all throughout my creative Journey so far I've trusted my curiosity which told me to hop on this train there was one catch I kept a return ticket to corporate life for next October giving

myself exactly one year to prove I was here to stay in the creative world so this is how I started the 500 day journey to Chase my creative dreams [Music] I've always wanted to live in a big city growing up I was spoiled by the nature of the Pacific Northwest but whenever I visited Chicago or New York City I was always enamored by the energy radiated by the busting streets and concrete Abyss something about the possibilities felt endless here it was the perfect place to figure out the question I've been trying to answer my whole

life who even am I among this madness Life After College comes at you fast one moment we're surrounded by friends and thousands of people our age on a lively college campus the next moment we're all alone in a new city trying to figure out our new purpose in life how does one feel alone in a city with millions of people although I was excited to start my new life being on a different path than everyone was a lot lonlier than I thought not only did my friends not end up in Chicago but it was hard

to explain how I was struggling doing something I loved when everyone else was working a corporate job two months in it was clear that my role at the company was diminishing and the creative freedom I was promised was taken away by office politics and for the first time I felt myself falling out of love with the creative game [Music] although I was doing my passion for a living I quickly felt lost and alone just going through the motions every day and soon enough my struggles became apparent at work hey Justin hope you're doing well man

unfortunately I don't think this is working out and the company is moving towards a different direction we value citizenship here at and we no longer feel like you're a good fit here so as of today you're terminated from the company you can pick up your stuff from the office next week and I'll give you two [Music] weeks although I felt relieved from being set free I thought I failed and perhaps I wasn't ready to take on such heavy responsibilities but worse for the first time I picked up a camera there was no creative spark left

in me see when you spend 8 hours a day working on ideas that you have no control over you're bound to be burnt out so here I was 9 months until my return trip no job no game plan just a few months of savings and the looming possibility that this was the end of my creative career [Music] [Music] [Applause] what scares you more failing or knowing the outcome realizing you didn't try hard enough [Applause] I think back a lot about why I didn't make it in basketball while I left the game as much as anyone

I had this terrible fear of losing and I would always mentally crumble whenever I played against people better than me instead of taking my losses as a learning experience I thought about it as failure and I was afraid the players around me would judge me for failing over and over again but the more I lived the more I realized not only does everyone lose at some point but most people don't care about your failures as much as you do and that's when I realized the ones that truly fail are the ones that never allow themselves

too sure 14-year-old me could have used some more hours in the wait room or a better handle but what he really needed was a change of perspective [Music] just before I was about to accept that this is the end I took one last deep dive through my hard drive fill with all my work which helped me put things in perspective not only have I improved so much in such a short time but my life has also become so much richer in experience over the last 2 and a half [Music] years however over the last few

months I became so Tunnel Vision on turning my passion into a full-time job that I lost sight on the bigger dreams I had for myself freelancing fulltime shooting music videos for big artists working with my favorite Brands and one day stepping onto the hardwood of an NBA floor that last dream was never going to take me there and being fired does not make me a failure the only way I fail was if I stop chasing my dreams right now knowing I didn't try hard enough like I did with basketball I thought back on the pain

of never making that high school team and I owed it to my old self to not make the same mistake and once I realized I had nothing more or lose the picture became so [Music] [Applause] clear it was the perfect time to try freelancing full-time work on my creative style and see more of the world like I always envisioned with 9 months left on the timer I was determined to figure it out and if I do take the return ticket I was going to leave with no [Music] [Music] regrets being in Chicago had its advantages

I knew it would be easier for me to stand out here compared to or New York so immediately I started making my way around the city reaching out to friends and taking whatever I could to get my feet off the ground events clubs shows parties behind the scenes for sets some were paid some weren't but no matter of the opportunity I made it a goal to push my creative boundaries further than everyone else around me trial and error became the norm and while I actively took inspiration from my favorite filmmakers I always added my own

original flare on top embracing this idea of steal like an artist concept which argues that nothing we create is truly original they're all iterations of something we've seen in the past but the best artists build upon what's created before because what even is our own unique style I think it's an interpretation of our own experiences emotional connections and all the art forms we consume and that's what makes each and every one of us different as I started posting passion projects and networking around the city people started noticing in February I directed my first music video

in March I worked on my first film sets in April I shot for my first Big Brand and in May I even got flown out to California to work with an artist every month was something new and the progress I made started becoming a parent but there was still one problem I was still burning through my savings and in the 4 months until my return ticket expires I had to figure out things financially if I wanted to stay on this [Music] track as the economy stagnated I was told that my return ticket to corporate was

delayed for another 4 months although I was excited for the extra time to figure things out the reality is as a freelancer the fear of running out of work never goes away and I wasn't sure if I could make it through the extra four months oh wait I didn't turn a dig cam one more I took this feeling of uncertainty and channeled it into my creative style which became a refle ction of how I felt at this point in my life I'm at the center of this chaos constant but always changing trying to find myself

am miss this evolving World some might call it luck but I think it's fate because without this extra bit of fear from the delay I don't know if I would have experienced the biggest moment of my career Justin Shen is a freelance videographer and photographer here in Chicago does some incredible work take a look at this video he posted on Tik Tok he calls it elements of [Music] Chicago in a month the video Hit 5 million views and for a brief 17 seconds I felt like the whole world had their eyes on something I made

[Applause] I'll inspired by my fast and chaotic life in the city elements in Chicago would change everything for me my once deserted inbox was filled to the brim and every new opportunity was the reassurance I needed to know that I'm starting to be on the right path but the best part was getting noticed by some of the directors and creators I've been heavily inspired by along this journey without them I probably wouldn't be where I'm at today [Applause] [Music] in the following months I continue to experiment creatively while wasting no time putting my business school

knowledge to use I learned how to do my own Contracting invoicing negotiating accounting and my new LLC became the heartbeat of my opportunities from all over the world from making elements of London for the NFL editing parts of the music video for calling by Metro booming to covering events like laala palooza Formula 1 Electric Zoo each project was not only a creative challenge but a glimpse of the Endless experiences I've unlocked through following this crazy dream of [Music] mine but just as everything was coming together I once again ran into some growing [Music] pains because

elements of Chicago will be the last video I made without any expectations [Music] although I was living out my dream the attention and workload gradually became overwhelming the more I looked at other people's work the more I started wondering was I really as good as people keep hyping me up to be with 60,00 th000 new eyes on me I became so worried about living up to expectations that the creative momentum I've been building for the last 9 months suddenly turned into a painful burnout so what did I end up doing I couldn't help if feel

like I wasn't in control of which direction my train was going so I ended up taking the return ticket back to corporate [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] what is the purpose of life and why do we [Music] create it wasn't until I stumbled upon this Japanese concept called iy guy that I was able to grasp this heavy question iy guy is the intersection of what you love what you're good at what you can be paid for and what the world needs when we find our iy guy we find our reason to live I ended up spending

a lot of time soul searching after my blow up because although I thought I found the intersection of myy guy I didn't feel truly happy in the book The creative act there's a quote that says the object isn't to create art it's to be in that wonderful state that makes art inevitable this quote really struck a chord with me after a lot of self-reflection I realized that for the whole journey I've been so focused on advancing my creative career that I often neglected other important parts of my life eating healthy sleeping early catching up with

friends and just My overall well-being often took a backseat to my creative Endeavors and through this quote I realized that iy guy isn't actually felt directly from any of our actions rather it's a result from all the subconscious decisions we make in other words reaching our goals can make us temporarily happy but the trajectory of our journey is what really fulfills our purpose so over the last few months I've taken aing old hobbies and going back to my roots using my camera to document life [Music] again so no I didn't actually leave the creative world

to go into corporate I'm still working on Creative projects my passion for the game is as strong as ever in reality I just really needed a break from all the madness don't get me wrong blowing up was still the best thing to ever happened to me but ever since I graduated all I've really thought about was videos and art and being creative and as much as I loved every step of it it was hard for me to give myself a break corporate actually felt like the perfect place to mentally reset learn business skills and reconfigure

the trajectory of my creative career and turns out helping other people drive their train helps you better see the flaws of your own not only is there more structure in my life but I realized how much I actually missed being around a lot of people my age so glad we've almost made it so sad they had to [Music] why why do you create dude so many reasons um to make money and get it's fun makes feel happy to give someone a feeling that inspired me once and capture it cre to be inspired by people like

you Jus once you start figuring yourself out you'll naturally attract the people who are just like you but you got your own kind of music for the longest time the loneliness from freelancing made me think that perhaps I become more introverted as time goes on but over the last few months I've realized that I just haven't found the right people until now when I got an invite from Creator camp this Camp brought together 25 like-minded strangers for our week long creative Retreat even though we're all on different trajectories being around these people not only gave

me a level of comfort and understanding that I haven't felt on the longest journey but also a rejuvenated sense of ambition especially to work with more people so what's next for me for now I have the best side hustle in the world but I don't think I'll be in corporate for very long because I've set new dreams for myself I still want to direct music videos with big artists and work with my favorite Brands but I also want to start a creative agency somewhere down the line to work on more ambitious projects but more importantly

surround myself with more like minder creative souls and without experiencing all these people around me at creater Camp I just never saw how it was all [Music] possible because when you find the right people in life you realize that there was nothing wrong with you all this time when I first started making this video 4 months ago I wanted this journey to have a fairy tale ending like all movies do I'd never work a 9 to5 in my life and I keep fulfilling my dream of working in a creative field fulltime but the moment I

went into Consulting I realized that there was no perfect ending and that's okay because not only does everyone have their own trajectory to their own goals dreams but this is also just the start of my journey these past few years have shown me how unpredictable life can be and I think as long as we're willing to brace the unknown and make the most out of every stage in life then we'll be surprised with whatever result life brings us because in retrospect the real happiness I found this year wasn't from the views or followers or even

the cool projects but rather overcoming a lot of my fears to discover who I am and finally do all the things I always wanted to I changed my hair for the first time in my life I got closer with my family and especially my sister and I grew out of my shell to find people in different cities that will probably be my lifelong friends so I hope my story can inspire you to seek out the answers to your own questions CU we really don't have forever we live our 20s once and you'll learn so much

more about life and yourself through a difficult path than whatever happens on an easy one and what's life without figuring out what we're truly capable of so take the risks you've always wanted to because ultimately the biggest risk in life is taking no risks at all and now that we're all grown up who do you really want to [Music] be around you been [Music] dreaming keep me M when you're ready I am to take you [Music] [Music] every there's so many different signs buildings I mean just if you go on his account you can see

his timeline his editing timeline which is just wild uh he says he didn't even pick up a camera for the first time until 2020 so this is a newish hobby for him photography and videography you can follow him on Tik Tok at shenny [Music] visuals that it keeps moving fast but you can still kind of see what's going on like the old like MTV music videos where random shots are going by so quick he didn't know what was going on camera flying around like [Music] this [ __ ] birthday right here yeah [ __ ]

baby [ __ ] yeah where we baby [ __ ] baby sing where once it was the dance floor is empty just a memory of fun the ice will be melted before morning brace the party is not over till I hear you say we're going tonight is going to be an anarchy we're going to take over the city oh my middle name is Kai CH actually it's Jo virus [Applause] I walk in blinded