Meet August Freirich

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful August Freirich. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with August below.

Hi August, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?

When you get on an airplane and they are giving the safety talk, they always tell you that when the oxygen masks come down, you should make sure your own mask is taken care of before you help anyone else. I take the same approach to my personal life and health, and it’s made a huge difference. Making my sleep, nutrition, and fitness a priority (in that order) allows me to be my best self as I tackle each day.

Some advice on building confidence that I picked up a long time ago that really helped me is to focus on positive self-talk and to take a moment to celebrate your wins. When I have an interaction go well (whether it’s everyone laughing when I make a joke or when I ask for something and I get it) I always take a moment to reflect on it and pat myself on the back. When things go poorly I do whatever I can to avoid dwelling on it. Over time I think that’s built up into a strong and positive self-esteem for me which kind of tends to be self-reinforcing.

One thing which has become more and more apparent to me as I get older is how different everyone’s journeys are. I’ve taken the opportunity to travel quite a lot in my life and it’s just mind-boggling how many kinds of people there are and how many ways of life there are to live. It makes you really appreciate how much the metrics by which you define yourself are your own metrics.

Oh, and How to Win Friends and Influence People is probably the best self-help, self-confidence and communication book out there, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I recently shared an editing credit on an episode of the FX series English Teacher, which is my highest profile project to date… and it’s a pretty good episode. When I moved to LA over a decade ago the dream was to edit narrative television, and it feels pretty incredible to have reached that milestone.

First and foremost, I’m an editor. I love digging into a scene and exposing its innards, trimming away the fat to shape a narrative that is clear and concise. I’ve had the opportunity to explore a lot of different areas, with projects in unscripted, digital, documentary and live events before finally landing in narrative.

Beyond editing, when it comes to post production I’m able to deliver the full stack. Tech solutions, staffing, project management, and the creative work itself. I’ve worn a lot of hats in my career while editing, supervising, and producing.

I’ve built post teams from the ground up for massive corporations, cut countless hours of content, grown digital media channels from scratch to 8m+ subscribers, and worked with a pretty wide variety of clients. I work hard, swing big, and pay my successes forwards by bringing opportunities to friends and colleagues wherever I can manage it.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I think the best quality I have is patience and long-term thinking. I’m always asking myself “How will this benefit me in 5 years?” That approach has benefitted me enormously in my career as I develop relationships and deliver work that pays itself off in dividends years later. This kind of thinking helps me to maintain healthy habits as well – exercise being the prime example. Nobody wants to go to the gym “today” but everyone wants to look and feel like they’ve been going to the gym regularly for 5 years. I apply the same perspective to my work, to skills development, to relationships, everything I do really.

When I was in high school, a teacher I really admired shared some life advice with the class that I really took to heart. He told us that one of the best predictors of success in life is how much discipline you have to do the boring stuff – folding laundry, doing well in classes, dealing with your taxes, etc. I really try to take that to heart by looking for ways to make the boring stuff interesting – or by trying to find the opportunity for growth in otherwise boring or unsexy tasks. If we use laundry as an example, I can develop an interest in laundry by approaching it as finding “the best” way to do my laundry and then taking pride in how well I do my laundry. I can’t say that being good at laundry sounds fun or interesting to many people, but everyone can appreciate the benefit of having clean, nice looking clothes. That approach helps me to stand out and excel in areas with minimal competition which is really helpful for success.

Inertia is a huge part of my success, I always prefer to be doing something and adapting from my mistakes rather than planning every move. So many people get caught up in the ‘what ifs’ and fail to start something they’re interested in experiencing. The adage I’ve heard and love is that the master has failed more times than the amateur has even started. Similarly I find that when I finish a project and move on, I learn and grow FAR more than when I abandon it. In finishing something you gain context into where your efforts were valued or wasted which helps you nail the next one.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

I pivoted into narrative work last year and I’m looking for indie features, short films, anything I can get my hands on to expand the diversity of work on my reel and credits under my belt. So if you are a director or producer with narrative work looking for an editor to collaborate with, please feel free to get in touch with me. I’m able to work within a variety of budget ranges, and thanks to my background as a post supervisor I can deliver more than just editing work if needed.

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