Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Adrian Dascal. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Adrian, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
The dictionary defines resilience as “the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness”. Sounds easy enough… “recover quickly”, “toughness”. We meet people we often describe as “tough”, “strong”, we look at what they went through and say “they made it look easy”. Yet, all of these people will probably say that there’s nothing strong or easy about being resilient. And I couldn’t agree more! Resilience doesn’t come naturally, at first it doesn’t come at all. It’s one of those attributes, like most of them actually, that we have to cultivate, feed like we’d feed a child to help it develop.
Parents, the environment, or finding the right role models to look up to, help a lot. I was fortunate to have parents to whom “impossible was not an option”, as cliché at it might sound. If I was to pinpoint to one moment in my early childhood that gave birth to my resilience in a sense, was breaking my left arm in an ice-skating accident at age twelve. After the immediate surgeries, my parents took me to a few doctors, in and out of town, just to hear over and over again that I’ll never be able to use the arm the same way. I have to mention that I grew up in Romania, this was happening in the 90’s, when medical knowledge and care were not exactly what they were in the rest of the world.
But my parents never gave up, they never took “no” for an answer. After over a year of almost daily physical therapy, I went back on ice, starting my very first hockey practice. “You have to conquer your fear” my dad said as I was hesitantly stepping on ice, holding the hockey stick in my left hand. He never pushed me, just stood there and watched, saying “you did good today” in the days when I had to step off the ice early, as my arm felt uncomfortable. I ended up playing in the local team and playing tennis through high school. Throughout my recovery, he would give me books to read, thinking back now, he handpicked books with characters in near impossible situations, overcoming great challenges.
This was the pivotal moment in my life that planted the seed for resilience. Later, life threw at me a host of new challenges, because that’s what life does. But, by that point, I had the tool kit to deal with it. To this day, I find myself mapping out the pros and cons of every situation, looking at the half full side of the glass, draw inspiration from characters, fictional or real, who conquered harsher things that I happen to go through. Without necessarily over analyzing, I think we can all have a positive attitude and problem-solving approach to pretty much anything we want to do in life. Some things are more difficult than others, they might make us question if there’s even a solution. But, we can all take a step back and at least try to solve the puzzle, one little step at a time.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I love and I am inspired by a good story and charming characters. Heroes, villains of all ages, give me energy and make my mind race! Over the years, I partnered with independent film makers, writers, directors, producers, at the beginning of their career or more established ones, helping them bring stories to life. I have a business background, shout out to Duke, my alma mater, Go Blue Devils! Making a creative project financially feasible is what I do. During the stay-at-home pandemic years, I decided to dust off a story I’ve been tinkering with for a while, and put my creative writing course work to good use.
Last year I partnered with a talented editor and literary marketing genius, who is merciless in making sure that my characters are well rounded, and the plot will make people hooked and dreamy while following the ups and downs of the story.
In a few words, the story is a love triangle between a ballerina of the 1920’s Paris, a contemporary musical genius and their shared infatuation with the spotlight. We’ve often said that we would do anything to get something, be something, reach our goals. But, really, “anything”? What price is too high to pay, where is the point when one decides to stop and discard the very source of inspiration or path to get what they want? Perhaps no better place to write this story than the City of Angels, where some dreams are made, some others are crushed, and concepts like “resilience”, “follow your dreams”, “sacrifice” are pushed to unthinkable levels?
The story is of course fiction, yet is loosely based on real people I met pre and during the pandemic, beautiful souls with the sole purpose to chase and be in their own spotlight.
The plan is to release the story as a novel, build a social media presence, and perhaps release parts or all on some video medium.… Plans and talks are in motion, yet still a ton of work to do!
We have a strong tentative title in mind, stay tuned for “The curse of House Gourdine”… or something like that, ha!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Oh, this is not an easy question, people mostly answer with a bunch of clichés to this one! But, if I was to summarize and be as helpful as possible, I would say, resilience, patience and self-awareness.
Resilience, I think it’s extremely important to have to accomplish pretty much anything.
One of my favorite quote is “Only the impossible is worth doing” – Akong Rinpoche. I love this quote because I love going after things that are above average difficult. The rewards are great, the resilience is tested! It’s important to take things step by step, celebrate small victories, use every little accomplishment towards the goal to motivate the next step. A few small steps towards the goal will look like a lot when looking back! And a few weeks or months of consistent work towards the goal will feel already like an accomplishment, even if you’re not at target. And most importantly builds resilience, as you pass those points where you could’ve given up!
Patience, because anything worth doing takes time and work. Patience and resilience go hand in hand. Small steps, celebrating small victories, looking ahead at the target and behind to acknowledge the victories will help maintaining and building patience and stay on track!
Self-awareness to me, in this context really means finding your purpose. Doing soul searching to find out what makes me happy, where do I see myself, living, working, what do I see myself doing. Once I connected the dots, and I’m pursuing my passion, resilience, patience, work ethic, were maximized. The process of finding your purpose can take a while and it takes different shapes or forms. Long walks, running, gym, playing music, whatever helps thinking about what makes us happy… But it’s worth doing, those who find their purpose and know what they want, are unstoppable!
Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
I would say it’s very important to surround ourselves with people who believe in us and our dreams as much as we do, or even more! There will be enough nay sayers along the way, it’s easy to get lost in their “advice”. But having someone who can remind us to keep pushing and are honest, is invaluable. I am fortunate to have people in my life who help bring out the best in me, friends who might not be comfortable with their names out in the wild.
But I do have to give a few special shout outs to a couple of people who truly inspire me and get me energized every time I talk to them!
My long time friend Leslie Aloud, a phenomenal PR and communication expert who not only understands how to tell a compelling story even when the subject is a less than exciting commercial product, but also knows how to highlight my own successes and accomplishments, when they are not so visible to me.
Micky Levy, dear friend, writer and director, whose passion for the craft of writing and zest for life is unmatched! She is a force that energizes me and keeps me going!
