Meet Gene Kim

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Gene Kim. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Gene, great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.

I wasn’t always this way, but I’m a big believer in going out of your comfort zone and choosing to grow.

Part of what makes the choice to push myself and choose to be growth-oriented is the thought of what the reward might be if I was able to accomplish difficult things. When I made my animated short film One Last Monster, I was basically taking on the task of making a whole TV pilot length animated episode with the help of my friend animator Elmer Barcenes and a few other people over the course of almost two years – a task that would take an entire studio to do normally. Yet I knew if I could create and visually portray a compelling story, it could get me to where I want to be professionally: living . I’m not there yet, but with my YouTube channel. I look back at the process and can’t help but feel proud.

The other thing that motivates me too in terms of what I could gain is what I could lose by not taking a risk and doing something challenging. The great endurance athlete David Goggins once compared all the potential in his being to a towel that was soaked with water. By the end of his life, he wanted all the water in the towel to be wrung out so that the towel would be dry. To have any water left in the towel would mean he wasted some of his potential instead of using it all. That metaphor really inspired me because it just made me afraid of not giving 100% at the end of the day, the regret and disappointment that would come with that. Incidentally, I started playing soccer weekly a number of years ago as an adult just not only to get more exercise but force myself to become comfortable being uncomfortable on a weekly basis. And though I still have a lot to learn, I’ve really come to love it – especially as a break from my usual work.

There’s a line I love from Bob Dylan’s song “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) that goes, “he not busy being born is busy dying” and I think this is so true – I wouldn’t want to be caught wasting my time. Ultimately as an artist, if I’m not pushing myself and making better and better pieces and improving my craft as an artist and storyteller, then what am I doing? I’m coming to a place where I’d rather take an educated and principled risk and be a loser than not try at all and be a coward.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’m a 37 year old Korean-American storyboard artist, animator and filmmaker. I have a background of working in the animation industry for places like Pixar, Disney’s Blue Sky Studios (Ice Age, Rio) and I was a board artist on projects from Amazon, Angel Studios, HBO Max, etc. Right now I am really digging in deep in developing my original indie animated series One Last Monster which a sci-fi/fantasy adventure inspired by Korean history.

I’m incredibly fortunate that the film has received a lot of awards and recognition from places like Forbes, NextShark, Yahoo! News, etc (see onelastmonster.com/awards) and I even got to meet the then-First Lady of South Korea when she visited New York for UN General Assembly week a few years ago. If you want to check the full film out plus new continuing stories, check out youtube.com/@onelastmonster

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 don’t know about three specific qualities, skills or areas that I’ve deliberately focused on but I do have three principles that have come to shape my creative journey.

1. Try to work and study harder than anyone else – within reason. There are ways to work hard and focus without resorting to a blank toxic hustle mentality of grinding yourself out. Notice I didn’t say only try to work harder than anyone else. You have to always try and learn what the industry standards are for everything; whether it’s visually, aesthetically or in terms of writing and content. You should also know what people want. I always tell people who ask me how to get into the industry to take as many online courses taught by industry professionals as possible as they will know what the standards are for what is good work and what isn’t.

2. Another big principle that’s been a huge help for me is realizing that the goal isn’t to please everyone – the goal is to connect with and grow an audience that is truly passionate about what you’re creating. I’m pretty much referring to the “theory of 1,000 true fans” which states that if you were to have 1,000 true fans that loved your stuff and would be willing to spend $100 a year on your creative work, you’d have $100k a year pre-tax and that’s certainly enough to turn your creative passion into your sole full time job. Easier said than done of course, but it made me appreciate that having 1 true fan is better than having 10 or 50 people who don’t really care about what you’re doing. It has helped me re-frame rejection into redirection in a powerful way.

3. Lastly, I really believe in the power of networking like crazy and reaching out to people that are in places that you’d like to be professionally. The key is to try and reach out to at least 50 or 100, if not more people so that you increase the odds dramatically of someone getting back at you. I’ve got plenty of jobs this way and got to meet some really incredible people. I just simply reframe everyone who doesn’t get back to me using the 1,000 true fans theory I just mentioned and think that the right people will get back to me. It’s definitely way less scary to cold outreach to people when you have hundreds of other doors you can open if any one particular door doesn’t open!

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?

The US animation industry seems like it pretty much has collapsed and it doesn’t look like it will recover anytime soon. I am currently using my skillset as an animator for a company in the education space and I count myself extremely fortunate that I can get paid for using my skillset, but of course it’s a bummer that my industry of choice is pretty much dead and that so many of my friends have had to transition out.

However, it seems like that hasn’t affected the fact that independent content creators on platforms like YouTube and Webtoons are still thriving. And so I’d love to turn my One Last Monster short into a show or in the very least, online series full time much like the creators I just mentioned. I am immensely grateful to the supremely talented Canadian TV/film writer and producer Dylan Jenkinson who is helping me write and realize more One Last Monster content on an ongoing basis for my Youtube Channel.

I think it is possible for people to make a living making their own content. That possibility keeps me going and to be honest, working in the animation industry was always a side goal – the real goal was to make a living off my own work. So even though the odds are immense and the challenge is real, that goal keeps me focused and gets me up in the morning.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://onelastmonster.com
• Instagram: @onelastmonster
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/genekkim
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@onelastmonster
• Other: @onelastmonster on TikTok