Meet Gregory White

 

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

Gregory, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

Purely from God. There isn’t a single other place or source that I could think of. Occasionally, I want to give up and move onto something else, but I have a large belief in miracles. As an aspiring animator, it’s pretty easy to be pessimistic and exasperrated because this is a field that requires a lot of passion and perseverance, regardless of how bad the circumstances may seem. It’s all a game of faith to me. There’s nothing else I love to do, and it’s my dream to use my love for storytelling as a way of taking care of my family and paying the big bills. Moving mountains is wild work, but I feel like I’ve gotta believe in something. Life’s too dark to just have faith in what I see.

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?

Well, when I was a kid, I loved drawing. Most kids do, but something about drawing really felt like an escape to me. It was something I could do for hours that would make me forget about how boring school was or how unstable my family was becoming. Art intrigued me, and more specifically, animation intrigued me. When I was eight-years-old, a TV show called “Total Drama Island” aired on Cartoon Network in 2008. I was in love with this cartoon because it wasn’t episodic like “Looney Tunes” or “Tom and Jerry”. It was a full-fledged serialized story told in a 26-episode format with cool character designs. I was hypnotized. Shows like “Avatar: The Last Airbender”, “Danny Phantom”, “Sym-Bionic Titan” and “Teen Titans” only increased my love for this medium of storytelling,

I would staple papers together and recreate the TV shows I saw on TV in the form of storyboards and comic books. Eventually, instead of recreating other shows in book-form, I started creating original characters and original stories. I felt like I had so much power, and I was passionate about the worlds I created. I knew this was something I wanted to do forever.

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?

One quality would be passion. If you aren’t genuinely interested or in-love with something, you’re bound to move onto something else. I never considered the trials and tribulations of being an animator. I never considered the struggles when it came to finding jobs as an animator. I never considered the pay. I never considered the important things like that. Obviously, those are foolish things to neglect, but I’m just letting you know how stubbornly I’ve sought after this for years, regardless of the negatives. Of course, those are things I consider now, but if I weren’t passionate about the songs, characters, and stories I created, then I’d abandoned this journey completely. Nothing is worse than trying to commit to something you don’t care about. It’s a waste of time for everyone, especially yourself. When I tried giving up on this dream before, I ended up right back on track. You gotta be passionate about your vision.

The second quality is faith. It’s great to be passionate, because that means you have a vision, but do you believe in your vision though? If you have no faith in the thing that you’re passionate about, your chances of making a career out of it either get delayed or diminish completely. I don’t think some people understand how strong faith is. Men will stop work on major projects if the faith is not there. Nobody wants to work on something that they don’t believe in. It burns. There are too many miracles, innovations and evolutions that have occurred in this world for us as people to just limit our capabilities to the circumstances at hand. Be practical, for sure! But don’t be afraid to test how practical your vision is. You test it by working on it.

That leads into the third quality: Be diligent. Faith without works is indeed dead. Sitting around waiting for someone to hand you an opportunity is pretty wack if you never sought after it in the first place. Seeking an opportunity can be done via research or networking. Apply for things that pertain to your interest. Apply repeatedly. If you never get called back for a job, apply for the same job again when the window opens back up, and apply for dozens of other jobs in the meantime. Ask people questions when you need guidance. Life can be ridiculously confusing, so seek advice from as many people or YouTubers as you need to. B Mor Studios also taught me that it’s ok to put 100% of whatever you’ve got into a project. So if you’ve only got %25 of energy today, put 100% of that %25 into what you need to do today. Laborers get rewards. Work is good! Always work! You get what you put into something, and sometimes the Lord will even give you more reward than you expected.

“Clarify and define your vision for yourself…believe it…work towards it” – Jermaine Lamar Cole, 2023 Bob Myers Interview

As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?

The Bible is the best collection of books, chronicles, poems, visions, and sources of wisdom that I have ever read in my life. I’ve read the Bible twice, and I still have so much to learn. My memories of the Bible remind me not to fall in love with money, and also to remember that this world is temporary and the world above is what I should be seeking. This world is way too wicked to receive all my love, so I strive to just do what I think I’m put here to do, do as much good as possible, be a good neighbor, be strong, be healthy, be courageous, and differentate between good and evil things, and then just leave this life hoping to be accepted by my Maker. Becoming a great husband and father would be awesome too. Again, I’m still learning, but I know for certain that the world I see is not a world worth getting too attached to. My favorite verse is “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” from Ephesians 6:12, because it reminds me that our everyday battle is more so internal, rather than external.

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