Meet Jacob Daniels

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jacob Daniels a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jacob, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

It took a lot of time and trying things! I didn’t find my “purpose” until I was in my 30’s. And I hesitate to call it a purpose because “telling stories” is such a common experience that everyone can do. I’ve just made it my passion to tell stories in the best way I can through a medium I love, with people I adore.

I started out thinking my purpose was either 1. What I was good at, or 2. What I was expected to do. This led to me pursuing things I didn’t truly want, but only did so because I was “supposed” to want them. I went to college at the US Air Force Academy, gaining a commission, a degree in mechanical engineering and securing a coveted assignment as a pilot. I had some great experiences, I learned so much, and attribute a lot of who I am today to that part of my life, but at no point did any of that feel like my purpose. Resisting my purpose and seeking to be a “people pleaser” only resulted in pain and damage to myself and my loved ones.

I would encourage people to find their purpose by being honest with themselves. There are a billion things you CAN do, a million things you SHOULD do, and a handful of things you WANT to do. Finding purpose involves an intensely honest conversation with yourself to discover where all of those things intersect.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I started Mediaverse Studios in the summer of 2023. Nestled in the small town of Marengo, Iowa, we are retrofitting an old livestock sale barn into a full-fledged film production facility. There are 12 members on the team, the Film Family. We come from all walks of life and each bring unique skills and resources to the table. Between the 12 of us, we haven’t encountered a problem we can’t solve, and we never stop learning.

Mediaverse Studios as a business seeks to enable filmmakers, photographers, artists, and creatives of any kind with a collaborative space, gear, and a full production crew. We even have “film alley” where we build and curate sets for film and photography. There’s an auction ring that we are turning into a screening theater, and a large lobby we use for meetings with dedicated spaces for post-production and another for podcasting.

At our core we are simply passionate about telling stories, and we want to share that passion with others. We are film-focused, but want to help anyone on their creative journeys through any medium.

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?

When I was in pilot training in the Air Force we had an acronym for emergency procedures: MATL. Maintain aircraft control, Analyze the situation, Take appropriate action, Land as soon as conditions permit. This approach to problem solving has served me well on my journey. Without a doubt, something in your journey will go wrong. But if you can maintain control of the situation and composure of yourself, analyze effectively and efficiently, take action using the resources you have available, and adjust to whatever outcomes that arise, you’ll be in good shape. You’re never truly stuck, work the problem, there is always a solution!

Adaptability is key. My journey has taken so many twists and turns and gone in directions I didn’t know were even possible. Calling it a journey is very intentional because the outcome cannot be set in stone. If I went through all that I’ve been through thinking I MUST end up at a certain location doing a certain thing with whatever definition of success I had adopted at various stages, I would be very disappointed with myself. The purpose IS the journey, that’s where the good stuff is. You’ll fail, watch plans go hopelessly off the rails, you’ll learn to get up and keep moving, meet new people, shed what doesn’t serve you, take new directions, grow and learn new skills. You’ll get where you think you’re meant to be and find there’s further to go.. Always be open.

Balancing tenacity with self care is something I still struggle with all the time. There are times when working hard, “grinding”, and putting in the sweat equity is absolutely necessary. Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and dig in to the work. When you’re working in service to your purpose, that passion and drive can carry you through some really hard days, but you have to learn to balance and not let yourself become enslaved to your ambition. I’m learning to listen to myself physically and mentally, and make time to recover and remember why I’m doing all of this work in the first place. No matter how passionate you are, you will burn out and resent the journey if you don’t give yourself purposeful rest.

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?

They say it takes 10,000 hours to be a master in your field. But what they don’t say is that the skill growth from zero to master is logarithmic. Meaning that after 10 hours you’re still pretty bad at it, but at 100 hours you’ve gotten pretty good. At 1,000 hours you’re freaking great at it, but then you enter into diminishing returns. Now you could dedicate another 9,000 hours to get to full mastery, but what I prefer to do is spread that time to getting pretty good to excellent at a lot of things. There are merits to specialization and mastery, but in most things I prefer the “jack of all trades, master of none” approach. There are so many skills and disciplines to learn, and the most intellectually satisfying thing to me is to create neurological connections between disciplines. What can engineering teach you about cinematography? What can architecture teach you about shot composition, or poetry teach you about pacing or physics teach you about screenwriting? Just learn all you can from whatever resources you have available.

More important than cultivating yourself intellectually is finding your tribe. This is hard because you really have to put yourself out there, but it’s worth it. Find people that are 1. smarter than you and 2. don’t make you feel judged for that fact. I was so fortunate to be brought into the film community by a small faction of brilliant filmmakers in eastern Iowa. They were patient with me as I learned and grew, and what’s more is they didn’t bring ego into the equation, which I’ve seen poison creative journeys time and again. I trust and rely on this film family so heavily! We take on challenges and all grow together, we insulate instead of isolate when someone (usually me) screws up, and we speak openly about our passions, goals, and struggles, My wish for anyone reading this is that you find your tribe and experience support at that level.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mediaversestudios.co
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/mediaverse_studios
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/MediaverseStudios
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@MediaverseStudios

Image Credits

Emma Walker (Emma’s Cellar Door)
Megan Ruth (Megan Ruth Photography)