We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kseniya Yorsh. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kseniya below.
Kseniya, 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?
Oftentimes when people talk about resilience, they actually mean perseverance: picking yourself up and continuing to forge ahead, no matter what. However, my viewpoint is that resilience is not actually that.
I remember watching one webinar that said that being resilient vs. not resilient is about being a ball or an egg. In other words, what happens to you when you get dropped on the ground? Do you bounce back up, or do you crack open and get broken?
I love this definition of resilience because it makes us focus on our “bouncy back up”iness. You can’t really move forward if you are shattered in pieces. Many of us do – through pain and complete burnout – and think that it’s resilience and that it will bear fruit. But this only brings further suffering and more burnout down the road.
However, when we focus on keeping ourselves flexible and unbreakable, bouncing back will not even take that great of an effort. It will just happen.
So I get my resilience from taking care of myself. And that means doing what will keep my mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing in a good place.
It means doing pleasant things like nurturing social connections that soothe my soul; doing hard things like working through my roadblocks in therapy or going to hot yoga; and doing ‘boring’ things like filing my taxes early and keeping the house tidy. Anything and everything that helps keep my mind shelves uncluttered, free from unfinished tasks, unresolved messes; and that also fills me up with sustained energy the way a long night of sleep does.
Then, when a setback happens or something unexpected comes my way and drops my internal barometer all the way to the ground filling me with anxiety, worries, hurt, shallow breath and fast heartbeat, these tools and practices gently bring me back up to my space of safety and comfort. Because they are habits at this point, I turn to them easily. I go through the motions knowing that these practices and rituals will help me. And they do.
I didn’t learn this by having an a-ha moment. I learned this by once upon a time being that broken egg on the ground. Realizing that I couldn’t get back up and that I needed to make some fundamental changes to not only survive but thrive. I don’t recommend getting yourself to that point.
And I also won’t tell you that weekly Friday dinner with friends or turning your shower to a cold setting in its last 30 seconds will be this thing for you. What helps you fill up your resilience jar might look different than what it will be for your partner or your friend, but finding those things will be sure as heck worth it.
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 am a film producer. I work with both narrative and documentary, feature-length and short-form content.
As much as we all are used to series these days, there is something magical and unique in experiencing a standalone piece of content that takes you on a journey – and concludes it within a matter of a few dozen minutes. Film is magical, I always wanted to be a part of it, and now for the past 10 years I have been living this dream.
I enjoy working with the creatives and the thing being created. If you’ve ever been a part of the creative process – whatever the medium – you have probably experienced this: at some point the thing being created becomes sort of its own entity.
It’s beautiful to see art being born out of synergy of a number of people, their creative minds, and hard work. Sometimes it feels poetical, sometimes you have to do tedious mundane tasks – but for me the result always serves as a reminder that great things are born when people work on them together.
I like to be a part of this togetherness and utilize my highly organized mind, people skills, and passion for film to drive projects into existence by making things work and creating environments where people enjoy working together.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1. Everything matters when you make it matter.
Whatever you are working on now, whatever craft you are honing, industry you are trying yourself in, place you live at – it will all come together later in your journey, and matter, and make sense if you truly really give yourself to this practice now. Nothing is useless when you live through it mindfully.
2. Your journey is unique – but you can still benefit from learning from others how to move forward.
Sure, make your own path. Travel the road less traveled. Don’t look for a recipe. But – learn the different how‘s. How to walk, and how to run, and how to take a bike. The more practical skills you have, the more open and egoless you are about learning from others, the more tools you will have to pave this unique path in the way that you want. Being an arrogant know-it-all don’t-need-anyone will only slow your progress.
3. Enjoy your life and make sure it truly is yours.
Trivial advice but I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to check in with yourself from time to time and make sure you still are living your own life. So many distractions are disguised as career opportunities, advancements, status symbols. Whatever you pursue, just make sure you actually truly want it and are not doing it just because it sounds cool to do it.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
I’m always open to working with filmmakers and content creators who are driven and passionate about their projects.
I work primarily as a line producer, which means I come on board when the creative is locked and the project is funded – and I then carry it through production and further on. I don’t do creative producing or executive producing; my forte is production.
You can always reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://imdb.com/name/nm6286592/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kseniya-yorsh/
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