We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nadine-abbi Natividad. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nadine-Abbi below.
Nadine-Abbi, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
Personally, my confidence and self-esteem flourished after years of fear and regret. See, regret is a nasty, powerful thing, but it’s the kind of monster that sneaks up on you years later and never attacks you outright. Instead, it pops up in social media posts of your peers succeeding while you struggle to save money at your minimum wage job or when you watch a short film your classmates made just because they wanted to.
Growing up, “failure” felt like the biggest thing to fear. What if I worked so hard, sacrificed so much, put myself out there, only to end up failing? How embarrassing. My solution was to just not try at all. In the moment, it’s relieving. When you don’t even try (because you if you don’t win, did it even matter?), then you never have to face failure and rejection. Young me thought that sounded delightful.
But as I reached adulthood, I realized that I wasted so much time being afraid. The fear slowly gave way to regret. Then, I had two options. Keep staying safe and regretting, an endless cycle of getting nowhere…or just believe in myself and try. Being vulnerable is quite possibly the bravest thing you can do.
There’s of course a lot more details in what propelled my motivation to become more confident and raise my self-esteem, but it all started from that slow change of fear of failure to fear of regret.
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 always get a little flustered whenever I’m asked what it is I do, and I think it’s mostly because it’s a lot to explain. To sound fancy, I’ll preface this by saying the answer is multi-faceted. On the one hand, I live in Los Angeles and tend to freelance for film/TV productions or production companies. In the past, I’ve worked on sets for NBCUniversal, Netflix, and HBO. My latest work has been as an Executive Assistant at Disney Entertainment in under the Unscripted and Documentaries team! Along with that, I am a co-founder of Eccentric Artists, a hybrid art collective and creative media company based in Las Vegas, my hometown. I work a lot in our social media, editorial, and marketing department as well as serve on the company’s Board of Directors.
Under Eccentric Artists, we also have a fundraising campaign for a Filipino Gothic short film we’re starting production on next year entitled, “Gamu-Gamo” written by yours truly! So when people want a short answer, I tell them I’m a writer and producer.
Does a singular one of these completely encapsulate who I am? I don’t believe so, but what a mouthful!
It’s so much so that I end up either just choosing one to explain when people ask me what it is I do or minimizing all of it. I’m still working on how I present this information to be accurate to my person, because I do want people to truly get to know me. But then I’m faced with a dilemma: If I tell people about my LA job first, they see me trying to embark on a certain path in Hollywood and maybe consider my work in Las Vegas as something I do on the side. Those I meet in Las Vegas and only know me through Eccentric Artists might not even know I live in California or that I have a whole other part of my career I also tend to.
The honest truth is that I put a lot of, if not equal, energy into all these facets of my life. I enjoy working on this side of the California industry and seeing how major Hollywood studios and their corporate entities function. As much as Hollywood has struggled to keep its head afloat, I cannot deny how much I love working in film and television, seeing stories come to life, and being part of productions that millions around the world get to watch. It’s exciting and exactly where starry-eyed film-school-me aimed to be.
And then when I drive the 200-plus miles to Las Vegas, I am reminded of how proud I am to be part of a company that aims to champion the local community in tandem with artistic endeavors.
One of those endeavors I’m preparing for at Eccentric Artists is our biggest event of the year: Shameless Plug Arts Festival, which takes place on November 16th thru the 17th in Las Vegas, Nevada! This festival serves as a way to engage with the creative community through night and day markets featuring small businesses, watching live performances, screening short films, engaging in artistic activities during workshops, and more. It started as a way to celebrate the birth of Eccentric Artists (we will be celebrating 4 years this fall!) but has turned into a platform for local artists and enterprises to get out there, meet each other, and interact with people from allover the city. If you want to learn more, such as location, times, and our lineup, you can find us on instagram at @eccentricartists.space.
Now after shamelessly plugging my company, I’ll return to monologuing!
It might seem like I am living two very different lives, and it can certainly feel that way as the person trying to divide their time and efforts into two different states and scenes. In that same vein, if you were to ask me where home is, I sincerely have a hard time defining it. Home is where you choose to belong and your career is the path that you choose to focus on. I just happen to have more than one outlet to channel all of that into. But I suppose all of that is what makes me who I am and I don’t think I could ever simply choose to be any one thing. My career is multi-faceted, just like me.
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?
Well, one of the first things that comes to mind is this: perseverance. If I stopped trying to get anywhere in Hollywood’s film industry, I might have given up when just 4 months after moving to Los Angeles when the 2020 pandemic brought on a lockdown and a screeching halt to any films and tv shows in production. If moving to a completely different state and forgetting about my roots and my hometown’s art community, I never would have had a part in the founding of Eccentric Artists. Without perseverance, I’m not sure where I’d be.
Secondly, know how to write! This doesn’t mean you need to know how to pen a novel or be the next John Keats. I simply mean this to say that writing is a powerful tool in getting what you want and need (the English major in me is extremely giddy dropping that romantic poet reference, by the way). You need to know how to write in order to have a resume and cover letter that stands out, you need to know how to write when you’re coming up with your company’s mission statement and making social media advertisements. You need to know how to write when half your career involves sending millions of emails. Don’t take language composition for granted! Practice writing every day, whether it’s for a script or your LinkedIn profile.
And in third place (last but not least as they say), I recommend consuming as many books, films/tv, and yes, even social media content, as you can. Join a book club to keep you accountable, subscribe to at least one streaming service, and make sure you check in on popular social platforms. Be current, see what people are consuming. If you ever want to make anything either meaningful, profitable, or both, you need to know the world around you and have a deep understanding why people like what they like. With that in mind, don’t forget to socialize and actually talk to people, too! Especially those out of your immediate circle or bubble.
Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
I do what I think a lot of people do: at first, I am likely screaming into the void. I’m half-joking of course, but I seriously do believe that letting out some noise, whether it’s comprehensible or not, is a good way to physically feel like you’re pushing the stress out of you and putting some space between you and those thoughts. Or you could try exercising or going to an ax-throwing bar, whatever works for you!
After that though, I allow myself to just breathe and do nothing. Having so many things on my plate for work (and a diagnosed case of ADHD), I find myself getting easily overwhelmed if I’m not careful.
We exist in a society that says you will be rewarded for being productive and that you are some how less valuable for not contributing to society. And while parts of that idea can be true, we also need to remember that we are just specs compared to everything else in the universe. Is everything always so urgent that you can’t take some time to tune out and remember you’re just one human with a limited capacity to do most things? Maybe it sounds nihilistic to consider ourselves mere organisms caught up in the cycle of the Earth (apologies if this incites feelings of existential dread, but I digress), yet humbling ourselves can serve as a comforting reminder that nothing is ever that serious. You have permission to do nothing, and being unproductive doesn’t make you any less worthy of living.
You will be okay.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.eccentricartists.space/
- Instagram: @abbimilktea
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadine-abbi-natividad-386162196?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
- Other: @eccentricartists.space is my company’s IG!
Image Credits
Genesis Paloma
Megan Olenick
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
