Meet Nani Li Yang

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nani Li Yang. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nani below.

Nani, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
First, let’s define the word “purpose.” I used to think of “purpose” as a passion, a career, or a thing to do. I saw movies of people pursuing and achieving something, and I thought that is what finding purpose looked like. I was wrong.

I’m lucky in that I have known I wanted to be a filmmaker since I was a child. On the surface, telling an impactful story became my purpose. If that is so, then why do I experience so much inner resistance when I pursue my “dream job”? When I try to write a screenplay, the feeling of being stuck facing a blank page and procrastinating makes me wonder if this is what I meant to do.

During the quest of concurring my inner resistance, I dug deep into why I would feel this resistance, and I realized something. My purpose is not to be a filmmaker and tell impactful stories. My purpose is to understand myself as a human being and understand my life experience so that I can be as truthful towards myself as possible. After that, what you physically can contribute to the world will naturally come alone. Wanting to be a storyteller is an outer form of who I am. But my purpose is to live with my eyes open and experience.

So when you are looking for a purpose, don’t search from outside; look within.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’m a filmmaker in Los Angeles. I fell in love with cinema when I was 12 years old when I watched a film called “Hero” in the theater. Since then, I knew I wanted to be a part of filmmaking. I grew up in a small town. My culture was conservative. I was always told that filmmaking was not for ordinary people like me and that working in the entertainment industry would bring shame to the family. I followed my family’s wish and went to engineering school for my college degree. Until my senior year of college when, I realized that if I didn’t pursue filmmaking, I would regret it for the rest of my life. I made up my mind and confronted my family. As soon as I graduated, I attended film school here in L.A. to learn about filmmaking.

After I made two short films and before graduating from film school, I wrote a feature screenplay, “Beneath the Banyan Tree.” It’s a story about a Chinese-American immigrant family. Three generations struggle to meet each other’s expectations. It is a personal story because I was working in film and couldn’t fulfill my family’s expectations. At that point, all I wanted was to make this film and see it on the big screen. I started reaching out to people, sending the script to my favorite actress’ agent and producer friends. Four years later, it’s like a dream, the film was made with so many people’s help, and of course, with many struggles. Now, it has won awards and been released on many platforms.

After the pandemic, cell phones have become a more central part of our lives. More and more vertical content has emerged, changing the definition of filmmaking. Currently, I’m also working as a director, making mini-series in vertical format. This is the beginning of vertical cinema, and I’m so lucky to be a part of the cinema’s historical change.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
First is self-management. Like many artists, one of the biggest challenges of being a writer/director is learning to manage yourself. There’s no one behind your back to push you and hold you accountable. All your insecurity will surface, and try to sabotage your process — procrastination. Learning how to manage your time and energy is necessary for anyone who wants to work for themselves and create a business. I think the key is to shift more attention to energy management instead of time management. It has helped me tremendously.

The second is documenting. For any artist, inspiration comes and goes. One of the most essential skills is to build a system to document your ideas and inspirations. I use digital notebooks to write down every idea that comes to me or things I see that inspire me. If you don’t document, you will forget. There’s nothing more painful than losing your ideas.

The third is consistency. I’m a big believer in the power of consistency. Whatever you want to do, as long as you consistently learn and move forward, you will get there. Take small steps, one at a time. It might appear slow initially, but one step forward each day can move faster than you think.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
There are many books that help me along the way, but Eckhart Tolle’s The New Earth is probably one of the most important books to me. This book has helped me to see myself and my ego. This book helped me to build self-awareness and see how my mind is getting in the way of everything I try to do. It shows me the root problem of every challenge I’m facing. When I learned to resist nothing and live in the present moment, I saw everything coming together for me.

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