We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Andres Felipe Acosta a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Andres Felipe, thank you so much for making time for us today. We’re excited to discuss a handful of topics with you, but perhaps the most important one is around decision making. The ability to make decisions is a key requirement for anyone who wants to make a difference and so we’d love to hear about how you developed your decision-making skills.
Life is a constant path of decisions, we all are decision-makers, the skill is already there (as many others) to be developed. Nowadays when I find myself taking decisions, it is based on what I frame as an addition of intuition with a sense to pursue ideas and actions of change, improvement using observation, listening, analysis and mediation as tools.
At primary school, it was taught to solve math problems through a simple 3 step matrix to break down the process: DATA, OPERATIONS and RESULT. It set in me a logic to process decisions: Try to get as much information as possible to analyze, proceed executing actions based on that, then conclude. This “academic” point of view felt like an assertive method but maths are exact and, decisions in life got more complex as human-behavior and emotional factor change the game completely each time.
Realizing that brought me into a more philosophical state of mind: Decisions implies actions, actions implies reaction, consequences, change, an impact in the surrounding either individual or communal, mostly both. Then the decision-maker enters into a field of responsibility and ethics to face any possible outcomes. Being methodical can provide tools working as a theoretical frame to the process but, decisions relay always int the ability of handle the uncertain and flow with the mystery of life to continue, walk the path through the next decision while riding the waves of the previous one outcome. Like breathing consciously.
There are some lines in “Shakespeare in love” that I adopted with a mantra energy to find peace when some darkness or uncertainty surrounds a decision:
– Strangely enough, it all turns out well,
– How?
– I don´t know, it’s a mystery.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Born in 1989 in Bogotá, Colombia, I’m a filmmaker, director, producer, creative, idealist, visionary of stories, business models and problem solving possibilities. I pivoted from an almost finished industrial engineering studies to the film and television school following what I consider my true passion and leading me to build an over ten years professional path.
Based in Los Angeles since 2023 after growing my career in Colombia, Aruba, Panamá and remote job experiences with US companies, I’m currently working with short form video content while writing and planning longer formats serving as the CEO of Black Motion Box company I founded in 2013 to serve as basecamp to develop projects achieving short film awards, artistic funds, video and visual art productions for top music artist as JP Saxe, Dance Gavin Dance, Holy Water Buffalo and some more, Finally since 2020 venturing a sandwich shop brand: “That Sandwich”, launched in Colombia and currently looking for partnership funding to expand into the US market.
Black Motion Box is the manifesto of my life’s work-professional perspective, my intention to follow an intuitive call to connect the dots across my history with the lives I have collided with; a creative laboratory constantly diversifying into new divisions to manage and execute a wider range of projects and gaining value through generating intellectual property and community: a network of coworkers, artists, talented individuals, brands and companies all ready to offer solutions for entertainment, artistic, cultural and creative industries challenges.
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?
Qualities as honesty, empathy, and intuition—explained in that order based on the experiences that brought me to this answer, but certainly agreeing about seeing them individually.
For me, a main humankind issue is the lack of trustful interactions. Creating truthful-honest and confident environments, whether in personal or professional relationships, allows individuals to have a safe space for self development. It’s part of deconstructing ego walls, anxiety disorders, and fear-based actions making easier to build empathy, communication becomes clear and fluid between the parties promoting mediation when dealing differences a fertile soil for the individual to be more aligned and connected with deepest and different levels of experiencing. Intuition is the tool to navigate those levels.
My advice: We still live in a world of humans; grow in qualities, skills or areas that doesn’t conflict with your humanity.
What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
I’m using a Colombian saying to answer: ‘El que mucho abarca, poco aprieta.’ It is kind of an equivalent to ‘Jack of all trades, master of none,’ but better because the literal translation gets directly to the point of the question: the one grabbing too many things, grabs them weakly. I find it assertive to establish a balance, allowing yourself to delve deep within your own natural strengths while investing effort into surrounding yourself with people and environments where the merging of individuals’ different strengths will help you to be covered and take action in areas you’re not familiar with and intuitively learn or improve them. This involves building a network structure based on strong individuals interacting as junctions to activate any particular or composite strength required: strength through unity.
We’re living in the AI revolution era, facing a -not that new- reality about the difference between our human capability to acquire and apply knowledge through ‘learning,’ whether academically or through life experience, versus “learning machines” evolving faster in capacity to acquire, process, analyze, and save data while generating diverse outcomes from it. Then the way I see it, new knowledge in the human experience will be laid into mastering our own strengths to a point where the interaction of it with the community’s strengths will allow a collective consciousness and awareness of the deepest levels of what we are as individuals and our unique and particular role in a network. There are people (and even a movie) who call it ‘the zone,’ an elevated state of mind of the individual’s sensorial and spiritual experience, an expansion of knowledge’s horizons, a divergence only available through human uncertainty of existence.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.blackmotionbox.com
- Instagram: @afac101
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afac101/en
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@afac101/playlists
- Other: Portfolio: https://afac101.wixsite.com/afac
Image Credits
Fotos: Daniella Ortiz Nestor Parra Black Motion Box BTS files That Sandwich files
