Women tell Women

How to stop comparing your career?

— Liz Unna

Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind, so comparison is a fool’s game. We are all occasional fools though. Gore Vidal said something along the lines of: “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.” This has always made me chuckle. In truth, we all have known this feeling – but I think there is a more constructive way.

The occasional twinge of comparison around someone else’s success – the job they won, the award they received, the deft way they balance out their personal creative work with commercial work – can be a useful mirror in which to take a good look at yourself. If you poke a little deeper and move past the envy, you can start to ask questions about what lies behind it. What do you like and admire about what they did? What is your twinge telling you about what you want to do better? Are they working with an exciting agency, while you realize you’re stuck in a rut with your own contacts? So, you can respond and take steps to widen your net and work with new people. Use these moments as inspiration – at times, gurus take unexpected forms.

Liz Unna –
Film Director

Liz Unna is an award-winning commercials and documentary director. She grew up between Santa Fe and Brussels, went to university in Montreal, moved to Rome for a few years and now lives in London. After starting out at Discovery Channel and then Channel 4 in the UK, she now directs commercials and short films for numerous clients across the world, with a focus on work that honor’s women and their stories. Whether the topic is war reportage or self-care, she elicits emotive and authentic performances from her subjects, and always seeks to find the point where heightened cinematography meets truth. She has just finished a feature documentary about independent watchmakers and our relationship with time. She is represented by Creators Inc in London and Girl Culture in LA.

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