Joseph Itaya

I didn't always have this dream....

When I was a kid, I was a musician. My parents put me into hard core classical piano lessons when I was 3, and I spent most of my childhood studying the piano in Seattle, WA, where I grew up. I spent virtually my entire childhood from that moment on, thinking of nothing but music. It started with the piano, which I studied with a brilliant and demanding Russian teacher. I practiced relentlessly for years and years, winning competitions, giving concerts, performing with orchestras - both in America and in Europe. The piano brought me a sense of self, of purpose. I was good at it, and it brought lots of attention and kudos, which felt good.

However, as I reached the end of high school, and then college, my committment to a career in music began to waver. I was sick of playing the classical piano. There was no joy left. And though I had thousands of hours of time into it, and was just at the point where I could begin a productive career, I just couldn't bear the thought of doing it anymore. So I tried to salvage it all - I started conducting. I was given the opportunity to conduct an opera at age 15, and it was a blast. I was asked to conduct choirs. Then orchestras. Before long, I thought I could see a new path. So when I finished my undergraduate degree at the University of Washington, I went to audition for the #1 ranked conducting program in the nation. And that's where the seeds were planted that would change my life forever.

In my audition, I conducted the university orchestra. The head of the program sat in the back of the room watching my every move. I went in the next day to learn my fate, fully expecting (in my youthful arrogance) to be accepted with trumpets blaring. I had never failed at anything I had ever tried in music. But that was about to change. I'll never forget what that professor said to me when I asked why I wasn't accepted. He said: "Son, you don't love music, and you don't even know it yet."

I felt utterly lost. If I couldn't make it in music, what the hell could I make it in? I had a few hours to kill before catching my flight home to Seattle, so I wandered into a movie theater to see a little movie I had never heard of.....a movie that would change my life: OCTOBER SKY. Tears flowed uncontrollably as I watched that story about a boy, longing for his father's acceptance, who had a dream of building rockets and escaping his small town life. It felt like my story.

But still, I couldn't bear to let my life's work in music go to waste. It was my entire identity and I couldn't imagine anything else. So I tried to salvage it again, this time on the Business track. I interned with Tupac Shakur's ex-producer, who lived in Seattle and was starting a company. I thought that maybe I could take my background in music, mix it with some business savvy, and get rich! So I studied hard, took the GMAT, and applied to the Marshall School of business in the hopes of getting an MBA in Music Business. I waited and waited for the acceptance letter. Days turned into weeks, until one day, it finally came. I opened the letter with shaking hands - I was rejected. I couldn't understand it. I was on a losing streak that seemed to have no end. And it was in that moment, while I held the rejection letter, that I heard fire engine sirens.....

At that time, I happened to be living in a small apartment that was on the same block as the house where I grew up. Where I first learned to play the piano. Where some of the worst memories of my life came from - exhausting nights spent at the piano, pushed beyond reason by my unrelenting mother. I followed the sirens and walked up to the house. It was on fire. I watched, the business school rejection letter in my hand, as that house burned to the ground, taking with it all the pain that I had felt for so long. I felt the binds of my past falling away. I felt, and feel to this day, that God was speaking right to me. That was my Damascus Road moment.

For the first time in my entire life, I looked inward and asked myself what I wanted to do. What was MY destiny? Not - what was I good at - but what was MY dream? What did I want and believe in more than anything? And the answer came to me with an astonishing clarity: I loved movies. They moved me and touched me more than anything else in the world. And I thought - THAT is something worth spending a lifetime doing.

But where to start? I was back at square one. I knew absolutely nothing about films, or how to make them. But I didn't care. So I walked back into my apartment, picked up the phone, and called the one person I knew who had made a career in the Film Business. And I asked him what I should do. And he told me that if I could manage it, that I should try to go to the USC Cinema School. But he told me I shouldn't get my hopes up. USC accepts 50 aspiring directors each Fall, out of about 5,000 applications. It was one of the happiest moments of my life, 2 years later, when I got a letter from USC Film School. Only this time, it was an acceptance letter.

So what's the point of all this rambling nonsense, you ask? The point is that nothing in life is more powerful, or more important to discover, than your Dream.

I spent almost 20 years chasing after a goal that wasn't really mine. I had big successes. But eventually, when things got hard, and roadblocks came along - I QUIT. I just didn't have the belief that was necessary to push through it, enjoy the journey, and see it to the end. So here's my advice, for the few people who have stuck it out to the end of this long winded, fairly-self-indulgent history lesson about...(sorry)....me.

FIND YOUR DREAM!

You've got one. You have the power of a nuclear reactor waiting to be unleashed, but you first have to ask the question. Once you find it, then PURSUE IT. There's no sugar coating it....it takes a ridiculous amount of work to get really, really good at something. And take it from me, if you don't REALLY and TRULY believe in it, you'll quit. Its just a matter of time, and you will have wasted a huge chunk of your life. But if, on the flip side, you DO find your Dream, and you DO pursue it, you will live a life of joy and meaning. And you might just change the world.

This is my story. I'm not a feature film director yet, but I'm getting close. I can almost taste it. Its been almost 10 years since my childhood house burned down, and its been thrilling and frustrating and difficult and absolutely wonderful. I got married. Moved to LA. Graduated from Film School. Met my writing and business partner, who has changed my life. Started a company called Tempered Entertainment. Got a manager. Got signed by a major talent agency. Wrote a bunch of scripts. Produced my first feature. Got a majority of financing together so I can direct my first feature film. That first day on set will be a great day. It's coming....

This is my Dream. What's YOUR dream?