This is the beautiful venue where I had my talks this last Friday for graduating seniors at Malmö Latin, a well-known performing and visual arts high school in Malmö. The talk’s overreaching theme was creativity, passion, and the art of visual storytelling through film and photography.

It’s been a little over a year since two of the school’s teachers were horrifically murdered by a violently disturbed student. This was not something I wanted to touch on during my talks, but thoughts of the incident were not easily ignored. Especially while I was sitting in the teacher’s lounge, waiting to take the stage.

I’ve been engaged to do these talks for about a decade now and continue to enjoy each opportunity I get to inspire young people by highlighting some of the creative processes within my profession. I also stress the importance of trying different jobs in order to discover and eventually work with something they truly feel passionate about.

I summed up both of Friday’s talks with this: Friends, lead with your heart but be forgiving towards yourselves whenever you fuck up. According to an ancient Chinese legend, you’ll likely fuck up at least 10,000 times before getting really good at anything you do in life. But don’t let that discourage you!

Photo credit: Charlie Kristiansson, film teacher at Malmö Latin.