Capitalizing on Your Passions of Travel and Adventure With Drea Castro | TNE056

We're joined by Drea Castro, a storyteller and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She's worked with a ton of massive names in the industry, including our very own beloved Urkle aka Jaleel White.

Aside from that, however, Drea is a passion filled soulful traveler who has a particular affinity for mountains. Stay tuned while we dive deep into Drea's journey in the world of travel and documentary filmmaking. 

Show Notes (6- time stamps):

04:51 - Understanding the process helps you work better with other people

07:49 - Build your skills, offer services that are cheap then charge higher as your skills grow

12:30 - Picking a career that makes you feel having a sense of purpose

13:13 - Traveling as an opportunity to meet different people and learn about different stories

21:39 - When you have to work hard, the reward is much more satisfying

32:44 - There are people out there that have it worse than us.

Omar's (Host) Social Media:
Instagram - @nomadables
TikTok - @nomadables
Facebook Group - NOMADABLES - Accountability & Growth Community for Remote Workers- Perfect to meet fellow online entrepreneurs, remote workers, and digital nomads.
YouTube - Omar Mo
LinkedIn - Omar Mo Nomads Cast
Twitter - @nomadables
Pintrest - @nomadables
Clubhouse - @pods
WEBSITE: https://www.nomadables.com/

Transcript

Episode 56- Capitalizing on Your Passions of Travel and Adventure With Drea Castro

Intro-

Have you ever loved something or someone regardless of the pain it caused you? Whether it's an ex partner, a bowl of ice cream if you're lactose intolerant, or in the case of our guest today, altitude sickness when climbing a mountain, yet you keep going back. Why? I'll tell you why. It's because of the serendipitous moments that come along with it. 

It's cruel how sometimes the things that we enjoy the most are the things that are the worst for us. Fortunately, though, for our guest today, it's not really that intense. I mean, if you don't count the time she almost died, that is. 

We're joined by Drea Castro, a storyteller and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She's worked with a ton of massive names in the industry, including our very own beloved Urkel aka Jaleel White.

Aside from that, however, Drea is a passion filled soulful traveler who has a particular affinity for mountains. Stay tuned while we dive deep into Drea's journey in the world of travel and documentary filmmaking. 

Remember nomad fam, we've got some incredibly value filled episodes planned out for you. So please hit that subscribe button and leave a review.

Your review helps this podcast become more visible and ultimately inspire more people just like you. Here we go. 

My name's Omar Mo and this is the nomadic executive. 

You're listening to the nomadic executive hosted by Omar from nomadables.com. Join Omar as he sits down and speaks with leading online entrepreneurs, remote workers, and digital nomads about everything from business strategy to travel and lifestyle design. Together, we're here to help you to achieve a life of happiness, health, and freedom. And now here's your host, Omar Mo.

Omar:

All right, Drea, welcome to the nomadic executive, of roaming the earth podcast. Is that right? 

Drea:

Yes. Thank you for having me for your platform. 

Omar:

Absolutely fantastic to have you. You and I are having some very fun conversations about many things, including your incredibly cinematic camera pointed at your face right now.

Drea:

Yes, it's a C200. A Canon C200 for any film nerds out there. It's pretty cool. I have a nice camera shooting me for a podcast. 

Omar: 

And I know for sure, some of you audience members are film nerds, because I have spoken to some of you in person. So yes, geek out on this. And I think it's actually a perfect platform to bounce off of. 

Drea, why don't you go ahead and tell my audience what you do. 

Drea: 

Oh, my gosh. Okay. So I do a lot of different things. I call myself a storyteller because I tell stories in whatever creative capacity. That is so I'm, I'm an actress. I sing, so I'm in front of the camera, but then I also, professionally am a content producer where I shoot different content for brands, whether it's stills or video.

So yeah.

I know, and I also direct films. I direct documentaries. I'm really passionate about telling stories about underserved communities. So I am working on a few documentaries, so.

Omar:

That's really cool. I want to get into that in a minute here, but what I really want to know is how you got started with all this.

Like this, when I was in high school, I would have been geeking over somebody like you thinking, God, that is my dream job. So tell my audience first, how you even got started. 

Drea: 

Okay. I've. Hold on. Let me just turn my who hold on. Sorry. I'm gonna fuck that up. Okay. How did I get started? Let's see. I've always been a performer.

I've always been a performer my entire life. And so I went into acting and singing and I've always loved photography. I remember picking up a camera when I was 16 in high school. And my first camera was a real film camera, like a 35 millimeter and learning that side of things in a photography class and I fell in love with it.

So I've always, hand-in-hand been in front of the camera. I've been behind the camera and the natural progression of that was getting into film and TV and eventually producing. Cause I wanted to learn all the aspects of what it would take to tell stories. So, yeah. 

Omar:

Did you have to go to like film school for that. Or did you just land in a job right after high school? 

Drea:

Right after high school, I went into theater. I went into school for theater and I learned acting as well as stage managing and directing. So I've always been this multifaceted. I've always wanted to learn every, every single job because I just feel like it's…

In whatever job that you do, if you know the other things that kind of, you know, what it takes to collaborate, right? Yeah. The circles surrounding you, you really get to do the job well, and you can direct people well, or you can act better because you understand your lenses or you understand what the director's telling you because you understand the intention.

Omar:

You know the language, the lingo. 

Drea:

Exactly.

Omar:

So that progressed into like the thing that you're doing on your own now. You're not really working for anybody. You kind of have your own business, is that right? 

Drea:

Yes. Yes I do. Yes, I do. 

Omar:

How did that start? Did that start like a side hustle or some sort of like, oh, you know what? I'm just gonna go balls deep and make the business that I have right now and start working with famous actors. Like how did that, you know, what's the origin story for that business? 

Drea:

Okay. So I came to LA and I needed a survival job. So I was acting and obviously acting can be difficult. And my first year in LA was actually pretty good.

I ended up booking some pretty big things, but I still needed, I still needed a job and I didn't want to go into a regular job because I wanted the flexibility to do what I love, which is acting. So I went into photography and I started just, you know, Starting booking events for nothing. I was basically like, Hey, you can have me for 12 hours and I will shoot your event video and or photo. And people would hire me and I learned, and I made mistakes and I, you know what I mean? Cause they're paying me nothing and I'm just learning and learning and learning every single client that I ended up getting, I got better and better and better. And then eventually the relationship. 

Omar:

Before you continue on there Drea. Because this is an entrepreneurship podcast at its core I would say. I love just knowing like the little bits of process of how you exactly did certain things, right. So in the beginning, when you first started like finding these photography gigs, you're obviously trying to be an actor in LA and yeah, absolutely 100% valid reason to move to LA in the first place. Right. But when you first started getting those photography gigs, what were you doing? Were you going on craigslist and putting up posts? Because I used to do that for some businesses that I started in the past or where you like reaching out to referrals.

You're like, what was going on or how did you get those initial gigs? 

Drea:

So that was a long time ago, 2008, 2009. So I remember posting on Craigslist, cause that was such a thing back then, man. Right? Like that was a big thing. Like everyone used Craigslist, there was no other, I don't know. 

Omar:

Marketplace platform or something.

Drea:

Yeah, exactly. So I remember posting an ad and I said, Hey, like learning to do this, I will shoot your stuff, pay me $200. You know, and people started booking me and very quickly that doubled. And then right after that, it tripled and then it quadrupled and, you know and I felt comfortable charging a larger price because of the amount of like, experience that I was learning from shooting for 12 hours. Eventually I brought that down. Eventually it became, you know, a little bit more manageable, but I needed the experience and I needed to put myself in a place where I can, you know, I can work those types of events and know the pressure and, and get paid nothing for it.

I needed to learn from nothing. So, yeah, and like I said, I already had the training from photography. I already had that background, but I needed to transfer that into the professional world. So yeah.

Omar:

That's, going to be really inspiring for anyone in my audience who is starting their own side hustles. Right? I mean, you essentially started off with an ad on Craigslist and scaled your price all the way up to essentially create this entire multimedia business thing that you have going on now, working with big names in the industry. And that was a span of like 10, 11 years and 

Drea:

Yeah. 11 years. 

Omar:

And you kept grinding at it to get to where you are now, right?

Drea:

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. 

Omar:

So tell my audience where you are now. And in fact, the funny conversation about the person that you were just working with earlier today, why don't you tell my audience about it? 

Drea:

So this past month and a half, I was working with Jaleel White, who most people would know as. Steve Urkel. Yeah. I just love Jaleel so much like shout out to Jaleel. Like I flippin love this man. Like he's such a cool person. I met him on a set like late last year. No, I don't even remember. Some sometime last year. And I listened to his whole story. It was a biography on his life. It's not out yet. But I got to listen to who he was and how he started in the business and just really inspiring and we connected and then now he brought me on to his show.

Yeah. He's doing right now, so it's fun, you know, like getting to make that relationship. Yeah. 

Omar:

When was that first moment for you, when you finally realized you were kind of making it big, right. Because at this point, you've worked with a few stars. Was there that, you know, there's always that initial, like first moment, oh my God, I can't believe I get to work with this person. What was that moment for you? 

Drea:

I think it was last year. Last year, I had my photos up in times square in a big billboard. And I didn't even know the producer who I was working with was like, guess what your stuff is in times square. And I was like, what? I was so surprised.

So that was really cool. Getting to find out that my work was in times square. Like that's like the big thing, you know, for any ad agency or any photographer, any creative to have your stuff in times square, that's like, you know, huge. That's when I knew that I had done something right. 

Omar:

That's 10 years of sweat equity to get you there, you know. So you deserve that. Why did you give up on acting? 

Drea:

I didn't give up on acting, actually. I just, I still am. And this, this past year, it's crazy. 2020 was really difficult year. But I remember saying like years and years ago, that 2020 would be the year that things would, would be huge for me or whatever, like would be, would be like a big, would be a big year for me.

Right. So that, that past year I made my, I got my photo up on times square, like obviously, and then I also booked my first leading role in an indie film. Oh, took me 11 years. I didn't give up, give up on acting. It's just that I became a lot more passionate about other parts of the industry.

I really love documentary filmmaking. That's like one of my favorite things. And if somebody were to hand me Drea, would you want to be a series regular on the show? Or do you want to be a documentary filmmaker and no money was involved? Like you didn't talk about like the insane amount of money that you would receive as a series regular on a show. I'd probably pick documentary filmmaker. Because for me, it's just makes me feel like I have a purpose, like a larger purpose, and it helps me you know, heal from all the crap that I've been through. You know, like I find myself another, 

Omar:

Before we even dive into the documentaries here and I do want a good part of this conversation to be about that because I love really diving into people's passions and why they do certain things. But yeah. And I think this is a good cross junction to actually talk about this other topic. Is that where you feel like your love for travel kind of meshes in together with the love for the industry?

Drea:

Okay. So gosh, there's so many. Okay. 

Omar:

So let's narrow it down a bit. Let's say first of all, why don't we start with this. Out of the countries that you have been to? What's your favorite countries so far?

Drea:

Peru. 

Omar:

Peru. And why is it through why not somewhere around or somewhere else from South America. What about Peru actually stands out?

Drea:

I mean, Machu Picchu was amazing and it was my first real track  that I did. In the rooftops of the world, they're like rooftops of the world, the Himalayas and the Andes and Andes is one of them. And I mean, I went to the Himalayas like two, two or three years ago now, three years ago. And that was amazing, but the Andes, for some reason, stuck out to me, I almost died.

You know, it was a great life and I would probably do it all again. 

Omar:

What do you mean you almost died? Let me hear that story. 

Drea:

I love to climb mountains, but I am not supposed to be on a mountain because I was born on sea level, on an Island in the Philippines. Like, I should not be climbing mountains.

And I feel that very quickly when I climb mountains because of the elevation sickness that I get. Most people, it's a toss up if they get elevation sickness. For me, I, 100% know I'm going to get elevation sickness. I have to prepare my body for it much longer than other people. And so when I went.

Omar:

Wait. Why do you keep climbing and climbing mountains?

Is that, is it the challenge? 

Drea:

I love the challenge. I love the difficulty of just the environment. I love that whole thing. And I'm such an outdoorsy person. I could, I would live on a mountain. Like I, I love to climb. It's the challenge. It's the feeling of this is what I'm doing. I have to go from point A to point B.

I can't think of anything else because I have to survive. And it makes me kind of, you know, not think about the craziness of my everyday life. It forces me to be really present. 

Omar:

I can totally understand that. I totally get that. The escape almost, the mental escape. Plus, if you lived on a mountain, you'd definitely acclimate a lot.

Alright, probably never get elevation sickness again. 

Drea:

That'd be great. 

Omar:

So tell me, you almost died in the Himalayas. Let's let's hear about this now.

Drea:

The Himalayas or Peru, both of them are the same 

Omar:

Did you almost die in both of them?

Drea:

I mean, the Peru is probably worse. 

Omar:

 Well, let me hear Peru then. Cause I want to hear the risky, the all inclusive story of, I have a near death experience on now. 

Drea:

Okay. So I have never climbed at that time to an elevation of 15,005, 15,500 feet above sea level. That is so high. And I had no idea how my body would react. And so I remember just climbing the first day and then getting this like really, really bad headache.

And I didn't know why I get headaches. I started popping, et cetera, and trying to, you know, thin out my blood and it wasn't working. And we had, we had to keep climbing and I, at the time I was really strong hiker. I had no injuries and so I climb really fast, but my, my lungs couldn't catch up to my, you know, to my breath and you know, like my whole body just, yeah, exactly.

So when I, you know, we were almost to our second location for the night and I just couldn't move anymore. And I had to like lay down. And then the following day, I was hoping that I would wake up and be all right. And I wasn't, and they, you know, they were trying to tell me to go down. They said, you have to get off the mountain cause you could die.

And I was like, yeah, I could die. I could feel it. Cause I can't even take one step. I couldn't even take one step. 

Omar:

But you ended up falling asleep that night? So you were  okay. When you fell asleep. 

Drea:

I was okay when I fell asleep, but when I woke up, it was worse. The headache was worse, it was bad. And my guides were telling me, you have to go down cause it's dangerous.

Cause obviously you could die from elevation sickness at that level. And I was really suffering. 

Omar:

Get the hell down the mountain, like, what are you doing, lady? 

Drea:

You need to go down. And I was like, no, I'm not going down. I'm going to see Machu Picchu. I don't care. And they're like, yeah, I'm like, I will not go down. I don't care if I have to go and like snail slow, I don't care.

And they ended up putting me on the, they, we had a donkey and they moved me on the donkey because they were so afraid that I would die. Like if I were to exert any more energy. And, and just, I couldn't move. Like I have never felt like that, where I couldn't even take my own step forward. 

Omar:

Right. So you just made it to the top?

Drea:

I did make it to the top. I got to the top of this pass.

Omar:

On a donkey. All the way.

Drea:

 On a donkey, all the way. And I remember looking up to the mountain, the mountain right next to the peak, the Salcantay peak was 25, a little over 20,000 foot peak It is the first 20,000 foot peak I had ever seen. And I was just like right there.

And then we started going down and I could feel my whole body going back to normal because my hunger came back. My need for water came back. Cause I, you can't when you have elevation sickness, you don't want any of it. You just don't want to eat because you feel like you're going to throw up. It's just horrible. I'd do it again though. I would do it again. 

Omar:

Well, okay. Let's, let's get a lesson from here then for anybody else that has elevation sickness that's listening to this. If you have to give one tip to somebody who is, I mean, gets sick climbing a mountain, what would you tell them? 

Drea:

Don't follow what I did because you could die.

Omar:

All right. Let's, let's be real here. The actual lesson is make sure a donkey is around somewhere if you're going to climb a mountain. 

Drea:

Exactly. But if you feel like you have to go and you don't want to turn around and you are not like, you know, hopefully you have a donkey, you got to drink a lot more water, be more prepared.

Omar:

Hopefully you have a donkey.

Drea:

Hopefully you have a donkey. Drink more water. Keep going no matter what.

Omar:

I like it. Inspirational. That's good. That's what we like going for here. I like it. That's good. So mountains are your thing then when you travel. 

Drea:

Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely. 

Omar:

Cool. So Machu Picchu is like the one. So when you actually got to the top, I'm sure you've got like this imprinted image of what everything looked like, and it's going to be one of those images that, you know, you struggled to strive for, and it's always going to be stuck in your head for the rest of your life. 

Drea:

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And it's funny because most people that go see Machu Picchu, they take the train, they take it, you know, they just walk up, they get to see this ancient land.

And I worked my ass off to get there. It's so much more rewarding when you're there because you know that you walked. You literally walked blood, sweat, and tears to get there. And it was the most rewarding feeling. I felt alive, you know, that's what I feel like when I climb mountains, I feel the most alive.

Omar:

I think that's something that every like that feeling right there, the feeling of being alive and not only that, but also feeling present and almost feeling like you're going to escape your own self. I think that's the feeling that a lot of travelers should chase for, because they're not always around, even when you're traveling and it's not one, two or three years, like you're not constantly in that blissful state, but however, there will be moments where wherever you go and if you go into places and especially that you enjoy, there'll be specific moments that you'll always remember for the rest of your life, very brief flashes in time. That makes you feel exactly like that. That makes you feel present and alive. 

Drea:

Yep. Yep, exactly. And that's definitely one of those moments. I just remember standing there and just feeling alive, feeling accomplished, wanting to scream at the top of my lungs because I earned that view and, and not many people at the time had really known about Machu Picchu. So it was just, it's just a really special place in my heart. And I can't wait to go back one day. 

Omar:

Do you ever, I mean, at this point I wouldn't consider you, or I don't know, would you consider yourself a digital nomad because a lot of your work is in LA?

Drea:

No, I wouldn't. 

Omar:

Is that a route you would ever think about taking yourself?

Drea:

Oh my God. Yeah. If I could. Oh, it's like my dream, my dream is to be a digital nomad for sure. I think eventually I'll get there. I think if I continue on my documentary path. I'll get there. Cause then I can travel. And I think most of my life will be on the road. I envision and I'm saying it out loud. I envision myself constantly traveling on the road, documenting people's lives and feeling the most fulfilled.

That's when I think I'll be.

Omar:

Manifest that shit right there. I'm going to clip that out from the video and then I'm going to send it to you on a loop. And that way you can watch yourself say those words every single time you think about that.

Drea:

Oh it's going to happen. Mark my words.

Omar:

I think that's actually the perfect transition. Why don't we actually talk about your documentary work? I think if we talk about it more, you can manifest it a little bit more here. And on top of that being a documentary filmmaker was a job exactly what I wanted to do for the longest time. 

Drea:

Really?

Omar:

Yeah. Your other job sounds really, really cool. And working with stars and all that, but I've never been a star struck kind of person. However, being a documentary filmmaker, but less cultural for me, more like really amazonian jungles, places like Madagascar, going to places like that. Shooting documentaries. That's always kind of been my dream job. That's why I got into videography myself in the first place. So I definitely want to hear about this. So first tell me what kind of documentaries do you have in mind? 

Drea:

So the documentary I've been working on it for a really long time, and it's been a bit of a journey with this documentary for many, many reasons.

Don't have to get into it. It's just been one thing after another, but finally, this year on new year's Eve, I finished my first rough draft and my doc. I was like, I did it in 2020.

It was it's a film about 11 blind hiker summiting Mount Baldy. It's a mountain here in LA that's over 10,000 feet. It's a pretty intense hike. And I worked with these blind hikers for about four months. They weren't hikers in the very beginning, but they were trained over time to go climb this mountain and I documented the entire thing.

So that's the whole story. Changed my view about everything, about life, and literally got me into filmmaking. So that's, that's the one. 

Omar:

How, how long, how long were you actually producing that for? Since the first day you shot it? 

Drea:

It's been 11 years.

Omar:

Wow. That's crazy. 

Drea:

It's been a thing. It's been one thing after another and that's, that's the life of a documentary.

Omar:

Yeah. That's nuts. Did you like film the footage throughout those 11 years as well? Or did you gather all that footage at some significant point and then put it all together over 11 years? 

Drea:

It was. So I started filming that film. And then got all the footage within maybe like four or five months at the very beginning.

And yeah, and we got into a, we got into a few like what's that called? Like not film festivals, but there were just, we were like finalist for a bunch of grants. That's what it was. It was a grant.

Omar:

They were like local film competitions and things like that. 

Drea:

It was actually a pretty amazing grant with the Roy W. Dean foundation. And they really believed in the project. We ended up being runners up on it. And then there's just this whole, because I did it with my ex at the time. So that complicates things and something I had to put down for a few years. So that's the thing. And then picking it back up and trying to remember and trying to just keep moving forward within, and then also trying to like separate the film from, you know, that situation.

But that's, I think if that wasn't the situation, it just would have been a lot faster. Like now if I, if I had filmed that it would've been so fast, cause I'm a faster editor, I'm a better filmmaker. I would've filmed a completely different, you know.

Omar:

It's funny like that documentary grew with your skills. It grew with you in a way. 

Drea:

Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely. And then now yeah, go ahead. 

Omar:

No, no, no, go on. I want to listen to this. 

Drea:

Yeah. And then now it's, it's just, I have to, I have to just like piece everything together. It just took a long time. And then going from the challenges that I had and faced were just, I would meet a producer that would be really excited for it.

And then they would start editing or they would say they would start editing it. And they couldn't handle doing a documentary because documentaries are hard and there're tons and tons and tons and tons of footage. And you don't have a story. You have to create a story as an editor. That's literally when, where the documentary actually comes together.

And so people would want to work on the project because they wanted the notoriety. They wanted the end product, which is the accolades, but they didn't realize the work that would go behind it. So months and months would pass where I would think, you know, this producer or this editor would work on it and they, they didn't, you know, so then it would come back to me, all kinds of crazy, and then I'd have to restart and look for another person.

Eventually I have now a business partner that I fully trust and we've been working on it for, I think, like a year and a half. So now we're finally, we're finally getting there and it's, I'm just so grateful, you know, that there's, I can see where the story is now. And I can see, I can see where there's a film and it's a feature so it's like a long... as well. 

Omar:

Are the blind narrator or the blind Mountaineer still alive?

Drea:

Yeah, they are, they are still alive there. I just talked to one today. I just talked to one of them today. They called me out of the blue. So it was just so funny. And I told her, Hey, like the film's going. And she was just really excited about that.

Omar:

That's awesome. You're going to finally be able to see a finished product. That's great. 

Drea:

I know. I know.

Omar:

Who narrated it?

Drea:

The narrator is going to be the, there's a man named Christopher Lynch who put the entire thing together who thought about the idea of starting this hike with these blind hikers because he had, he had, he used to take people that were really slow hikers and taken them up to peaks.

And so he saw, he thought the natural progression would be to bring blind hikers. And that's how he came up with the program. And I filmed basically his, that whole program that he did. So yeah, he's going to be narrating the entire thing. Long story short.

Omar:

What a gnarly project. Before we even dive into the lessons that you learned from this, give me a little like background of what the story is exactly. So, I mean, it already sounds super intense, but how did you make a story of, and you said 11, right? 11 blind hikers climbing a mountain in LA.

Drea:

Each and every one of them has a story about being blind. And that's the one thing that I discovered, you know, when you think of a blind person, you think, okay, they're just, they're just, they see black, that's it or whatever. And actually they have all these variations of light and you know, how they see and what they can see.

Like one guy can see out of like the size of a pinhole in his right eye and that's all he can see. And I had no idea, you know, I learned all these different variations of blindness. And with the variations of blindness comes the variation of who these people are and their backgrounds, some of them were born with blindness.

Others were, you know, introduced into blindness because of, you know, a brain infection. It's just like, it's just the, we explore the stories of these different people who they are, where they come from. And really the background of that is the climb of this mountain. That's just kind of in the background.

Omar:

It's kind of like almost symbolic in a way, right? 

Drea: 

It made me want to be a documentary filmmaker. It changed my relationships with people and how I view people with  disabilities. And B. Every time I climb a mountain or every time I go through a really, really difficult time in life, I think about them. And then I can, I can continue on with my life because it really literally in the back of my head, I'm always thinking about them, especially when I'm climbing and I'm like, Oh, no, I'm going to die on this mountain or what am I doing here?

Like, you know, regretting, you know, there's like when you're climbing mountains, you have moments of pain. And I remember them and I just say, you know what? I can get there at my own pace. And I don't, you know, I don't need to go fast and I just, I can do it no matter what. And so they inspired me to keep going and they always do every time I climb.

Omar:

That's right. That's really gnarly. I feel like that's a  (inaudible)  made up a lot of those kinds of people as well. So, but yeah, that's. That's super cool. I'd love to watch it when it comes out, where can people find it when it's out?

Drea:

I have to decide what I want to do with it. I think I might go the film festival route with it, just because my dream has always been to have the students in that film and everybody involved in the film to walk a red carpet. You know, I want them to walk the red carpet, like in my head, that's always been my thing.

Like I need them to experience that. I want them to experience that and to be proud of what they, what they did. Like I told you today. Odette, who was in my film, one of the blind students, she said that was the best moment of my life. And I'm calling you because I wanted to see whether or not you had any footage of me that I wanted to show my friend.

And I hadn't heard from her in like five, six years. So, and she said, I wanted to show my friend because she recently climbed Mount Baldy and she didn't believe that I, that I was up there. I told her that the film was going to move forward to show her the trailer. And then she said to me, that moment changed my life.

That was the best moment of my life. That was my once in a lifetime thing that I did. So. 

Omar:

That's insane. I really hope you make it  (inaudible) . I hope you win that show as well. 

Drea:

I hope that I just want them to walk a red carpet. How cool would it be.

Omar:

That'll be sick. Where do you want to go with this? Like, I mean, now you've gone down and you opened the Pandora's box for documentary filmmaking and you've finished up your first ever movie and you've got that feeling of accomplishment and you know that you can actually do it now.

So where do you want to go with this? Are there documentary styles that you have in mind? Are there places that you want to go and document what's next? 

Drea:

I'm doing a documentary. I've already started filming another documentary. Since that one was imposed about women who have gone through major adversity and have gotten themselves out of it.

So I went to Nepal and I actually spent some time with a few women out there. Documenting their life. One of which was a woman,  was forced into child marriage, and then got themselves out of it, out of, not out of the situation, but got ourselves out of that difficulty and adversity through education.

And now she owns a seamstress school and she teaches younger women how to sew. And have their own businesses. So she was told not to go to school and they pulled her out of school, even though she loved it so much. And, and she is another really inspiring story of, you know, adversity and moving past it.

And I think that's like a theme of my documentary so far as these, these underserved communities or untold stories and, and pulling yourself out of it somehow. 

Omar:

That's cool. Like a real bounce-back story. 

Drea:

Yes. Like the underdog, you know? 

Omar:

The underdog. Yeah, I get it. And then once you bring awareness to that, I mean more people will actually jump in and try to help these people, you know?

Drea:

Yeah. Yeah. 

Omar:

I've got some missions on my own, but I will tell you about that after the podcast. So yeah, that's super sick  and that way you actually get to travel the world and actually do full on documentary filmmaking that way. And I'm sure it's going to take you to some really interesting places and get you into some really interesting situations, you know?

I mean, you're good at what you do, so yeah, like super-stoked and whenever you do find out where you're going to post all this stuff or when it does come to the internet let me know, let my audience know, and I'll be sort of put it in the show notes as well. 

Drea:

I will, I have my documentary trailer. So if anybody wants to watch that trailer for Baldy for blind, I can give that to you. 

Omar:

Where is there on YouTube? Is there anywhere specific? 

Drea:

It's on Vimeo. 

Omar:

Just search your name? 

Drea:

If you look for Baldy for the blind, it'll be the first one that comes up. Baldy for the blind trailer, but I'll give you the link. And it's also on my, on my production company's website, littlebeastproductions.com. 

Omar:

Cool. Sounds good. You heard it here first folks. Now let's wrap up this podcast with one final question here, right? And I love asking this question to everyone that I bring on the show. And it's funny, like the show, this question's kind of progressed over the past few, I guess, past 50 episodes, really. 

It started off with one thing. It started off with three questions and then I kind of narrowed it down to two and I really have just come with one and I love the answers for this. I'm going to stick with this one for awhile. And that question is. If you had the opportunity to write something on a billboard in space and this billboard was in space and everyone on earth could see it from where they were.

And it has to be a sentence or two, not like a full-on four paragraph letter, just a few sentences. What would you write? 

Drea:

Hm. I'm going to say two words, keep go, no, keep going no matter what. It's that simple. 

Omar:

I like it let that sink in. Yeah. 

Omar:

It makes sense why your documentary films are going to be about  keep going, moving forward, essentially as well. You know, that's awesome. Really wise words Drea, and I'm super happy to have you on my show. Thank you so much for coming on. 

Drea:

Thank you for having me. Awesome. 

Omar:

Cool.

Outro-

I've got to say, I always loved these episodic breaks away from the whole entrepreneurial grind to talk about stories of adventure and wanderlust. Don't get me wrong. I love the entrepreneurial grind. That's why we talk about it so much on this podcast, but once in a while to mix that travel in, that adventure in really brings you back before the pandemic, doesn't it?

If you enjoyed your time today with Drea and I you want to check out episode number 40 with Bez, for sure. It's one of our most downloaded episodes on this podcast ever. And for good reason. You'll feel like you're right there with us. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Either way, thanks for tuning in. 

Remember nomad fam, we've got some incredibly value filled episodes planned out for you. So please hit that subscribe button and leave a review. Your review helps this podcast become more visible and ultimately inspire more people. Just like you. 

Thanks for tuning in to the nomadic executive. If you enjoyed this episode, take a moment to leave a rating or review. Your feedback helps us reach others who need a spark of inspiration. See you next time.