Fellows Friday is a weekly series on the TED Blog that profiles one TED Fellow each week. We have asked the Fellows to answer our question below to share their knowledge and advice with other social entrepreneurs, innovators, and changemakers who are coming up with big ideas that can change the world.
Bristol Baughan is a producer of award-winning films - including a documentary that received an Academy Award nomination - and a co-founder of Good Magazine. Now experimenting with concepts like “commercials for ideas,” and “personal producing,” Bristol is discovering new ways of seeing herself and her work.
Sokunthea: There are many aspiring social entrepreneurs out there who are trying to take their passion and ideas to the next level. What is one piece of advice you would give to them based on your own experiences and successes?
Bristol: I think for social entrepreneurs, the definitions of success are still under construction, which is what makes it so exciting. It is up to us to define what “success” is.
On the film side I have experienced some incredible critical success, which for me was important, because I wanted to make things that moved people. And if it moved people, then they would show up to see it, I reasoned. But really it was only a few people that would show up to see some of these movies. That wasn’t considered in the industry - or by any standards - a financial success.
And that was a lesson I had to learn: letting go of the result and the expectation that things are going to be a certain way, and that it wasn’t a success if people didn’t show up. It’s more important to recognize what is it that I love about this, which is storytelling and filmmaking. And that’s what’s going to continue motivating me.
Read the rest of Bristol's Fellows Friday interview here.
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Interview with TED Fellow Suzanne Lee
