SEASON 3 E6: Stop Waiting for Permission with Tori Gene McCarthy

My second guest this week, Tori Gene McCarthy, didn’t wait for permission to create the stories she wanted to see in the world. Co-founder of Blue Cowgirl Productions, Tori builds bold, human-centered storytelling that champions female-forward narratives.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• Changing her major twelve times before discovering filmmaking
• Building a production company from scratch
• How curiosity and experimentation shape creative careers
• Why telling women’s stories matters

Music: “Your Way” by Mark July | Licensed by Uppbeat | License code: KKHUU4BLYO3R5SKJ

Question for you: What’s one decision you’ve been circling because you’re waiting for permission?

Book a private strategy call with me:
https://calendly.com/jennifer-flashlightthinking/strategy-call

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Contact Our Guest – Tori Gene McCarthy:

Email: hello@bluecowgirlproductions.com
Website: https://bluecowgirlproductions.com/
Instagram: @bluecowgirlprods
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tori-gene-mccarthy-145a6126/

Connect with Jennifer:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifercartersocialimpact/
Instagram: @unmuteyourself
Website: https://flashlightthinking.com

Timestamps:
0:00 – Intro & welcome
0:45 – Meet Tori Gene McCarthy
2:00 – Discovering documentary filmmaking
4:20 – Taking the leap into film
6:10 – Moving into narrative storytelling
8:05 – Launching Blue Cowgirl Productions
10:15 – From academia to creative leadership
13:00 – Navigating imposter syndrome
15:10 – Female-forward storytelling in film
17:45 – Why women’s stories matter
19:35 – Supporting independent filmmakers
21:10 – Building a creative career
24:00 – Resilience and personal growth
27:05 – Lightning round: authenticity & boundaries
30:10 – Betting on yourself
31:30 – Final reflections

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Welcome back to Unmute Yourself. I'm your host, Jennifer Carter, and this podcast is about lifting the curtain on leadership, purpose, and the real stories behind women who dared to do things differently. We'll talk about how they found their path, the struggles along the way, and how they built something that truly matters. Now, these are normal people doing extraordinary things because I want you to know that you are extraordinary too. And today's guest is Tori Jean McCarthy, filmmaker and co-founder of Blue Cowgirl Productions, a boutique film and media company based in Austin, Texas. She spent more than a decade working in film production across documentary, branded storytelling, and narrative filmmaking. After earning her MFA from the University of Texas and collaborating with some incredible filmmakers, she and her partner decided to stop waiting for someone to hand them a seat at the table. So they built their own. Blue Cowgirl Productions is focused on creating visually rich stories with a distinctly female perspective while also producing compelling media for brands and organizations. But their long-term vision? Building a studio that tells bold, textured stories that don't always get space in mainstream media. Basically, you know, they're doing what more creators should do by making the work that they wish already existed. Tori, I'm so excited to have you here today.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Thank you so much, and thank you for that incredible introduction. I feel like I'm blushing a little bit, but um it means a lot to be invited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

It always gets weird when you hear things about yourself. You're like, what, me?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Who?

SPEAKER_00 1:52

I know.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

I was like, oh my gosh, you're blowing my hair back a little bit. Here we go. Yeah, I certainly I'm really honored to have the chance to chat with you.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

I I love to meet new people and figure out how they got started. So you've been in film production for over a decade. Yeah. So how, yeah, how did you get first pulled into storytelling and filmmaking?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yeah, it's a great question. And I think honestly, like um, you know, I wasn't a kid that was running around with like a camcorder when I was five years old. I didn't really even necessarily understand that filmmaking was a career path or a profession. I thought it was kind of like being a celebrity, right? And that it was a very niche, uh few people that kind of went that route in life. So I really, as a as a young person, you know, I was very interested in in literature, I was very interested in theater, I was very interested in sort of cultural studies, anthropology, and things like that. So I, you know, when I went into my academic uh career and I went to college, I actually sported a ton of things. And I share this a lot with my current students, because I I am currently also a professor, um, that, you know, it's okay to try out a lot of things. I think my first year in college, I changed my major about 12 years. Um and I actually found my way to documentary filmmaking through a cultural anthropology class through the sort of documentary and ethnographic like media that we were studying in that class. I kind of, in my mind, I was more so an academic than a creative. So I said, well, this is this is a route I can go. And it's still academia. And, you know, I didn't necessarily, you know, I was a very high-achieving student, so to speak. So I didn't consider myself like a creative or an artist in that way. Um, it was a little bit of an imposter syndrome on my own part. So um I got into documentary and I just absolutely fell in love with it, mostly because, like you said, I love meeting new people and I love um kind of being able to explore experiences that are very outside of my own like sort of context and just have a true love and understanding of like the human experience. I dove headfirst into documentary and started making essentially my own one-woman band productions all through um my undergraduate. And of course, I was PA and working on sets. I worked on a few small independent features in New York. And then I kind of like just made the gamble of my life one day. I was editing in Tribeca and taking the train back and forth to my parents' house the summer after I had graduated. I just got a wild hair and kind of packed my bags and bought a producer badge with my first like adult big girl money to go to the New Orleans Film Festival. And I actually planned to go for two weeks. I ended up spending about three and a half years in Louisiana.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

So I just packed a bag and, you know, went down and found a Craigslist apartment with some Tulane students and actually started working mainly in advertising at that time. I was a brand strategist for about a year and a half after I graduated. And that led me into this beautiful kind of journey of docu-branded material and doing sort of storytelling work for organizations, things like that. And all through that work, which was incredibly fulfilling, and I met such a diverse, you know, thousands of people through the storytelling project, which was called Dear World, that I was the creative director for. And this was like in my mid-20s. I was living on planes, trains, and automobiles, like a real road warrior lifestyle, you know, flying to like three or four different cities a week. Um, but I really had like a craving, I think, at that point to also explore narrative filmmaking. I think that as compelling and amazing as documentary is, there's something very powerful in the art of narrative filmmaking. And I just felt like it was a realm that I didn't have insight into. I was pretty much purely a documentary person. So that's what brought me to get my master's degree uh over at UT Austin, which I had planned to be about three and a half, maybe four years of my life. It ended up being a little extended because of the timing with COVID, unfortunately. Right. Which was right as I was about to finish up and get out get out the door with my diploma, that all uh kind of threw a little shift so much in there. Yep. And then so, and that's where I really dove into the narrative filmmaking world, which has been incredible. I currently, my primary craft is as a cinematographer, but I also produce narrative and commercial and still documentary, certainly. Went through that journey, worked on probably about almost 50 productions while I was in the graduate program, plus TAing and maintaining my other creative work at the time. And then that's where I met my business partner, Anya Swanson. She, you know, we started out as two grad students, you know, trying to make our projects and make our dreams come true and and get through this crazy program. And so I came on as her cinematographer on her pre-thesis project, which is like the second year project. And then for her thesis, I actually joined as a casting producer as well as a cinematographer. So we continued to work together and we both ended up graduating into the strikes, right? So for folks that are yes, for folks that are familiar with the kind of like zeitgeist of the film industry, there were historic strikes in, I guess that would have been 2022, maybe somewhat into 23. So the DGA, the director's guild was on strike, the actors' guild was on strike, and the writer's guild. So it made uh a huge amount of uncertainty for everyone in the industry, particularly folks like us who were kind of coming out of an academic environment, who were um, you know, below the line, so to speak, meaning that we're like craft people. Got it. And so it was during that time that you know we were we were clawing and scratching for freelance jobs and and clients, and you know, no one was really trying to invest or put a lot of time into film content at that moment because it was so uncertain. And I just looked at Anya one day. We were over by the UT campus and I said, I just wish I had uh a TV pilot. I feel like if we had a TV pilot, that's something we can make, we can just do it independently. We don't need anyone to, and we don't need a big studio, we don't need we don't need a million dollars. And she looked at me and she was like, oh my gosh, I actually have a TV pilot that I wrote, you know, a couple years back and I've been sitting on all this time. Yeah, because I was like, girl, we've been friends for years. How am I just how are you just mentioning this? So at that moment, we sort of sprung into action. We started putting a creative plan together and a business plan together for the pilot. We ended up pitching that to an a private investor that um we actually had a connection through from the casting I had done. Um his daughter actually, we met her through the casting. She's an actor. Um, so it was kind of you know a full circle moment. And um, that's where things morphed. And we were like, okay, this can be more than just a single pilot. Like we can build a whole infrastructure, right? We don't have to put the cart before the horse in the sense of, you know, we don't have to finish this pilot before we can launch our business. So we went ahead and launched the business. We've been doing a lot of B2B work over the past year as we've had this, our sort of flagship pilot in development. So we're super excited. We're actually today kind of locking in our executive producer for that. After after we chat, I'll be jumping on some, you know, legal documents for that business. Um, but we're really excited. We have some great casts uh connected as well. So um I'll I'll steam ahead. We're going for it. I have so many questions.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Oh my gosh. Well I'm excited. I think the first one is you know, you said at the beginning you were into cultural anthropology. Did I say that right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And thought of yourself more as a as an academic. How did you get your brain to switch from I am an academic documentary filmmaker to I'm a creative that's now running with my partner, my own studio, TV pilot, on and on and on.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Absolutely. Um I think that's such a great thank you so much for asking that question. And it was a huge, I can't say it was a single, you know, inflection point moment. It was a kind of evolution over many years. But, you know, I think, I think it sort of began in the feedback that I was getting, right? So I think mentorship and obviously having done a lot of academia, I've had some great professors over the years. I've also had great mentors through projects I've worked on and things like that. And sometimes people can see you a little bit more clearly than you can see yourself, especially when you're young and you're sort of trying to figure out your path. And I was getting a lot of feedback early on of, you know, oh, are you, you know, would you be interested in cinematography? Or, you know, this is a very, you know, promising thing that you're doing here. Have you thought about that? And I would sort of brush it off in a way of like, you know, I don't know anything about cameras. I'm not a technical person, I'm not a computer person, I'm not a camera person. Um, I think there felt like a huge barrier of entry, which there definitely can for, you know, I think a lot of folks who are interested in getting into film of like, well, I've never I don't know about photography. I've never touched a camera, I'm not really technical. Um, and I joke all the time, like, I am technical only for filmmaking purposes. Everything else, I'm an absolute let eye. Um, but I would get a lot of feedback like that, and I would sort of, you know, put it back into my mind. And then as I continued to go forth, it was actually as I was the the process of becoming the creative producer for that um storytelling company I worked for. So I started out as an editor and as a field producer, and I felt very comfortable in that realm because there's a certain um utility aspect or logistic aspect to it as well. And I didn't feel like I was, you know, the full, the full creative force. So I didn't feel that kind of um pressure necessarily. And then we restructured the company, and in that process, um, there was actually a wonderful woman that that my employers at the time, the founders of the company, brought in to sort of have a conversation with us, who is a very well-established, like PR publicist in in um California and in Los Angeles. And she had a very like heartfelt, long conversation with me. It really resonated with me. And she actually went back to the team and was like, Tori is a creative. She is 100% a creative. You need to put her in a role where she can be thinking about big picture things and give her that opportunity because just because she has these sort of craft skills, where her mindset is is really more so in a creative realm. And I think, you know, I don't want to say you should rely on sort of external feedback or validation to discover these things, but I think hearing that from someone that I held in very high regard was a woman, you know, much further in her career than me, who had also been through a master's program. So we spoke a little bit about that. You know, I just respected that she made that assessment sort of independently. And that was the moment where my mindset kind of shifted. And so I started doing the creative directing work for the nonprofit side of that company, which basically is all affinity docu-branded material. So we worked with survivors of the Boston Marathon, the Pulse Nightclub shooting. We did a project with folks in the Virgin Islands after like the hurricane that was there. And it's very much just like a, you know, individual storytelling project, kind of like a humans of New York sort of flavor.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

But that was a really developmental moment for me because, first of all, I had to now pitch to a board of directors all these concepts and sort of flesh them out and justify them in a holistic way. And I think that really prepared me for what moving into a more creative producing, directing, filmmaker kind of role would be. And it also kind of lit the fire underneath me to pursue my graduate program because there is, you know, a very particular skill set for narrative filmmaking. And up until that point, I was kind of, you know, I had again an imposter syndrome of, you know, I'm not a narrative person. I'll do documentaries, right? Right. And I think it lit the fire under me to say, let me take this gamble on myself. Like this passion lives inside of me. You know, I feel like I have something I want to say. And I come to a place in my life that I felt more confident to try and say it. So that's what took me into the grad program and the journey that has happened since then.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

I love it. It's it to me, like I see so many people that will talk themselves out of things. Sure. I can't, I don't do this. But you, on the other hand, have made transition from documentary to narrative film, right? Building your brand, building your skill set, taking a leap and just taking action. And I'm curious. It's so it's fun to see when people take chances on themselves.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

I appreciate that. I mean, you might as well know, you know, if you can't give on yourself, who else will? So that's kind of my thought. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Now I know too, you have said that you want to really focus on telling stories with that female forward perspective. Absolutely. Absolutely. What does that mean to you in practice?

SPEAKER_01 14:51

So I think in practice, you know, first off, I think both myself and Anya, part of the reason that we're aligned creatively and as business partners is because we have a very similar, not only sort of like like ethics or morals or values, but I think aesthetically we're very similar, right? We're sort of quirky, weird girls, right? Like maybe the girls who are like nerdy and banned in musical theater, that kind of vibe. And I think there's such a need or like a like, I don't want to necessarily businessy it up and say a market, but I think there's such a need and a desire for those kind of like nuanced, strong, unique feminine protagonists, female protagonists in storytelling, right? I think we've seen over the past decade, 15 years or so, right, a real call from audiences to see much more complex representation of women, of people of color, of people from other kind of like marginalized groups, right? And I think for us, we recognize like we can maybe, you know, be a part of that, particularly in terms of making content that we resonate with and we see ourselves in, right? Because at the end of the day, that's all you can kind of hope for. Like you put your heart into these things, you put your point of view and hope that somebody out there is gonna resonate with it. So for us, that means, like I said, championing narratives that tell nuanced, that means the kind of stories that we choose to tell and the kind of even on the B2B side or on the branded side, the kind of clients that we choose to work with and align with, right? So one of our very first kind of projects that we worked on after we had formed was the Women's Rugby League. It's called WER. It's the first National Women's Rugby League here in the US. So we had a great opportunity to like work with these women very directly, like go into their homes, meet their families, their children. Um, and it was a very meaningful experience. And I also think because we're two, you know, not very intimidating like women, right? Like people tend to be very open and comfortable in those kind of environments working with us, which I think is a nice, you know, touch that we can bring, you know. Certainly, I think if we were nothing against, you know, middle-aged men or anything, but if we were like two 50-year-old gentlemen walking into that opportunity, there might not be necessarily the same sense of like vulnerability and openness or intimacy. So that's a huge thing. And in the narrative stories we tell, right, I think pretty much all of the major IP we're looking at are telling stories of unique women, right? And and from a uniquely feminine perspective. Um so obviously Townies is our upcoming pilot that we're developing. And it's a story of, you know, a coming-of-age story of a young woman who grew up in essentially one of the biggest college towns in the US and is now going to that college while living at home and juggling the tension between being a towny and someone that's you know local and trying to find her own identity through college. So it's gonna be fun and quirky and very like dairy girls or United States of Terra. There's a family drama in there. So that's a big one. Uh you're a high school bowler. I was a high school bowler, yes. I was an all-state high school bowler. Uh, so I went to an all-girls Catholic high school, very small. And my bowling team, we actually won the first state championship in our high school's history.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

And so exciting. I just love like people. I love people that surprise me. It's just cool.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

It's just a funny like little bit of Tory lore. Um, and I know Anya's like really wants to tell this like girls' high school girls' bowling story. So, you know, we have a lot of interest there. And I think secondarily, where we really hope to like grow beyond our own original content and ideas is also bolstering up other independent filmmakers. So we just actually took on a short film that's written by a local filmmaker here who's with um herself and her writing partner are going to act in the film. And it's basically like a roommate dynamic type of story, but we saw an opportunity that we can help make it happen. So we jumped on board. We have another short film that is about to be wrapped up that is a story about basically like an it's very metaphysical, but it's about an actress kind of working at a scene with almost like a younger version of herself. It's very conceptual, beautiful. I would I had the honor to shoot it. So, you know, as we can, as we're kind of like getting the business, you know, going and everything, you know, getting it built up, we're we're starting to find these short, short projects that we can support and that we believe in and are excited about. And as we certainly go forward, the hope is that you know, we'll find other filmmakers like us who have a great feature film idea or have a great TV pilot idea and are looking for a co-production entity that can help them get crew, help them with casting, help them with managing the set and all the infrastructure that goes with that. So the big goal is certainly, you know, from a uh ego place, like we want to make our own films and we you were very excited for that. But in a broader way, we really want to raise up other filmmakers like us, particularly women and fem-identifying filmmakers. So that's amazing. Thank you. I think like anybody, and you know, I'm a millennial, I'm born 1991, so like right in the middle of that generation. And I think, you know, there was a lot, not to start, you know, making kind of a societal statement, but there was a lot of bright and shiny feelings, like being a child of the 90s of like, yeah, I'll go to school and I'll work hard and everything is gonna work out wonderful, right? And I think especially when you're in a creative art that has so much visibility as filmmaking, and you're, you know, an ambitious kind of overachiever type of young person. I definitely, there was a point in my life that I was like, I'm gonna win my first Oscar by the time I'm 24 or something absolutely. Yeah. Just because it sounded good, right? And exactly. And I think the reality of you know what it takes, the lifestyle, the kind of, you know, there is a grind to it is certainly different than I expected, but I'm so proud of the person I've become having to like work through those hurdles, right? Like I think if I was 20, you know, 24 years old and someone handed me a $5 million feature film deal, I would not have known how to handle that. I wouldn't have even known where to start, right? So I do think, you know, every I'm a big believer in everything is preparation. You know, everything I look back on, all the little journeys and chapters, in the end, it's all accumulated to set me up to do what we're trying to do with Blue Cowgirl and give me the experience and the variety of insights that owning your own production company requires, right? Um, you can't just be a sort of director. It takes a lot of other stuff. There's legal aspects, there's branding and strategy. And so it's all been preparation for that, I feel like. Um, but it certainly is a nonlinear journey. And everybody's journey in filmmaking in particular is very, very different, right? Right. And it's something that all Also can be a tough pill to swallow, certainly. If like, you know, it is an industry where if you happen to come from a background with a lot of resources or you happen to have uh, you know, family or connections that already are established in the industry, it certainly can be a much quicker trajectory. And I think it can make folks that don't come from those backgrounds and are working their way up from just being like a PA on a random crew call they found on Craigslist, right? It can feel like, oh, I'm not going fast enough. I'm failing or I'm not good enough, right? And I think you just have to push through that and have the faith in yourself of like it's an iterative process, right? And also filmmaking is an old dog's game. You know, if you make your first feature by the time you're 40, you're still like a young prodigy, right? It's not like um, yeah, like being a dancer or like a um like a figure screen or something where you sort of want to strike while you're youthful. Yes, yes, right. Precisely. Yeah. So it's definitely, you know, there are moments where it's like, I want it to happen quicker, but it's also like I try to be grateful for each step because I know it's setting me up to be wiser down the road.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Yeah, it sounds like you're very intentional. Oh, thank you. It sounds like when what I really appreciate about you is that you're just yourself and you're open to learning. And it doesn't feel like anything really stops you. Thank you. I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

And it means a lot for me that you're, you know, for you to have that impression because I definitely try and hold, you know, it's something I pride myself on is being very adaptable and very tolerant at times to certain, you know, challenging circumstances. Right. And, you know, definitely over the years, both with, you know, obviously COVID was a big challenge of finishing up my grad graduate program. I've had certainly some major personal challenges, you know, in my life. Like I went on a very profound sort of grief journey at one point that really formed the woman that I've grown into, I think, over the past, you know, four or five years. And I think, you know, I'm I'm very proud of the resiliency that I've sort of had to cultivate. Of course, I'd love a mojito on the beach sometime, but um, you know, I think you just gotta get through it to get to it, you know? And um, I certainly hope folks that are on a similar journey can um appreciate those moments of digging deep because it's sometimes like those moments that really form us, I think. Yeah, I get that.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Yeah. Um, okay. If you could make one film that the entire world had to watch, what story would you be in this? No, my I know.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

No, that is a huge story. Um, I have a huge question. That's a huge question. Wow. Well, I would say, you know, the thing that I think is at the forefront of my mind, and for me, a project I'm really working towards. I don't want to say that it's so revolutionary that it should be, you know, required viewing, but I certainly would mean a lot to me if if it were held in that regard one day. But there's actually a film that I had planned to make for my thesis film as a short. It's a kind of self-autobiographical story that goes into a very magical realism place. Uh, it's actually regarding, you know, and like a little trigger warning here, it's regarding like a near-drowning incident that I experienced when I was a young child. And so I wanted to basically do a pan's labyrinth kind of very metaphysical, celestial, sort of out-of-body story where um this little, you know, this girl, she feels sort of like isolated, no one's kind of keeping an eye on her in this moment. She ends up in this predicament, and then we are transported into like the celestial realm where she goes on essentially, um, you know, I'm very into tarot and spiritualism and things like that. And it's super, it really informs my my aesthetic sensibility, I think. So she sort of goes on a fool's journey through this liminal, you know, kind of limbo world uh where she encounters many interesting beings that challenge her in uh in unexpected ways. And then she sort of, you know, it's her journey to find her way out to the light, essentially. So I wanted to do it as a short prior to COVID happening. I had planned all this special effects makeup and I was gonna get couture dresses, and I had this huge plan to do about a 15-minute version of that. But what's interesting at the time is that I did I wasn't as uh knowledgeable about some of the topics around like esoterica that I know now. So I didn't really have a framework to disc to say why I wanted to do this. That was the biggest feedback I got. Like, oh, it's experimental, it's interesting, but like what's the underlying sort of structure? And so it's great in a way. So that film got postponed because of COVID. It wasn't possible to do it due to production restrictions at the time. It was just certain things we couldn't film or couldn't do, like special effects makeup. So I ended up doing a totally different project, putting that on the on the counter and saying, Oh, shed a single tear for the project unrealized.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

One day maybe.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Precisely. But now I feel like I sort of actually have the perspective to understand what I'm trying to do with it. And so I don't think it's a first feature, certainly. I have some ideas for like a first, second feature, but I think it could be an amazing third feature. So that's like on the big horizon line. That's definitely something I'm working towards.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Well, I I can't wait. I can't wait to watch all of the things that you and Anya, right? Anya, do Anya, yes, Anya. I can't wait. I cannot wait. So thank you so much. I can't wait. So I do have some quick lightning round questions. All right, I'll do my best. Um uh buckle in. Okay, so just answer quickly with the first thing that comes to mind. Sure. This is so fun for me. Okay, what part of yourself are you finally letting the world see?

SPEAKER_01 27:50

I think I'm finally letting the world see the tougher side of myself. I I yeah, a little bit of my tougher edge. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Yeah. Okay. What's what story or belief about yourself did you have to unlearn to step fully into who you are? People pleasing.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

People I was a major people pleaser, and it really took a huge toll on me, especially in my later part of my 20s. So I had to really unlearn people pleasing and like healthy boundary setting.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

I love that too. Thank you. What can't wait to see? Okay, what does it cost you to be authentic and why is it worth it?

SPEAKER_01 28:25

I think it costs maybe, huh? That's interesting. I think it costs the feeling like a general appeal to people, right? Like that desire, that people pleasing thing of I want everyone to like me. I think I'd much rather be authentic and accept that I'm just not some people's flavor, you know, and that's okay. Because your family is so interesting. Right. And the people that like this flavor are gonna really love it. And I just need to have the discernment to find them. So happy. What boundary have you set that protects your sense of self? Oof. I've become very, very stringent with my time boundaries. I definitely think I've learned to value over the years not to like squeeze every second of time, you know, out and like drain myself and to value time, actually scheduling time for myself. So if I have a client or a colleague or even a friend or, you know, a personal relationship where I don't feel my time is being valued or respected as you know, it's precious to me at least. I definitely set boundaries there because you can't get time back. It's our most precious resource.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

I feel like you're talking straight to me, Tori. Okay. Um you could unmute one truth people are too afraid to say, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 29:41

I think that we're very scared vulner of like intimacy and vulnerability, right? I think we're in a culture where we're seeking it out in all these places, like trying to very rapidly kind of find connection, whether that's like dating apps or even like networking and in business and stuff. And I find that we shouldn't be afraid to invest in people, right? Of course, there's a risk there. Like Ani is my business partner. She's one of the biggest parts of my life, but I'm gonna invest in her because she's worth like a hundred acquaintances to me.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Wow, that's beautiful. I love that. Like, that's the nicest thing I think somebody can ever say about a friend. Oh, absolutely. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

I appreciate that. And I'm sure I hope that she feels good about it when she when she hears this. So, but yeah, I mean, I think I really value having deep, kind of like personal one-on-one relationships with people more than saying, Oh, I walked into this room, I know 90% of the people here.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

So that's your lesson. That's definitely my actual conversation. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, so I do have a couple of final questions. So if listeners walk away remembering just one thing from this conversation, what do you hope it is?

SPEAKER_01 30:49

I hope it would be to really take the leap and gamble on yourself. Even if, you know, you're not seeing those dividends paid out immediately, even if it takes some flexibility and adaptation. I think at the end of the day, we all have a singularly unique voice. And we're meant to sort of share that in many, many ways that's different for everyone. And I think, you know, have the bravery to to recognize like only you can share that part of yourself, right? And if you don't put that out there, the world won't have it, right? So share your voice, like gamble on yourself, have patience to let things manifest, right? And um, yeah, just be flexible. So good. So good. Patience.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Um it's the hardest thing. The hardest thing. So, what what has it meant for you to share your story here on Unmute Yourself today?

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Yeah, I mean, again, I just want to say how honored and privileged I am. I definitely um, you know, it feels very validating to be in a be in a community and you know, be trying to do something as like a woman entrepreneur and have a platform and a space to like discuss those topics and obviously, you know, get have the visibility around uh around my own story, right? It definitely is meaningful to me because I think we can all be very humble, like, you know, I've never done anything too special, right? And then when you sort of have a moment to reflect on it, you know, everybody has some aspect or gem or wisdom that is unique to them. And I really appreciate the platform to share a little bit of myself. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Well, thank you so much. Thank you. How can our listeners connect with you and support your work?

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Yeah, absolutely. So you can check out our website, it's Blue Cowgirl Productions with an S, so it's plural.com. So you can come to Blue Cowgirls Productions.com. You can see a little bit of the work that we've done in the past. You can reach out to us there. You can also email us at hello at blue cowgirlproductions.com. And then we are in the midst of kind of launching and zhuzhing up our Instagram presence. So our Instagram handle is at blue cowgirl. Um so please reach out. We would love to work with you, not just other filmmakers, but certainly business owners, other creatives, uh, dancers, actors, really anybody, we would love to connect and and try and you know make a vision, a beautiful vision come to life. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Well, thank you so much, Tori. And thank you to everyone listening. Thank you. And choosing truth over comfort and courage over silence and alignment over approval. So if this episode right, right, yes, yeah. So if this episode resonated, please share it, subscribe, and stay with us this season as we explore what it really means to live and lead without muting who we are. Until next time, unmute yourself and be who you already are.