00:03My mom told me there was no such thing as can't so when you hear there's no such
00:06thing as can't and then you can't do something it doesn't make any sense to
00:10you. I'm Naika, I'm a director, I'm an Aries, I'm strong, I'm a control freak and I'm not perfect.
00:24What does failure mean to you? At first when I would fail when I was younger I would see
00:29failure as like it was everyone else's problem like if you couldn't see my
00:33potential then that's your problem but what I learned throughout the years is
00:36that failure is actually telling you that there's something that needs to
00:40become stronger and that there's just a lesson in that and there's a next level
00:45of yourself that it forces you to get to. This is hilarious so I used to be a
00:54dancer growing up right I was that kid I had my friends over at my house and I
00:59I would want to play music and teach everybody to do these dance moves and
01:02say these lines and they had to do it over and over again exactly the way I
01:05said to do it. So you've always been a director? I have and I didn't know I was at the
01:09time so I was out to me this was fun my friends were miserable and they would leave
01:14crying and my mother would be like you know you're not gonna have any friends you
01:17know soon because you keep making everybody go home and cry I was like I
01:20just want them to get it right I don't understand and then so I found this
01:23professional dance studio online so I googled it I said mom you have to take me to
01:28Broadway Dance Center I have to go they go oh um excuse me ma'am I'm 13 years
01:32old they're like what level are you at I was like oh advanced intermediate
01:36advanced and they were like okay so I want to take the class it's like freaking
01:40Janet Jackson's choreographer or something like that for all these
01:43dancers have been on tour and here I am 13 years old confident I know that I
01:48dance better than everybody in my neighborhood so I was like I can do this
01:50I stand front and center in the middle you know do the perfect stretches I'm
01:54stretching I'm ready you know I know all my positions all of a sudden she
01:59starts teaching and it is so many steps I felt like I was being hit with steps
02:04and dancers were like I was just in their way and then in 15 minutes I was
02:09literally out of the class I walked out because I could not keep up walk
02:13downstairs mind you I'm a person who's used to keeping up and I walked outside
02:17and my mom just happened to be passing by she's like what are you doing
02:20outside and I was like I just can't I can't do it I can't do it I'm not good
02:24I'm terrible I'm terrible I can't dance and she's like no that's not true it's
02:27just you know maybe you should have started from the beginning but something
02:30about beginning for people like that's a failure in itself like you always want
02:36to be the greatest right away I went home and I just sulked over it I was like
02:40I'm never taking any dance class I stopped taking dance classes in my
02:43neighborhood my mom was like you have to go back you have to go back I finally
02:46decided all right let me go back I went to the advanced beginners class the
02:49teacher was like you're so talented I would love for you to be my assistant
02:52I'll give you free dance classes here but then you know the next six months I
02:56was in those advanced classes again you have this idea of your potential in your
02:59head yeah because you know like you have a vision you know I'm saying if you're a
03:03visionary like there's this vision of myself that I see but I haven't got to it
03:08so what has been the most interesting moment where you kind of were like wow I
03:18didn't realize I needed to do better well I'm a director I'm a television
03:22producer and I was working in television and at one point I had this idea that I
03:28wanted to be you know this TV executive and I at the time I was a coordinator and
03:32I wanted to be the manager of the music specials team and I would go to my boss
03:36and I said you know what I think I want to be the manager of this team I know the
03:40cross-departmental workings of this company I know creative and he was like
03:44you're just not ready yet I used to get so upset with him that he wasn't putting
03:51me into the next level but I wasn't realizing that that I had so much to
03:54learn you know about my brand about you know perception about business about you
03:59know doing things on my own about taking initiative and I had all those things I
04:03had the potential in the seat of that but I wasn't to the level I needed to be so
04:08I quit that job I left I was like you know what I'm out and when I left then I
04:14realized by doing my own project by myself and having to manage multiple
04:18things and messing up failure actually taught me how to become that person
04:22yeah that I was trying to be there even starting as a filmmaker the way I started
04:28is literally one day I was having a conversation with my friend and she goes
04:32you should do a documentary on that and here goes my the little kid in me my
04:37overconfident self yeah I should do a documentary I mean how hard could it be
04:41just like the dance class right that I told you about I put the pitch on
04:45Kickstarter and I'm like let me try to raise funds so I could actually finish
04:49this film the Kickstarter ends I do not make my funding goals I may have made
04:54like a thousand dollars what happens with Kickstarter is if you don't make your
04:58funding goal they send everyone back their money and they send them an email
05:02like this person did not reach their goal the funds will be returned to you that
05:06was so embarrassing to me because when I did the film I quit my job so a lot
05:10of the people that I was like I'm gonna show you that same boss that I was like
05:14yeah I do deserve this now I left and now they're getting an email that I failed
05:18that's like whack right I was like oh man yeah I think trying to move up in
05:24television and turning into an entrepreneur by making a bunch of
05:27mistakes and losing a lot of money I think that really taught me so much
05:35what was your most expensive mistake I went in without doing any pre-production to do
05:40the first cut of my film the same difference and then I hired an editor
05:43which I had to pay like $500 a day and then sit in there with the editor with
05:50no script no prep work just like yeah let's create something and just became
05:54more and more expensive so I did this whole movie and it didn't turn out the
05:59way I wanted to turn out you know I basically had to do the movie all over
06:02again from scratch so that cost me a lot a lot of money and time and you know it's
06:07just a big lesson that's a big lesson and what did that lesson feel like when
06:11you were going through it you know like that feeling to feel like I'm actually
06:15not ready for this yet it hurts you know I'm saying it's it's it's definitely
06:19something that's um painful sometimes in failure you got you just have to sit in
06:23it it's okay to feel you know sad or feel like you know feel upset with yourself and
06:30then you get over it and you move on and you continue to let that propel you
06:35forward to prove to prove to yourself that you could do it how did you learn
06:39to give yourself that permission to like feel like you were able to take that time
06:45and be like it's okay if you go to the next step thinking about all your
06:49mistakes and going in with that insecurity and that inadequacy then that's
06:53how your work is gonna turn out so I was like let me get over it and then I'll
06:57move on no matter how down I get I'm going to keep going like it's it's
07:00impossible but the first step is admitting right and failure failure
07:04makes you admit it makes me admit every time like you're not there yet if you
07:09could you know talk to the young girls and people watching this like what would
07:14be the one thing that you would want them to walk away from it's okay to not
07:18be perfect right away you have to enjoy the process of growth you have to give
07:24failure a hug when you're afraid of things that's when they have the most power
07:27all girls all women all of us we're all growing we're all work in progress and
07:32we're all under construction and I think failure make failure your friends do not
07:37be afraid of failure don't let it scare you don't trip it's gonna be okay
