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All the most influential people in my life thus far (excluding my father and a man named John Dellarocco) have been women. Shari Sklar Jacobson was the first person to hire me out of film school in Boston to work as a video producer at Lyons Group Management for a club called Metro, back in 1986. We have remained friends to this day. A woman named Donna Wong hired me to edit the magazine for the Boston Film/Video Foundation around the same time. My boss at Arnold Worldwide, Lenora Cushing, saw something in me I could not even see myself. Not only that, but she had my back during one the darkest periods of my life. Lenora was the first person who saw in me the entrepreneurial spirit.

This realization about women has struck me during a period in my life where I am experiencing huge personal growth. Today, I am touched by the amazing gifts I have received from of a group of three women who help keep me grounded:

• Karen McCullough, my mentor and office mate, has taught me the invaluable lessons of perseverance, reinvention and self reliance. In addition to that, she has kept me on an even course with her incredible and endless energy.
• My friend and colleague, Tracey Rubio, has shown a collaborative spirit and generosity to me by offering me the use of her photo studio and all of her equipment, as well as her expertise in the field of photography and her incredible gift for exhaustive research.
• Sharon Ferranti has trusted me enough to take a risk and let me in to her world of film making. Sharon is a genius in a field that hypnotizes me. I love film making, and Sharon has shown me that I can do this for a living. She has shared with me her experience and her knowledge with such generosity that I almost feel unworthy of such an honor.

The sweet realization of the influence of these women in my life comes at a most opportune time: the release of a book that explores the talents of women from two cross-generational viewpoints. The Seven Women Project by Karen and Meredith McCullough beautifully illustrates and explains the unique and varied perspectives of the seven different “personalities” that are a part of every woman, and how women have the ability to tap into these different talents throughout their lives. I was lucky enough to help with the design of this book, and I can honestly say that it is a work of truth.
I say “thank you” to the many women in my life.

Last night I had the opportunity to work with Sharon Ferranti, a filmmaker I greatly respect and also one of my mentors. She asked me to run the boom microphone while she filmed short interviews with party guests at an event at the House of Blues downtown. The idea was that once the guests got comfortable, they would automatically find themselves in this little room with a statue of Budda and freely give a humorous interview to the camera about the guest of honor.

As a filmmaker/video guy, I know how important it is to control your setting: make sure you have sufficient lighting, that the sound levels are balanced, the composition makes sense. Well, Sharon and I did all that we could to make sure this little space was set up for the best possible interview.

The only problem that nobody foresaw, especially the event planner, was that the guests did not want to be on camera. They were just too self-conscious and timid to sit and give an interview, no matter how many drinks they had. (Drunken interviews were not the desired outcome the event planner was looking for, anyway.) We spent a good hour and a half sitting in that room waiting for any guest who had enough nerve to come in. Nobody did. They would poke their heads in to see what the bright lights were all about, but that was as far as they got.

The other problem was that the rest of the club (decorated to look like an Indian temple) was almost pitch dark, except for candles on the tables and very low overhead lighting. It would be impossible to “roam” around the crowded nightclub to get “man-on-the-street” style interviews.

So when the party planner came and announced to us that we were “going mobile!”, the first thing I did in my head was negate the request. “Oh, forget it!” I thought to myself. There’s just no way it’s gonna happen. The look on Sharon’s face said the same. However, I saw Sharon quickly change her expression to one of eager enthusiasm, and she grabbed her camera and headed out into the crowded club.

Although we did not get any usable footage as we “roamed” around the darkness, bumping into guests and getting tangled up in microphone wires, we did create quite a stir. It was as if we made just enough of a commotion to get some of the guests really interested in what we were doing. It also took some coaxing on Sharon’s part, as she practically begged some of the guests to give an on-camera interview, but the effect worked. Within 60 minutes, we had conducted 5 great interviews back in front of the lights in the little room with the Budda.

Sharon once again taught me something. I’m sure I had known it all along, but she really illuminated the concept for me. We have to consider that we might be wrong. Even though all our common sense, all our expertise and training, might scream out that we know best, we have to be able to consider that there might be another way to do something.

As an exercise, try admitting you are wrong about something, even if you know you are right. See what kind of doors this simple act may open up for you. A simple lesson in humility can be one of the greatest things we’ll ever learn.