Who Am I?

My name is Nathaniel Wright and I'm a video producer.

By day I work at the National Basketball Association, helping with game recordings and archival footage. The rest of my time goes into building my own production company.

That's the professional version. The one I'm supposed to wear and present as though nothing else could possibly be true. That I'm one of the greatest success stories to ever exist. But the honest one is that I have felt like a failure at nearly every step of my life.

To my teachers and classmates, I came across as lazy and unmotivated. I've had bosses who reviled me, believing I was incompetent and untalented. I've had clients whose visions I could never quite deliver. I've missed deadlines, only ever been in failed relationships, and I'm so bad with money I should probably win an award for it.

All of this has shaped how I see myself and what I believe I'm capable of. Self-doubt hardening around me like a chrysalis I would never break out of.

My name is Nathaniel Wright and I am a failure.

Only recently have I started to push back on that narrative. Not intentionally, or through perseverance, but through close friends challenging my beliefs and seeing what I don't. That my laziness is a misdiagnosis. That it's paralysis resulting from my intense perfectionism. That my work is never good enough, not because it's bad (though plenty of it is) but because I hold myself to a standard that almost no one could meet.

And that I protect myself by re-prioritizing my tasks. Researching endlessly instead of creating. Rebuilding tools and systems instead of using them. Searching for a “better,” “faster” alternative and pouring time into that instead of the thing I already know will work.

I don't view this website as a blog. For me it's an autobiographical technique and perseverance e-book. Written in the open, one chapter at a time. A place for me to reflect on what each stage of my career and life has actually looked like. Not the glamorized version designed to get me jobs and girls. The real, human version that we all experience every day but never share. Where I fail 20 times in a row before getting my first success.

I hope to look back on this one day as a roadmap for how my life turned out exactly as I hoped it one day could. Have it serve as a reminder of how I shot certain projects. Acquired various clients. And took myself from nothing to something. And maybe for the one person who stumbles onto this site by accident, it can provide just one thing of value for them too.

Now I'll try this one last time...

My name is Nathaniel Wright. And I'm a failure on the long, winding road to success.