How rejection made Julie Plec an undeniable leader
In the video titled “How rejection made Julie Plec an undeniable leader,” writer, producer, director, and showrunner Julie Plec shares her journey of overcoming rejection and self-doubt in her career. Plec opens up about her struggles with imposter syndrome and the fear of not being good enough. Despite massive success, she still felt like she didn’t belong.
One pivotal moment in Plec’s career was when she received feedback that she was disruptive and was subsequently blacklisted. This setback led to a crisis of confidence that took her years to overcome. However, Plec used this experience to grow as a leader, emphasizing the importance of humility and taking responsibility for her actions.
Throughout her career, Plec has faced insecurities that stem from childhood experiences, such as feeling like she always has to be perfect. She recounts a memory from when she was four years old, where she misinterpreted an instruction and felt embarrassed. Through introspection and self-compassion, Plec has been able to challenge these limiting beliefs and embrace her imperfections.
Ultimately, Plec’s journey of self-discovery and self-forgiveness serves as an inspiration for others struggling with self-doubt and insecurity. Her story highlights the power of resilience, vulnerability, and the willingness to confront and overcome one’s deepest fears.
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– Has anybody figured out how to do this gracefully? This is getting deep. I am Julie Plec. I’m a writer, producer, director, showrunner, and all around Jolly Good Time. I can answer the first part of this, but I don’t know about the second. I think it’s just from birth.
My entire career as a writer has been spent with me feeling and fundamentally believing that I am not a writer. I took this one writing class in college, just one. The teacher had a very specific method and it made no sense to me, and the process was so painful.
And I thought, “Well, that was terrible. I never want to do that again.” And every single time I sit down to start writing, I go through that feeling, which is that, “I am not good at this. This is not going to be good. People are not going to like it.
And this one massive success I had is just all a fluke.” But I am a writer, so, I had to really shift my way of looking at my own insecurity, about my own abilities because no matter what I feel on the inside about what I’m capable of I mean, who hasn’t?
I think viewing something as a blessing, that part of the sentence, is the hardest part of life. I’d been working professionally for about six years. I had moved up out of the assistant realm into executive and a producing capacity. And at the end of the season, feedback came my way from the higher-ups
That my involvement had been disruptive. I was characterized coming out of that experience by at least one person as a I remember hearing that for the first time and thinking, “Well, my God, these people don’t get me at all.” I had worked so hard and I had been so deeply invested in it,
And that was so crushing to hear. That feedback resulted in me being blacklisted, and it set back my confidence by about a decade. And then time goes by and the job comes back and the confidence tries to come back and the leadership comes back and you start to see other younger people
In the same situation I was in. And you realize that does read as entitlement. It does read as inexperience. And so I was finally able to look back and say, “All right, like now let’s look at it through the real lens of season and experience.” When I was finally able to take responsibility
For my own part in it, it gave me more strength as a leader. And also humility is incredibly important when you are in a position of power. And that little bump in my career gave me a cold bucket of ice water of humility. Death. But- not the act of being dead.
It’s a little bit of a pathological fear, to be honest. And it’s probably done quite a lot to prevent me from doing like normal, natural things like getting married and having children. As a writer, I love to tell stories about loss and grief. – ‘I’m so sorry that you’ve lost so many people.
– I still have you.’ – And as you get to the end of your time on this Earth, what are you most afraid of? I think the answer is I am most afraid of My insecurities have somehow convinced me that I need to do something and I need to do it so well,
It needs to be perfect. And when I’m not perfect, it is this self-punishment of I’m yelling at myself, I’m disappointed in myself. I am critical of myself, and I have really, really noticed that that is the single thing that I can point to holding me back.
I’ve always tried to figure out the genesis of this belief, and to be honest, I have taken it all the way back to like one of my first memories as a 4-year-old kid. I was taking a swimming lesson and a teacher said to me,
“Hey, can you just jump in and then turn around and swim?” And so I jumped off the side of the pool and while I was in the air, I did a little like ballet turn. And when I emerged from underwater, they were laughing at me.
And I remember in that moment as a 4-year-old being so insecure and embarrassed that I had misinterpreted the instruction and had done it wrong. Many years later, as I’m sort of re-litigating this moment, somebody said to me, “Do you actually think that those girls were laughing at you because you did it wrong?
Why don’t you, like your adult- you go visit that scene and watch it through your adult eyes?” And I said, “Oh! They thought it was really cute. The girls weren’t laughing at me, they were laughing with me.” And it is my base, core limiting belief that I am doing it all wrong.
What my goal is, is to now find a way to forgive myself for that and to love myself in spite of that. And that is this really amazing journey that I’ve been on that I highly recommend.
Author Video Description
This is how rejection made executive producer and director Julie Plec an undeniable leader.
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Creator of the popular series “The Vampire Diaries,” Julie Plec is proof imposter syndrome never goes away, no matter how big you make it. The writer and producer answered our questions about self-doubt, getting “blacklisted,” and how we can alter our perceptions to better appreciate our successes.
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We created this video in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators.
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About Julie Plec:
Julie Plec is a creator, showrunner, executive producer and director, most notably responsible for the complete Vampire Diaries Universe (The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and Legacies), which spanned thirteen years and more than 300 episodes of television.
Plec is co-creator and co-showrunner of the upcoming series Vampire Academy, based on the popular book series, which recently wrapped production in Spain and is debuting September 15, 2022, on Peacock. She is also co-creator of the new series Dead Day, along with her Vampire Diaries partner Kevin Williamson, which was recently picked up to series at Peacock as well, and executive producer of Girls on the Bus, which was picked up straight to series at HBO Max.
Plec is creator and executive producer of Legacies, which recently aired its fourth and final season on the CW, along with serving as an executive producer of Roswell, New Mexico, which recently aired its fourth and final season on the CW as well. In addition, Plec served as executive producer of The Endgame, starring Morena Baccarin and Ryan Michelle Bathé, which recently aired on NBC.
She is currently under an overall deal at Universal Television, where she and Emily Cummins, president of her production company, My So-Called Company, are developing projects across all platforms for the studio. Plec and Cummins recently announced a new project at Peacock, Clifton, along with a slate of several other projects in development.
Along with directing multiple episodes of The Vampire Diaries, Legacies, and Roswell, New Mexico, for which she also directed the pilot, Plec directed an episode of the CW’s hit series Riverdale, and most recently directed an episode of her new series Vampire Academy.
Plec developed and executive produced Containment, which aired as a limited series on the CW in 2016.
She got her start as a television writer and co-executive producer for the series Kyle XY, which she produced for the show’s three-year run. Other television credits include Dawson’s Creek, on which she collaborated with creator/executive producer Kevin Williamson, and The Tomorrow People, on which she collaborated with fellow executive producers Greg Berlanti and Phil Klemmer.
In the early part of her career, Plec worked with both Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson during the run of their hit Scream franchise. She also co-produced Berlanti’s directorial debut film, The Broken Hearts Club.
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Video “How rejection made Julie Plec an undeniable leader” was uploaded on 01/29/2024 to Youtube Channel Big Think