What risks are worth taking? How do you trust yourself to make big decisions when your head and heart are pulling you in different directions? How do you trust your team to blaze a new trail and bring a bold vision to life, especially when you’re working together remotely?

These questions were at the core of our recent conversation with Carlos Baena, an award-winning animator, director, and entrepreneur. Currently directing Paramount Pictures’ forthcoming animated feature film The Tiger’s Apprentice (slated for release in 2023), Carlos is someone with a track record of taking risks and trailblazing.

In the early 2000s when technology for remote learning and collaboration were just in their infancy, Carlos co-founded the original online animation school AnimationMentor. He later left an established career at Pixar (where he worked on many animated pictures that might have captured your imagination like Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E, and Toy Story 3 just to name a few) to take a big risk and produce the Oscar-qualifying animated short La Noria, an innovative endeavor that pushed the edges of genre, technology, and remote collaboration, racked up over 100 awards and was selected for over 150 film festivals worldwide, and led Carlos to co-found Artella, a platform for online collaborative film making.

In our conversation, Carlos shares how he thinks about risk-taking and why he has frequently chosen to pursue the road less traveled, how trust has been integral to creating the conditions for successful collaboration in the face of uncertainty, and the role trust plays in facilitating remote work.

If you’re thinking about risk in terms of your own decision-making or with respect to leading creative and innovative endeavor’s remotely, be sure to listen to this episode of the In Trust podcast!

Show Notes:

Sponsored by: Spotlight Trust

From the co-founders of Spotlight Trust comes the new book The Future Is Trust: Embracing the Era of Trust-Centered Leadership. The book will be released June 15th 2021. For more info, sneak peeks, pre-order specials, and more, visit: thefutureistrust.com

The Trust to Take Risks and Trailblaze - Interview with Carlos Baena - EP 37

In TrustBy Spotlight Trust's Lisa Lambert and Rick KitagawaMay 18, 2021