Hollywood filmmaker urges nurse leaders to seek purpose, growth

Hollywood filmmaker Saul Blinkoff, who went from an aspiring artist to an animated feature director, challenged audience members to pursue lives of purpose and growth. Blinkoff, whose credits include work at Disney, DreamWorks and Netflix, reflected on how two rejections from the Disney internship program challenged him to grow early in life. Giving up after failure is a trap, Blinkoff said. After his second Disney rejection, he stopped striving altogether to avoid feeling like a failure again. He urged attendees to resist the impulse to quit, arguing that setbacks are an invitation to push harder. "We  ... grow through pain," he said. Blinkoff spoke about his father's recent death, describing the nurses who cared for him in hospice as people who "changed the world" through daily acts of service. A nurse who simply took his hand after his father died, he said, provided him with much needed comfort during a difficult time. The nurses who cared for his father, he said, had chosen to make a life, not just a living. "We make a living by what we get," he said, quoting Winston Churchill, "but we make a life by what we give."