Aim High

Do What You Love and The Money Will Follow feat. Brooke Ballard ('16)

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Episode notes

From the moment she heard David Attenborough talking about our world, Brooke Ballard (‘16) knew that working in film and documentary was her dream career. Nowadays, she's living in California, and working as an associate producer on Bravo’s hit reality TV series Below Deck Mediterranean and Below Deck Down Under.

Although the creative path isn't the traditional road after Cranbrook, Brooke says she took a lot from what she learned in her high school acting classes to her current producer role.

Qadir and Brooke met freshman year, and talk this episode about that first meeting, cool teachers, long high school schedules, working in a male dominated industry and where the creative arts fits in at Cranbrook. 

Reach Her At: 

• Broke Ballard on Linkedin

Selected Quotes:

What Brooke learned at Cranbrook:

Cause that's what it was about. It wasn't math tests, it was an education on life and how to be successful.

Dealing with anxiety & discipline at school:

Cranbrook really helped me hone that in and figure out - You can't procrastinate anything at Cranbrook. It is done the day of, and you send it in as fast as you can, like it is go, go, go. And, it really helped me learn how not to procrastinate or if I were to procrastinate, do it really well, or how to work smarter, not harder.

Breaking out of the traditional Cranbrook path:

The advice that I would give people that are paving their own way and might not be a part of the norm is just, keep at it. There are so many people who don't follow that normal Cranbrook path and end up being extremely successful. 

That doesn't mean, if you're not in business and you're not a doctor or a lawyer, and you're finding yourself getting that 32 on the ACT, don't beat yourself up. That's not what you're meant to do, go and do what you want to do because at the end of the day, if you're not passionate about something, you're not going to be successful in any way.