How four words turned self-doubt into an 18-year career.

Its was 2008, on the Wild Coast of South Africa.

We were in the second year of a two year filming cycle for a BBC series called Nature’s Great Events.

Our episode, directed by Hugh Pearson, was focused on the sardine run, an annual event in which millions of sardines embark on a range extension that funnels them closer to the coast and kicks off one of the greatest marine spectacles on the planet.

I was assisting underwater cameraman Didier Noirot. French, flamboyant and one of the great characters of our craft, Didier had evolved his craft under the imperious eye of Jacques Cousteau, and was not one for easy compliments or unearned praise.

At the time I had left my corporate job and was trying to work things out. How to move forward?

While the assisting work was exhilarating, the shoots were few and far between and all the key players I would need to build a career in the industry were based on the UK.

Deep down I was struggling with self-confidence. Going from earning a good salary in a corporate job to freelancing and living hand to mouth smacks your ego.

I was also going to through a divorce, a difficult thing, something you have to experience to understand.

One evening towards the end of the last shoot, we had finished watching the rushes from the day and Didier asked to see the photographs I had shot.

As I flicked through them, Didier critiqued my framing and made a few suggestions. Then, after a long pause, he nodded his head and said four words to me that fundamentally shifted my entire mindset.

“You do not miss.”

I never asked him exactly what he meant by that but I knew that he believed in my potential. And if one of Jacques Cousteau’s cameramen believed in me, well then anything was possible.

Those four words provided the crucial fuel that ignited my self-belief and set me on the path to realising my dream of becoming world class ocean cinematographer.

In business, just like in life, limiting beliefs quietly sabotage us.

We tell ourselves we’re not ready, not qualified, not good enough.

But sometimes, all it takes is one mentor, one leader, one colleague you respect to say: “You do not miss.”

That belief becomes the catalyst for transformation.

Encouragement costs almost nothing, but its impact can be exponential.

Who was the person who believed in you before you believed in yourself?