That Time Getting Surgery Was More Relaxing Than Producing an Animated Film...

Stress is not your boss.

There, I said it!

Virginie here, and I wanted to share with you a more personal story of how I decided to stop letting work-related stress take over my life.

It was a Wednesday morning in February. I was lying on a hospital gurney, naked under a little surgery gown. I was about to undergo a partial mastectomy to prevent breast cancer.

I remember thinking: I should be feeling scared. But I wasn't scared. Truth be told, I felt like I was at the spa. 

While dealing with this true life emergency, it was so relaxing not to be available for the many false work emergencies that created daily stress for myself, my colleagues, and my clients.

I was working as an animation producer on a feature film, and the term ''911'' was thrown around many times a day, igniting stress for situations that might have been important, maybe even priorities, but in no way life-threatening.

Daily stress was the status quo, and it felt a lot like stress was my boss.

And at that moment, lying on a hospital gurney, I realized: getting surgery for cancer was more pleasant than my current work conditions.

OUCH!

That was when I decided I could no longer let stress be my boss.

Over the next 12 months, I trained as a coach and studied stress management, positive leadership, and productivity.

And then, I co-founded The Happy Producers, a mission-based company that would serve my professional community. I wanted well-being to become the norm in everyday production so that we could have better retention and create better content with bigger profits.

I held a focus group with producers, project managers, coordinators, team leads, and supervisors and asked them what they needed to feel happier and more fulfilled at work.

Everyone said they wanted less stress at work, starting NOW.

I could only agree with them.

And creating a low-stress work environment without compromising productivity became the backbone of our e-courses and workshops.

Last Spring, the Quebec Film and Television Council asked us to prepare a series of workshops around mental health and inclusivity. 

We jumped at the opportunity to create a unique workshop around  workplace stress management. We called it False Emergencies: How to lower stress and stay on track by avoiding this pitfall. 

And as of August 2023, this 60-minute online workshop will be available to animation, VFX, and gaming studios worldwide.

If you are ready to lower stress and boost productivity for yourself and your team, let's talk!

We offer simple and practical tools you can implement right now, at no cost, to help you experience less stress, more fulfillment, and enhanced creativity.

We are here to help.

With love,

Virginie & The Happy Producers