• Columnists

Susan Utell, writer and film editor

WRITER AND FILM EDITOR

Susan Utell has worked in all aspects of the broadcast industry—including editorial experience cutting news and programming for San Francisco network affiliates KPIX, KQED and KGO.

Her advertising agency editorial experience began with a four-year employment at the Bay Area’s first full-fledged post-production facility, One Pass Film & Video. There, Susan worked with advertising agencies; JWT NYC/Chicago; McCann-Erickson; Foot, Cone & Belding; Riney & Associates; Goodby, Silverstein and Partners; Y & R and Goldberg, Moser, O’Neill. She left One Pass in 1984 to begin a successful decades-long freelance career.

Susan’s editorial experience includes both long and short formats. She has worked on Emmy award winning documentaries for Reader’s Digest, programs for PBS, The Disney Channel, The Travel Channel, The Discovery Channel and The History Channel. Recently, she co-edited the documentary “WHY WE SING!” — a film about diversity and the San Francisco Gay Men Chorus narrated by Mayor Gavin Newsom, aired for PBS.

Susan has completed a four film DVD package of financial tips for Robbins Research International, with financial luminaries Harry Dent and John Templeton, hosted by thought leader Tony Robbins.

Susan was producer, director and editor of LIGHTFORMS, a short film, shown in the Mill Valley Film Festival. She has edited archival dance performances for the Merce Cunningham Foundation, which has been placed in the Museum of Modern Art.

Susan has experience in both Avid and Final Cut Pro technologies. She has accomplished post-supervisory skills with a strong eye for design and writing. And she is friendly.

You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough.”

– Mae West

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

– T.S. Eliot

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

– Robert Frost

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try going to sleep with a mosquito in your room.”

– A wisdomism

Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”

– Eckhart Tolle

Who cares if my glass is half empty or half full; I still have something to drink.”

– Optimism rules

Always look at what you have left. Never look at what you have lost.”

– Robert H. Schuller

Everyone is a mirror image of yourself—your own thinking coming back at you.”

– Byron Katie

What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?”

– Jim Butcher, White Night

Are you willing to help other people succeed even when it’s not a requirement of your job to be of assistance?”

– Steven Schussler

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen with snow.”

– Langston Hughes

He who knows he has enough is rich.”

– Tao Te Ching

Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.”

– Thomas Dunn

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

– Andrew Carnegie

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”

– Helen Keller

Traveling is one way of lengthening life, at least in appearance.”

– Benjamin Franklin

Look at everything as though you were
seeing it either for the first or last time.
Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.”

– Betty Smith

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

– Winston Churchill

An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.“


– Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries

The great use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.”

– William James

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

– Mary Oliver

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

You take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
 A terrible thing: no one to blame.”

– Erica Jong

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. 
Now put foundations under them.”

– Henry David Thoreau

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.”

– Jesse Jackson

If it isn’t good, let it die. If it doesn’t die, make it good.”

– Ajahn Chah

Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all.”

– Carlos Castaneda

Speaking more than one language is no longer just an asset in today’s job market; it is a requirement.”

– Tom Adams, CEO, Rosetta Stone

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”

– Robert Frost

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

– Groucho Marx

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.”

– Robert Fritz

Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it.”

– Debbi Fields, Mrs. Fields Cookies

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

– Carl Rogers

The best reason to start an organization is to create a product or service to make the world a better place.”

– Guy Kawasaki

Anything not worth doing well is not worth doing.”

– Warren Buffett

The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.”

– Cecil B. DeMille

Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.”

– Arthur Rubinstein

You don’t go into a field that requires cracking people’s heads open or operating on something as delicate as the spinal cord unless you are comfortable with taking risks.”

– Dr. Ben Carson

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

I always maintained that the greatest obstacle in life isn’t danger, it’s boredom. The battle against it is responsible for most of the events in the world — good or ill.”

– Dr. Evelyn Vogel, Dexter

With ordinary talents and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.”

– Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.”

– Buddha

Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.”

– Corita Kent

You may ask me for anything you like except time.”

– Napoleon

Don’t follow, lead. Don’t copy, create. Don’t start, finish. Don’t sit still, move. Don’t fit in, stand out. Don’t sit quietly, speak up. (Not all the time, sure, but more often.)”

– Seth Godin

If people like you they’ll listen to you; if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”

– Zig Ziglar

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

– Henry Miller

There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…”

– John Lennon