The Work Behind The Work
On finding where your value actually lives after twenty years of creative work
I’ve been working on a new offer and just scrapped the whole thing because what I found underneath it was better.
Let me back up.
The foundation of this offer was based around interview content conducted remotely and then clients receiving both video and written assets as deliverables. I’ve conducted more interviews than I can count and have no fear of speaking to anybody. With my background in film and post-production, plus my added skills in writing, I figured I had a win-win.
I test-drove this with a few trusted colleagues, most recently my friend, Jordan, who runs the excellent local networking hub, ConnectHV.
After the first round of edits I got an email back from him. The first half was exactly what I hoped it would be: feedback with a few actionable tweaks here and there but overall, good, usable content.
After that, everything changed.
Here’s a direct quote from his reply:
“Overall, my feedback is: yes, this is a great idea. The deliverables are valuable, but I felt like the guided conversation was even more valuable. It felt a little like an executive coaching session — I did most of the talking, but you knew what buttons to push to get me talking. That’s very valuable.”
I keep coming back to that email.
Here’s what I know about myself: I don’t have an executive coaching certification. I’ve never run a course on business clarity or strategic positioning. I didn’t go to school for any of this.
What I DO have is twenty-plus years of building and rebuilding something from the ground up. Mostly alone, mostly by figuring it out because I had to.
Why did it take someone else writing it down for me to see it? (Yes, I had to be told this in writing. By someone else. About myself.)
No Blueprint For That
A couple of years ago, I got hired to build out a podcast studio for the Dwarkesh Podcast. It was my first real foray into that kind of consulting and I treated it like it mattered, because it did.
The studio space was limited and every inch mattered, so I figured out a way to rig the cameras and lighting using a pole system. Nothing fancy. Just a solution I came up with because I had to.
Dwarkesh was good enough to give me a testimonial. In it he said, “it dramatically increased the usability and flexibility of the space” and that it’s “something that wouldn’t have even occurred to” him.
He closed with: “Focus on your own craft and just let Drew do what he does best.”
At the time, I just saw it as a great testimonial. But now it carries a bit more weight. Lately I’ve been asking: what did I actually deliver? Yes, a studio, of course. The sound treatment, camera setup, lighting scheme and everything that comes with it.
That’s what they hired me for.
Nobody handed me a blueprint for that. It came from two decades of walking into rooms that weren’t set up for what I needed and working it out anyway.
The amalgam of disparate parts was building toward something bigger.
Every week I write about creative entrepreneurship, the psychology of why we get stuck, and what it actually looks like to build something new in public. Free.
One Layer Higher
My network is full of talented creatives who are really good at what they do (like top of their game, you know?), yet are constantly struggling to make ends meet.
So many of them have some version of this: So what should I do? I know this isn’t sustainable long-term. What do you think my options are?
And they always come back to this: MORE. Figure out how to book more work, fill more time, do more of the same.
It’s all execution work at the task level. They’re never looking a couple of layers higher.
I see this all the time. Creatives who’ve been at it for years, who have real skills and real value, stuck because they’ve linked their identity with their “deliverable”.
This is what I do. It’s the one thing I’m good at. If I can’t do that, I don’t have value.
Fusing your identity to your craft is comfortable because there was an industry there to hand it to you. You didn’t have to define yourself because a job title did: Cinematographer. Editor. Designer. Audio engineer. Clean, legible, done.
The things that are a little bit harder to define are where the real value lies.
What keeps people stuck is that they don’t know how to shed the identity they’ve built for themselves over time. Shedding it feels like starting over. And starting over feels like everything you built was for nothing.
It wasn’t. But I get why it feels that way. That was me.
The Trade-Off
Being able to see this in yourself isn’t a clean moment of relief. There’s just as much confusion as there is clarity.
I feel more possibility ahead of me, leaning into mentorship and advisory work, than I’ve felt in years. More conversations like the one with Jordan, where the right questions get someone somewhere they couldn’t get alone, feel like the right track.
You had other people and a whole industry to dictate what the definition of your craft was, and now it’s up to you because there are no rules.
It’s equal parts empowering and off-putting, especially at the beginning when you’re trying to re-establish a direction.
You have more potential upside than you did when you were just a designer or just an audio engineer. But you have less certainty about what to call yourself at a dinner party.
That’s the trade-off.
But what I keep coming back to is this: Jordan didn’t walk away from our session thinking about the deliverable. He walked away with clarity he couldn’t find on his own. That’s something I built by figuring things out with no manual.
Your craft was the vehicle that got you on the road. What you built along the way is your expertise.
Take a minute and look at everything except the deliverable. It’s probably been there the whole time.
One more thing before you go.
I have three spots open right now for 1:1 advisory work. It’s for creative entrepreneurs who are somewhere in the middle — good at what they do, not quite sure what they’re building toward, or how to get there.
Most of the value comes from the conversation itself. You talk, I ask questions, and something that was murky usually gets clearer. If that sounds useful, reply to this email and tell me a little about where you’re at.
🚨 P.S. - I’d love to what you’re curious about. If you have 1-minute (literally) to fill out THIS FORM, it would be much appreciated! 🙏
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