We survived til ’25. Now what?!

Welp…here we are.

It’s the last full work week of 2024 before we drag our lifeless zombie carcasses across the finish line and slowly slip into an egg nog & sugar cookie induced coma.

We did it. We “survived ’til 25.”

So now what?

Way back in February of 2023 I wrote the following:

“The perfect storm is coming for our jobs whether we like it or not.”

This was shortly after the release of ChatGPT, just before the writer’s strike began, and well before the public was aware of the giant Ponzi scheme that is streaming television.

My unvarnished perspective that we needed to prepare for a seismic shift in how we make a living was at the time viciously attacked by trolls, social media followers, and even peers as being a Doomsayer. I was told we need to stay strong in solidarity to “protect our jobs from AI” and “just wait out the strikes.” After all, the business is cyclical and entertainment is “recession-proof” just like during the pandemic, right? Right?!

Welp…here we are, my friend. Just short of two years later, and our livelihoods have been flip-turned upside down, Fresh Prince style.

While many got their lawn chairs, coolers, and binoculars to sit on the beach and watch the tsunami barrel towards them, I began to batten down the hatches. I quickly pivoted to helping my students leverage their existing skills, knowledge, and experience so they could diversify their income streams and not have to rely on a singular specialized skill anymore to pay the bills.

In addition I interviewed a slew of experts across multiple industries related to the intersection of business, the economy, and creativity to help us better understand this new future barreling towards us, including:

• How to Future-Proof Your Creative Career, Avoid Burnout, and Build a Life Bigger Than Your Résumé | with Christina Wallace
• Redefining Your Career Path in a Post Generational Society | with Mauro Guillén
• How to Become Resilient In the Face of Change (and Manage an Identity Crisis) | with Brad Stulberg

If I could boil down over four hours of these (mind-blowing) interviews into the one singular quote that has framed my approach to weathering this storm, it’s the following:

“Less than 5% of specialized careers will survive artificial intelligence. We will all become generalists.” – Mauro Guillen

Having spent the last two years helping hundreds of my students design their own unique paths out of this mess towards a more diversified & fulfilling creative career, I’m confident of the following:

We are not “starting over.”

We are the oddballs, the misfits, the rebels, the weirdos, and the nerds.

We are the problem solvers, the thinkers, the innovators, and the storytellers.

When there are creative problems that nobody else can crack, WE are the ones they come to who make shit happen.

We are the ones who make the impossible possible.

We are the creatives.

As creatives we are not specialized widgets, we are instead an intricate web of generalized and unique knowledge, multiple complex skills, and creative abilities that few others posses.

We were made for this.

We are some of the best storytellers in the world.

The irony is that we suck at telling our own stories.

And SURVIVAL is the wrong storyline.

Not once did I buy into the “survive til 25” bullshit.

Yes, it’s clear that come 2025 there will be more work again. I’ve already noticed over the last several months a significant uptick in the amount of calls & interviews my students have been getting because of their networking & outreach efforts.

And more importantly, even though many of the students in my program are still looking for work, we’ve gone from every single one of them saying, “I’m not working, and nobody else I know is either” to “I’m not working yet, but I know many people who are.”

Moreover I’ve seen “the grids,” those elusive listings of projects going into pre-production and production. The work is coming back. We’ll never be close to late-2022 levels of production ever again, but for those who know people who know people, there are opportunities in this fiercely competitive market.

But I never want any of us to be lulled into a false sense of security again. Because having a singular specialized career path is now the riskiest path of them all.

I no longer want to continue the storyline that our role is simply to “survive.”

The new storyline is to “redefine” who we are as creatives…and more importantly redefine who we are as humans.

Are you ready to REDEFINE your story?

Redefining who we are as creatives in an uncertain media landscape is a frightening endeavor. But I don’t believe we have a choice anymore.

The good news is we don’t have to navigate this uncertainty alone.

I’m currently assembling the next cohort of my yearlong Creatives Mastermind program, and if any of the above resonated, we should chat.

Starting in January we’ll work together (as a small group of 10) to redefine our creative careers and all-but future-proof ourselves from the uncertainty that lies ahead.

For all of 2025 we’ll work together to redefine:

• WHAT we do for a living (so we no longer have to wait for work but instead we can create opportunities for ourselves)
• HOW we work (so our careers allow us to thrive both at work and outside of it…instead of burning us out)
• WHY we do what we do (so there’s a purpose to our lives)

All to ultimately redefine WHO we are as creatives, storytellers, and human beings in a world filled with productivity-obsessed “human doers.”

In the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity.

I was inspired to build this yearlong mastermind program because the way we’ve been taught to build our careers no longer works, and there’s no way we’re going to navigate these challenges alone. But we have the opportunity to redefine “normal” in our lives and build a better future for ourselves where we can be defined by more than the job title on our résumés.

Redefining who we are will require:

• A more resilient MINDSET and the belief we can achieve difficult, “Scary” goals
• A comprehensive STRATEGY to navigate the three dimensional game of chess our lives have become
• The right TACTICS & TOOLS to ensure we’re effectively using our time, energy, & attention

But most importantly, redefining who we are will require a COMMUNITY.

Having spent more than a decade studying high performing individuals across a variety of industries and disciplines, I can say the following with 100% confidence:

Nobody succeeds alone.

To quote the famous African proverb:

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to GO FAR, go together.”

If you’re tired of just surviving and you’d instead like to redefine your storyline in 2025, you might be a good fit for my yearlong Creatives Mastermind program.

If it might be worth discussing, simply message me with “send me more info” and let’s chat.