Learn how to leverage your lifetime of work experience, skills & abilities, and unique knowledge to design the more rewarding, fulfilling, and sustainable creative career that you deserve (without burning out)
Learn how to leverage your lifetime of work experience, skills & abilities, and unique knowledge to design the more rewarding, fulfilling, and sustainable creative career that you deserve (without burning out)
“I’m realizing more and more the value of our story comes in how we tell it. There is enough experience in each of our backgrounds that we each have a great story to offer. Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of this program. The amount of learning and growth has been incredible, and at this point I’m confident in my path forward.”
“Zack helped me identify my core interests, skills, and traits that go beyond a single job role. Just yesterday I saw that I was perfect for a job role I had never considered before, and now a whole new career path has opened up. This exercise gives me the confidence that I’m moving in the right direction now, and will continue to make good career choices in the future because I know what’s a good match for me.”
Whether it’s global pandemics, industry shutdowns, Hurriquakes and Sharknados, or the exponential growth of artificial intelligence, it’s clear the only thing we can reliably count on is change.
But it wasn’t supposed to be this way…
Since pre-school we’ve been asked incessantly, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
From that point on:
→ We chose our high schools in preparation for specific college degree programs.
→ We chose a college major in preparation for a singular, specialized career path.
→ We then entered the workforce and grabbed the bottom rung of the career ladder assuming if we “paid our dues,” eventually we’d climb to the top.
Only to discover…
The career ladder no longer exists.
As artists, creatives, and storytellers it has now become our responsibility to constantly hustle for the next gig and design our own career paths…
…except we were never given a map.
Or a compass.
Or the necessary human skills to navigate a constantly changing landscape.
Now with the rise of artificial intelligence, there’s no guarantee the career we’ve worked so hard to build and the skills we’ve spent years acquiring will even be relevant in the future.
We are entering a new era where the advice we’ve taken our entire lives to focus on mastering one specialized skill could now set us up for failure instead of success.
What got us here might no longer get us there.
To be clear: I have no intention of teaching you to spread yourself thin, scatter your attention, and turn you into a “Jack of All Trades, Master of None.”
In this workshop you will learn how to properly leverage:
So that you can identify what makes you uniquely valuable such that you can take your speciality and diversify it amongst a variety of different crafts, income sources, or even career paths.
Knowing I have the skills to really pursue this career is necessary, but knowing there are others in your corner can feel even more important. I want to express my gratitude to Zack and this community!
No longer will you have to define yourself just by what you do.
Now you’ll be able to define yourself by what you love (and who you really are).
Living my life with intent has improved my life dramatically. I’ve been in a good mood just because of our conversations and me looking forward to knowing there is a route ahead of me. You have helped me pull back the curtain and shown me the path… I just need to take it and follow certain steps. It’s still scary as heck, but I don’t have the same kind of intimidation by a long shot.
✅ Pivot Your Creative Career (Without Starting Over)
✅ Shift your mindset from being a specialist in one skill to being a generalist who can provide value in many different ways (and get paid for it!)
✅ Identify your “Zone of Genius” that sets you apart from your competition
✅ Clarify the kinds of work that are the most fulfilling & meaningful to you
✅ Set clearer boundaries to maximize creativity & minimize burnout
My “Optimized” website worked! A director told me “On your site you mentioned that projects about mental illness are close to your heart, and I feel similarly.” Glad I was so specific about the projects that are important to me. And I got the job! Thanks, Zack.
My name is Zack Arnold (ACE), and I help artists, creatives, and storytellers like you design the more balanced, more sustainable, and more fulfilling creative careers you deserve…without sacrificing your health, relationships, or sanity in the process.
Consider me your career sensei. Welcome to my dojo.
Having worked in Hollywood for over two decades as an award-winning editor and producer (notable credits include Cobra Kai, Burn Notice, Empire, and Glee) – and now as a creativity coach, career strategist, podcaster, speaker, and author – I understand how uncertain (and terrifying) the future of your creative career looks. Artificial intelligence has changed the game, and in order to ensure the survival of storytelling as we know it, we need to make sure that AI works for us (not the other way around).
I’m here to help you future-proof your creative career by better understanding how the intersection of your work experience, your life experiences outside of the job, your skills, your passions, your knowledge, and most importantly your values make you uniquely valuable in the age of AI.
My work as an editor, documentary director, podcaster, speaker, career strategist, and American Ninja Warrior has been featured in publications such as The Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap, Fox News, The Washington Post, Variety, The Guardian, Forbes, NPR, The Huffington Post, LinkedIn Learning, Art of the Cut, Frame.io, Post Perspective, and many more.
Not sure if this workshop is the right fit for you?
Scroll below for frequently asked questions, or click here to contact me directly.
This Saturday, April 6th I’ll be recording Design Your Dream Career as a live workshop (and offering FREE attendance to the recording). Once the recording is complete, over the next six weeks my team will be editing it into a self-guided online course.
The material is the same between the two options.
You are welcome to attend the live recording for FREE, but the raw recording will only be available to those who purchase lifetime access to the finished self-guided course.
I’m giving you FREE access to this live workshop recording (or the option to donate if you can) because I’ve seen how transformative the mindsets & strategies I’ve shared with my Optimizer students have been for them over the last four years of uncertainty. And I also understand how much everyone is struggling to simply pay the bills right now.
Upon completion, this workshop will be edited into a self-guided course with over 15+ hours of additional bonus materials. When the course materials are edited & organized, I’ll be selling the finished workshop for $497. This Saturday morning is your only chance to get $497 worth of career-transforming education for FREE.
In this self-guided online learning course you’ll get instant access to over 5+ hours of video instruction to help you organize all of your past & present work experience, life experiences, skills, abilities, interests, and values such that you can find the intersection of all the above to identify where you can provide unique value to the world.
You’ll learn how to identify your speciality that you can then diversify and generalize to pursue multiple paths throughout your life rather than being stuck in a singular career path that no longer provides stability and job security.
If you’d like ongoing access to the final self-guided course along with the entire library of Optimizer courses, workshops, masterclasses, as well as the Optimizer Slack community and live access to weekly Office Hours, click here to become a monthly Premium subscriber.
The Premium subscription includes ongoing access to the following:
There are no long-term commitments if you decide to sign up with the Premium monthly subscription beyond the month-to-month commitment. If you are confident you’ll be sticking around, click here to save with a yearly subscription.
The Premium subscription includes ongoing access to the following:
The only requirements to attend the live workshop are a good internet connection and Zoom. Other than that, all of the strategies you’ll learn can be done with pen & paper, post-it notes, a white board (my personal favorite), or any digital app of your choice that’s relevant to journaling, mindmapping, or freeform drawing.
I will provide you with a digital study guide so you can follow along and keep your answers organized.
I’m so confident this course will help you see your career through a completely different lens that I’m offering a full 60-day refund. You have 60 days to not only attend the live workshop but also implement the strategies you learned in this program. If within 60 days you can demonstrate what you learned in this workshop is not applicable to your career and won’t make a difference, I’m happy to provide a 100% refund.