Personal Economy
Posted on | December 4, 2008 | 2 Comments
Sometimes a discussion of process is made clearer through the use of allegory. In the case of our recent discussion of the business models which support theatre, I hereby offer myself as metaphor fodder.
As I mentioned several weeks ago, I’ve been knee-deep in the same sort of soul-searching most theatre companies come around to at some time or another. I’m fortunate in that I’ve been able to start from a place of “Where do I want to go?” rather than “Oh shit – what do I do?”
That’s because nothing is ostensibly “wrong” with my current business model. Financially, I’m okay – my day job provides a steady stream of income over and above my operating expenses. Artistically, to, I’ve never been better – like an ensemble cultivated over time, the last few years have allowed me to better understand how I need to work, and I’ve had a string of recent critical successes.
The problem is, of course, the direction. Like the theatrical enterprise, my days, weeks, and years tend to be relatively preprogrammed and cyclical. And while I think with each pass around the cycle I’ve widened my orbit – that is, I’ve sought greater challenges and created more fulfilling opportunities – a certain level of monotony has settled in. And frustration.
If I were a theatre company, I’d call a retreat to hash out where, exactly, we are, where we want to go, and how we want to get there. Not seeking to put the breaks on the cycle, but to harness the momentum that’s been created to fire us off on a new, more energizing path. (In retrospect, the activity around my sister’s wedding – which forced me to turn down a couple of potential projects and focus on something else – was my retreat.)
I’ve been looking at my options. As with theatre, there are a couple of off-the-shelf models. I could go Commercial: maybe move to LA or New York and seek work in TV and film. I suppose the “Regional Theatre model” equivalent would be throwing myself whole hog into whatever the robust non-equity scene can offer me – taking paying gigs when I can get them but mostly allowing myself the luxury of working a whole lot while supporting myself with a day job.
What I discovered is that right now, my goal isn’t to get rich, or to even make much of a living. Nor is it simply to keep myself busy with projects. My goal, in fact, isn’t an achievable end – it’s more like a mission statement: I want to live as much of my life as I can pushing my creativity to its limits.
Sounds a little froofy, I know. But I have the only metric of success that matters in this case – a gut sense of how I feel when I am operating on full creative cylinders. And I know when I’m not. Over the past few years I’ve had a lot of opportunity to get a better sense of things that help, and things that hinder. A lot of them are personal habits, some of them aren’t. And like a good mission statement, having this clearly defined and understood goal allows me something against which to view all my options – and has forced me to make some hard decisions.
For instance: what’s my most valuable resource in terms of achieving my goal? Unlike theatre production, it ain’t necessarily money – it’s time. Time to read. Time to write.Time to think. Time to talk with friends and colleagues. Time to – god forbid – sleep. In that light, my day job – which pays me a fairly good amount of money for a near monopoly on my time and energy (as evidenced in this chart produced by the economists at GrubHub) may not be optimal. Further – the nature of the work I do 40 hours a week is not in my creative wheelhouse. So it behooves me to think about a revenue generating model that better supports my mission.
Asking those questions are how I take the froofy “live creatively” and turn it into clearly defined objectives:
- 6 month goals
- Aggressively pursue paid acting opportunities, explore agency representation for commercial and voiceover work
- Improve web development skills
- Build up savings
- Longer term goals
- Get more hands-on theatre management skills, especially in marketing and business management
- Explore paid writing possibilities, from article writing to transcripting services
- Build a web development portfolio and bid on projects
These objectives flow out of my mission, but none of them are my mission – and that’s an important distinction. My goal isn’t to get an agent, become a web designer, or work for a theatre – although I would like to do any or all of those things. My real goal is to engage with the world in a particular way, and I think these things – properly managed – can help me get to a place where I’m spending less time on things that don’t allow me to think and work creatively, and more time on things that do allow my to think and work creatively. All while, you know, not starving.
But of course, this isn’t the whole picture. We have (as a former boss would say) the lay of the land from 20,000 feet , and we’ve zoomed in a little closer to earth – but now we need street view. Changing one’s entire mode of living takes some massive changes, but no one can can magically “get an agent” or download web development skills into their head, Matrix-style – just like your theatre company can’t suddenly get another $40k in operating capital or increase audiences overnight. And constantly thinking about the size and scope of these big projects tends to paralyze. So you make tasks.
Each project gets tasks – and often subtasks – for each small step, for instance:
- Get an agent
- Send headshot mailing
- Talk to Julie about cover letters
- Research agencies
- Make agency mailing list
- Update resume
- Write cover letter draft
- Send draft to Julie and Eric
- Create cover letter final draft
- Get stamps
- Create labels
- Make packets with cover letter, headshot and resume
- Send mailing
- Send reminder postcards
- Personalize Touch postcards
- Create agency labels for postcards
- Send postcards (due in 2 weeks)
Not to get all Nick Keenan on you, but I’m not sure I’d have even been able to start taking on all this if it weren’t for the iPhone application Things.) The best part is, the way in which I’m executing my plan is already improving my quality of life. Having a plan from big idea down to day-to-day tasks allows me to be super productive and at the same time more relaxed than ever. I sit down at the times when I am most clear-headed, a
dd things, retool the order of tasks and set my goals for the week. And then each day, I don’t have to lug out the whole elaborate tapestry again – I look at my “to do next” and figure out what small thing I can get done in the time I have, and have faith that these small steps are taking me where I want to go. I get as much as I can get done while I’m energetic and, when I run out of steam, I can relax knowing I’m making progress in the right direction. It’s really, really great.
I’ve gotten a lot done in the last few weeks – got the aforementioned agency mailing out, gave official notice at work, and did the profoundly-unfun-but-wholly-necessary task of downloading all of my bank and credit card statements, taking a hard look at my expenses, and setting a budget that allows me to enjoy myself in moderation and save a good chunk of change over the last few months of steady paychecks. I’ve got a lot more to do next week, and the week after, and the week after. But today I’ll tick a few more things off, and then I’ll shut down the task list and crack open a few beers with friends in celebration of a birthday.
Maybe I can’t get this mission going – but at least I’ve got a goal, and a plan
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2 Responses to “Personal Economy”
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December 8th, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
It’s amazing how exciting life can get, when you figure out exactly, specifically what is it you want. Where you want to go, where you want to be. Defining a goal.
I read once that the difference between a dream and a vision is that a vision has actual steps. A path toward something.
Congratulations on your vision. And I’m glad I’m not the only one who uses the word ‘froofy.’
December 8th, 2008 @ 4:40 pm
Thanks, Lindsay! I’m still on the hunt for the word that – like the Chinese word linking ‘crisis’ and ‘opportunity’ – best characterizes the falling-out-of-a-plane feeling of excitement and terror that characterizes so much of my life right now. The closest I’ve gotten so far is, “Holy Shit!”