Trust...

What's very interesting to me about a life in the arts and/or as a preacher/communicator is the degree to which trust is, truly, your stock in trade.

If you're a preacher, people trust you to deliver something that's true, faithful to Scripture, theologically sound, historically grounded and currently relevant to them and their cultural context.  Ultimately, the people listening to you 'trust' that you've (and this might be a bit esoteric for some of you...) 'heard from God', for them...'

Pretty heavy stuff.

And if you're the preacher you trust that God exists, that the Bible is what it says it is, that the inputs you've studied and absorbed over your life that are influencing your interpretation and application are 'the ones God (in His Omniscience) intended...' and that the Holy Spirit actually exists, inspired what you're reading and is doing the same to you as you write something 'trustworthy' from it for your people.

Say you're in TV or in the movies...

If you're one of the lucky ones who gets to produce something that's actually going to find its way to an audience, your audience is believing for much the same from you as it is from the preacher.  They trust you to entertain them, to take them away, to inform them, to move or inspire them, to (ultimately) not waste their time because time is the one thing none of us can get any more of.

So you, the storyteller, trust 'the process' (and how crazy is that, by the way?) and believe that you're going to be 'inspired' (however that works for you) to create something that fits the above.  Then you've got to trust your abilities and then leverage that trust into confidence that breeds the ability to draw people to work with you, then, once THAT monstrous task is done, you've got to trust them to apply their gifts/sensibilities to making your dream a reality.

Pretty heavy stuff.

Say you're neither a preacher nor a filmmaker.

Well then, here's how it might work for you...

You trust your wife to love you.  You trust God (or whoever/whatever you believe is in charge) to help you find a wife, make healthy babies, be able to raise them etc.  You trust your teachers to prepare you for College and your Professors to prepare you for the real world.  Then, when you reach the real world and realize most of what you've learned is completely useless, you trust in your ability to find your way through to learning how to make a living.

You trust your baker not to poison you.

You trust your country to not devalue its currency to the point of bankrupting you.

You trust the pilot not to crash you.

You trust your Doctor to know how to heal you.

You trust your banker not to rob you.

(It just occurred to me that we don't contemplate our extreme vulnerability that much, otherwise it'd stress us into incapacity)

"So the point of all this is...?"

You have no choice but to trust, so you might as well embrace it and take risks worthy of you.

Follow that story line through to its logical conclusion even if you're worried it's going to suck. Make that cold-call even though you might get rejected.  Kiss that girl.  Ask for that raise. Pursue that dream.  Write that sermon believing (truly believing) in the unseen.  Make that investment, quit that job, write that screenplay, pitch that movie, plant that church, buy that engagement ring.  Get that house.

There is no other way to live but to be neck deep in the need to trust.

The sooner you admit it and start acting on it, the sooner you'll be on your way to the cliff's edge and that's where life gets really interesting.

T

We're not in Kansas (Winnipeg) anymore...

Baby.

No we're not.

See that photo up there?  Pretty cool right?  That's the 'library room' at the Pantages Hotel in the heart of downtown Toronto with yours truly front and center.

(Pretty egocentric of me if I do admit so myself)

So here's why.

I never (NEVER) would have been able to do what I did today in my 'past lives' as a TV producer.  Never would have been able to rent a totally awesome space in a totally chique hotel downtown in which to conduct six interviews in a row for a 'guesting coordinator' on a show I'm producing.

We were always a little more of the 'do it yourself' variety.

I remember season three of 'FREETV', my last talk show, produced in Winnipeg Manitoba, shot there because we were able to get a good deal for studio facilities and crew.  Getting off the plane for the first week of shooting I stepped out of the terminal into minus 35 weather and nearly turned around to hop the nearest plane to somewhere, anywhere, sunny.

No kidding the studio has 'availability', it's THRITY FIVE DEGREES BELOW ZERO!

At the studio to start shooting, I settled into five days of darkness.

I'd wake up and paper edit all day, watching hours of 'streeters' (people reacting to issue-based questions) and writing down the timecode references for our editors to work with later.  Then, two hours before the shoot I'd head back to the 'in-studio suite' (no windows) and prepare the food for the night.  

Yes, I was producer/host/craft services dude.

I'd prep the food (which I'd bought previously) then stack all the food I'd prepped, then walk it into the studio, then walk back to the windowless suite, take a quick shower, then put on my 'I'm a television host' clothes, then head to the studio, meet our guests, schmooze our in-house band, then shoot six episodes in a row.  Then, once we'd wrapped (at 1:00am or so...) I'd clean up the food, throw out the garbage, wash the dishes, put on my pj's then go back to the edit suite to paper edit the next day's shows 'till four in the morning then stumble back to the windowless suite and fall into bed before doing it all again.

Not glamorous.

I think I went out once.  Minus thirty.  We drove ten minutes over frozen streets (they don't bother salting the roads in Winnipeg 'cause it's just to dang cold...) to a 'Boston Pizza' and that was our 'big outing'.  "Coors Light" never tasted so good, which just goes to show you what despair will do to a guy.

So, don't believe the hype.  Breaking into TV is no picnic.

That's why today was such a treat.

I walked in, and they had a bevy of beverages waiting for me (on ice) that I hadn't prepped, and a totally cool couch (that I hadn't lugged into place) backed by a totally cool floor to twenty-foot-ceiling bookcase (that I didn't have to barter from Pier One), and wireless (for twenty five bucks, which I had for a change...), and world music on the PA, and light pouring through the twenty foot windows to my right and six people coming to see if they could worth with me.

It was pretty awesome.

And I was just plain thankful.

(I feel so very privileged to be doing what I'm doing)

It's stressful sure.  The stakes are high, but I feel that they've always been high except that this time I actually have some resources to deploy to help the right people do the right things to make some memorable, inspiring, worthwhile TV.

You know, TV that tells stories that can change a person, make them believe in 'the good', 'the light', 'the hope', help 'em feel that if they put their mind to it they can pursue their dreams and find fulfillment and provision along the way.  Remind 'em that sometimes windowless holes in a depressing studio in a summer-forsaken city can turn into glass and steel and a 'chique' downtown with a thankful dude who fired himself from 'craft services' sitting smack dab in the middle of it wondering how the heck this happened.

Sometimes.

T

The lonely road...

How'd Tolkein put it?

"The road goes ever on and on down from the door where it began, and I must follow if I can, pursuing it with weary feet until it joins some larger way where many paths and errands meet, and whither then?  I cannot say..."

Somethin' like that.

What's beautiful about it is the honest melancholy.  It's just this damn long journey.  

So tiring.

I was in Vancouver over the weekend, working.  We were shooting some visuals for one of my new shows... 

('my show'=a show I'm producing or producing/directing not that I 'own' the show in and of myself...c'mon, cut a nigga' some slack [and I'm listening to Jay-Z as I write and he's the one throwing the 'n' word around as a casual moniker so who says he can use it and I can't?] anyway...) 

Let's try that again:

(I was in Vancouver over the weekend, working.  We were shooting some visuals for one of my new shows) and I kept feeling haunted.  Haunted because when you're out shooting  you're looking, and if you're worth your salt your looking is 'seeing' and if you're seeing then you can't help but be assaulted by all the sadness in the world.

What kept hitting me is how desperate everyone is to make money.

It's the hook of every conversation, the nexus of almost every relationship, the purpose behind most activities.  Why else is the pretty blonde waitress smiling at me?  (Well, yes, because I'm devastatingly handsome now that my Executive Producer is making me grow my hair back ["The ladies love you with hair..." was exactly how he put it I think...]) 

No.

She's smiling at me 'cause she knows that if she's nice, and just a little bit flirty, I'll tip her more.  And she's right.  "It's all about the Benjamin's baby..."

And the weight of it, of the 'earning imperative', put me into a funk really.

I've often wondered what the world would be like if we didn't have to earn a living.  But then I got to thinking, as I was walking through the hotel lobby alone, that this is how Britney (or whatever depressed celeb you want...) or Heath might have been feeling.  See, I was at a nice hotel, I had money to buy food, I had a job and nice clothes, nothing to worry about really even though I don't got a hundred million kicking around.  Not much difference 'tween me and them 'cause once you're up off the poverty line you're a person of privilege no matter which way you slice it.  Thing is, the two guys I was shooting with had gone out for dinner with these two girls that used to attend my Church.  I was asked out to dinner too but felt conflicted about it.  

Why?

Well, 1) because I was tired and knew that if I went I'd regret it and be a real pill 'cause I should have just gone to sleep.  But, 2) I didn't want the girls to feel disrespected like I could care less about seeing them.  So that was a real tension.  But then again, it's not like it's out of character for me to pass up a social opportunity in favor of hitting the sack.  I tend to keep to myself a bit.  

Then one of the dudes I was with laid it on me.  "It's not like after the initial 'niceness' of saying 'hi' after three years, that you're going to have anything to talk about anyway..."

And I felt so rejected.

"Nobody's got nothin' to say to me.  Holy crap!"

And I felt 'bad', not 'mopey', so don't feel sorry for me or feel like I'm whining 'cause I'm not. It's just that the enormity of it really hit me as I realized I've brought this on myself because I typically keep to myself.

So I lay there in the dark thinking I'm lonely and so's everybody else.

(I mean, sure, they were with people, having dinner so they were staving it off a bit just now...) 

But, it's not that far from there to here, y'know?  Lonely is our condition.

"And I must follow if I can..."

Sooner or later you got a road to follow.  Just you.  'Aint nobody going to walk it with you. 

Then I start thinking about my wife, and that reminds me that I'm not totally alone and I'm thankful for marriage a second but then I realize that, 1) my experience of a happy marriage is not necessarily universal and 2) there's still the loneliness of my thought life.  Wifey can't get inside my brain and, if you're like me at all, you spend a lot of your day thinking about things and that means you spend a lot of the day alone.

Then I realized I'm missing God a bit.

(and that's due, in large part, to the poverty of my 'Church experience' since retiring from my Church...)

The fortunate thing is that The Presence is only a 'fourth wall' away and I can press through that pretty easy.

"Hello Lord.  Todd here.  Miss You.  Can I breathe You a bit?  Glory.  You make glorious fir trees.  Mountains.  Glory.  Yes.  My wife is glorious.  Love You.  Thank You for my babies.  I love You.  Breathe.  Damn but that ocean smells glorious.  You.  Glory.  Breathe..."

It's not that hard.  

Then it hit me that all the people around me probably feel like me.  They're tired and lonely. Their lives feel like a rat race.  They feel alone.  They feel stressed.  They need money.  Such despair.

So how do you hug the world?  How in the hell do you tell them to 'breathe The Glorious' without pushing them away 'cause they think you're a texan right-wing nutjob?

In little bits.

You take the thing you do and infuse it with the life and the hope and the purpose and the peace and the glory.

People love that shit.

Glory.  Peace.  Purpose.  Hope.  Life.  Infusion.

WHOOO!

Gimme' that.

I need that more than I need money.  I don't really need money.  It's just a construct.  Blue pill? Red pill?

Jesus pill.

Mmmmmm.

That magic is the stuff you put in your stories.  That hope is the throughline you put in your show, your script, your picture, your sermon.

Hope.

Jesus pill.

Then you write it the way Tolkein sometimes switched it up to:

"...pursuing it with eager feet..."

Yes.  The eager feet.  How do you get the 'eager feet'?  That's the question the whole world's askin'...

Including me.

T

Compensation...

So one of the guys I'm working with on one of our new shows was asking me some questions about money today and it got me thinking.

What are you worth?

And more to the point, who determines it?

I mean, even writing this I'm hearing various and sundry 'motivational speakers' telling me that I'm worth what I decide that I'm worth.  A 'whatever you can dream you can be...' kind of thing. The thing is, is it true?  Who decides?

We were watching 'American Idol' (yes, it's true...) tonight and the lingering thing that the wife and I keep coming back to is the fact that so many people think they're good, but they suck. Like, really and truly awfully suck.  And the sad (honestly sad) thing about it is that they have no idea.  People have lied to them, told them they're good when they're not, given them false hope.

And that can strike terror in your heart, no?

'Cause, at some level, each of us longs to be something more--a better version of us, closer to who we think we've been made to be.

But who's to say we're not deluded like the sorry small town fools on AI?  

And they tell you to have a 'fallback plan' but it's always seemed to me that if you can think your way clear of your calling enough to select a backup plan you probably don't really have the 'thing' it takes to 'make it'.

(the truth is every bus driver I pass I wonder if they always wanted to be a bus driver...)

And here's where we get to the money...

Getting to the point of 'making it' takes sacrifice, perseverance, dedication and a 'phase' (of whatever length) of being undervalued.  You have to work for free at first, then for less than you'd like, then for less than you're worth, maybe always for less than you'd want.

I did five seasons of national talk television for next to nothing.  I mean, I made some money the first season, but after that not a thing for the last four years.  When we planted our first Church, we lived off our home equity for the first year!

How hard is that?

And it was.  I mean, really hard.  Doing the grueling, non-glamorous, work of producing a talk-television series--for free.  There were certainly some dark moments, but all the way through, whenever I had to do a 'gut check' I'd come back to asking myself if I loved what I did.  I always answered 'yes' so I kept at it.  And I always believed that someday the work would 'pay off'.

Then the kids started coming.

And the question was still the same;  "Do I really want to do this?" with the now-added  "How long can I afford to do this for free?"  Then one day I read a quote from Robert McKee, a screenwriting guru.  He said that (paraphrasing here) at some point a writer (insert your particular creative/entrepreneurial discipline here) must begin making his/her living from their work.  I decided right there I'd start finding ways to get paid for my craft and that I'd quit my 'day-job' (even if it wasn't a really a true day-job).

That decision was four years ago.  Four very insecure, uncomfortable years.

I just accepted that at some point you have to take the leap, quit the day job and see if you really have what it takes to 'make it'.  And the cold hard truth seems to be that 'making it' means that someone is willing to pay you to do what you would (and have) otherwise do for free.

But how long do you have to work for free?  

You have to work for free until you can make yourself 'essential' enough that they have to pay you.  But I think there's always a fine line.  I think you have to keep the 'love' until, then even after, you're getting paid.

I totally understand wanting to get paid for what you do (believe me, I do...) but then again I keep getting 'entitlement flashbacks' related to some of the nastier union types I've had to work with in show biz, or (to be fair) the 'so full of themselves no payment would ever be enough' producers, or talent I've run into over the years and I gotta' say that those types have always left me feeling cold.  I don't want to be like them.

I want to keep the love.

('cause it's the love that I love and [really honest here] it's the love that people want and will pay for...)

And what occurs to me is that it helps (me) to remember that no one 'owes' me anything.  I don't 'deserve' anything really.

If you can stand getting biblical for a second, the creation story tells us that as a consequence for sin we've been cursed.  We have to work, or toil, to survive.  There is no rest, no peace, no easy road for us anymore because of rebellion way back at the beginning.  So I have no right to expect anything.  I don't deserve my paycheck, I should be thankful for it.

But how hard a balance is that to strike?

I believe we should be paid for our work yet we should remember not to feel entitled, 'cause eventually no one will want to work with us anymore.

(hasn't every 'entitled person' you've ever met made you want to punch them?)

So I started out working only for the love of it.  Then, as I built some small momentum, I began to ask to be paid for doing the thing I loved.  Then, for years, we ( my glorious wife, the genius money handler...) found a way to live on less than we needed while we continued to believe that someday the money would start to make more sense.  Then, at right about ten years into it, we started to earn a mostly-respectable income in return for what we did.

Then I directed my first feature-film, and I won't even go into what that did to my 2007 finances...

(And please keep in mind, dear reader, that my 'leap into the unknown' of filmmaking was from the 'oh so lucrative' business of planting/pastoring a downtown Church full of near-broke 'I'm still finding myself' young adults.  Not like we had a 'nest egg' y'heard?)

And they say it takes ten years to 'find your way' into earning a living by doing what you do, regardless of your particular industry.  Some hit it quicker, some slower.

I think, in the creative world, you have to work that balance of staying positive, and willing to contribute even when you feel undervalued so that the people you work with come to rely on you and respect you so that, when the money in play increases in amount, you can ask for a more respectable piece of it.  And the truth is, most of the time, I only get a third to fifty percent of what I ask for but at least it's a third to fifty percent of something instead of what used to be my 'customary nothing'.

And if they don't treat you right you have to reserve the right (and have the courage) to say 'no thanks' and walk away.

Can you do that?  Do you have the skill/talent/body of work to walk and still make it?

If you do, then good for you.  If you don't, you have to keep working at whatever income level until you have a body of work that will let you get more work.

'Cause you know what they say...

"You're only as good (or as paid) as your last one."

T