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