The Question That Will Save Your Career

Merry Monday mariners,

As the 5th week of our journey comes over the horizon, it’s the time when many of us voyagers fall into a valley.

Our creativity stumbles, views stall, and overall motivation stagnates. But have no fear, Dr. Oulashin leads the way on how to climb back up.

Your first piece of content is always cringey. If you haven’t made content before, sorry in advance. But if you have, you know what I’m talking about.

It’s the summer of 2009. I’m 12 years old, and two catastrophic things were about to happen: I was going to be “the new kid” at a middle school for the arts, and purchase a fancy new Flip camera.

From a couple of orientation nights, I had met some of my peers at this new school. They weren’t like the others - they were artsy, creative, and more importantly, had YouTube channels. My middle school survival instincts kicked in - “How will I make a lasting impression?” Somehow, I landed on this idea:

Make a music video. (Strap in, this one’s a doozy)

I’d already been dabbling in video making and editing, how hard could it be? At home, I pulled out the fancy new camera, donned my reflective shades, and the coup de grâce: a clip-on tie. 

The rest, as they say, is history (or in this case, me reacting to it 11 years later).

It worked! The fruits of my labor paid off, and I was accepted as not just the new kid, but the new… cool kid.

Had I not moved schools and gotten a new camera, I wouldn’t be writing this today. This medium allowed me to be seen, to stand out, and ultimately, loved. And it all began from my insecurities going into a new school.

Knowing this “why” is the very thing that keeps me going today. So… why do you want to make content?

We talk a lot about peaks and valleys in this newsletter. Last week I was on a peak! In Miami and New York City, creating multiple pieces of content, being extremely productive…

Today, I am in a valley. Woke up late, scrolled TikTok for an hour and haven’t put out a good story for about two days.

But luckily, every time I’ve been in a valley – I always go back to this moment:

This is a short trailer of the club I was a part of, in high school. To paint the picture – this club was so new that it didn’t even have a formal location. So, I decided to allow my team to come over to my HOUSE every single day to help build that humongous machine. The byproduct… I got to hang out with 20 of my best friends all the time.

One day early in the season, I recorded a small clip of the progress of the machine. This led to recording funny moments of people in the club, which then led to me recording every milestone and eventually piecing together a 20-minute documentary for the End Of The Year Bonfire.

I didn’t think much of it, but when showing my club this Windows-Movie-Maker’ed edit, the room flooded with emotions. Nostalgia, laughter, crying, anger (there may or may not have been a couple of stolen parts in the machine).

This is when I found my “why.” Visual storytelling is a superpower, you can make people feel anything. So when a valley inevitably hits, I go back to this moment and it never fails to bring back creative energy.

The “why” is quintessential. Creative output without direction is burnout. And voyagers, we all have been there – burnout sucks.

Well, looking back on it now I had zero idea. But back then, I felt I could out-gross Tarantino at the box office. 

At age 12, I shot a short film of a water fight ingeniously entitled, wait for it, Water Fight. Fit with VFX muzzle flashes, character intros, slow motion, and surprisingly funny comedic timing, Water Fight was the magnum opus of my 12-year-old career.

In fact, the three-minute film was the first time the finished product resembled anything even close to what I’d visualised. An achievement so great, that maybe it snowballed into me writing this - nine years later. 

Whenever inevitable slumps, dips, and full kicks to the crotch arrive in the form of empty motivation, it’s helpful to remember where we came from. For me, it was the era of: 

Discuss an idea at lunch break, shoot it after school, picture lock by tea time. 

And yes, creating as an adult in the industry means higher stakes, client expectations and much slower turnarounds. But that childlike wonder of making stuff and seeing it come to life is still well and truly within me today. 

After all, this is still the best job in the world.

Let us know in the comments: Are you in a peak 🏔 or a valley 🕳? We’ll respond to every single one 🤝.

An excerpt from our shared document where we initially type out our articles:

D: yooo currently in an ASDA car park while my mum buys tomato’s 

S: what is an ASDA parking lot??

D: picture a walmart but classy 

T: Me MUM, is ya mum also picking up some Tea-h and some f-esh n’ cheps and cwumpets lad

D: oi shut your chomper you little scrubby c*** my dad works for microsoft he’ll get u banned

D: shall we include this in the bottom of the article