Creator v Chameleon

Happy Monday, {{first_name}} . Welcome back for installment #15 of this newsletter. Today I’ve got another essay on one of the many internal conflicts that arise for creators, as well as some personal action steps I took the past 7 days. Thanks for coming along!

Take a pause and think back for a minute or two. If you retrace your steps, when do you get to the point where you first realized you were a creator or builder? What was it that fed something into your soul that made you feel whole in a way you wanted to keep doing more of it? Was it playing an instrument? Building a project in school? Performing in a play? Freelance work for a friend or family?

During my season of change, I’ve posed this question to myself recently. I recall that time in elementary school when I won an award in literary contest for a short story I wrote. In middle school I fell in love with furniture building and woodworking in shop class. In high school, I sat in front of an analogue editing machine for the first time and cut a short video. I also spent the better part of senior year designing and building a scale replica of Castillo de San Marcos which was, if I may say, very impressive.

However, I think the one that affected me most in a way nothing had previously came over the course of a few years in college. I played baseball, and during my sophomore season I had a shoulder injury that kept me sidelined. I still maintained the team schedule, attended practices, went on road trips, etc. But I started taking a camera with me and casually photographing games. I was using my dad’s old Minolta 35mm and doing it just for fun. Over the course of the season I burned through a number of rolls of film and had an eye for composition, lighting, depth of field, etc. Something started to light up in me.

The following year, even though I was back in the pitching rotation, I did it again. But this time I had bought my own camera and a few lenses. Whenever I wasn’t starting, I was shooting. I took a lot more photos that season, and shot on slide film. At the end when we had our banquet including parents, family, girlfriends, etc, I put together a slide show of a couple hundred and timed it methodically to music (Travis Tritt, Incubus, and Hoobastank). I sat on the floor next to the projector manually advancing each one, keeping pace with the tracks.

Everyone loved it. They wanted copies of the photos. I came up with a numbering and ordering system and manually fulfilled all the pics people wanted. A few weeks later I delivered them to teammates. No doubt losing money on the deal, I didn’t care because it was a hit.

My senior year, I was even more intentional. This time I shot on standard film and digitized the slide show using power point with timed transitions. It was clunky af, but it worked. By the time the banquet rolled around, I had gotten it transferred to VHS and made dozens of copies. I also had loads of prints on hand of the pics from the video. Teammates had already started talking about it weeks prior and were excited to see a new season on the screen (this time featuring Creed, Three Doors Down, and Green Day).

Once again, it was a huge hit. And this time since I didn’t have to manually work the slide projector, I was more aware of the room as it played. That was the first time I saw that I could create an experience that captivated people and evoked emotions. It was incredibly gratifying and fulfilling.

I had a price sheet and envelope for money so parents and players could pony up on the spot afterward. And they did. Later that evening, my girlfriend (now wife) had counted it and excitedly informed me I'd collected hundreds of dollars—on top of the emotional validation.

I was hooked. I could do something I enjoyed, create an experience people loved, and get paid to do it.

That was 25 years ago. Fast forward through the decades, and I’ve maintained that same essence of creator-ship here and there. I’ve done work that has aligned with that same energy and result. But something else has also happened with more frequency. Over time I’ve traded some of the joy for stability. Originality for certainty. Authenticity for safety. My energy stopped pouring exclusively into creating and started directing itself at preserving.

I’ve mentioned the diversity of the roles I’ve held and industries I’ve worked in over the years. We’ve made multiple cross country moves to do it too. While on one hand that can be a natural progression, on the other it can also potentially be a defensive mechanism. Enter the chameleon.

As you look back on your first awakening and bridge the gap to today, have similar trends happened in your life?

The surface level comparison is obvious. Chameleons protect themselves with a color-shifting exterior as camouflage. They go from setting to setting and adapt how they appear to blend in. To maintain safety. But they also do something else unique.

A chameleon’s eyes move independently of one another. Their brains are constantly analyzing two separate images of their environment. In a manner of speaking, one eye can stay on creative desires and pursuits, the other on financial responsibility and security. One on individuality, one on belonging. One on fulfillment, one on longevity.

It clearly works for the reptilian brain a lot better than it does for the creative human. Because if you’re like me, that becomes a scrambled signal that’s hard to live in harmony with.

I do get it. We live in a world where taking care of our families and needs requires seasons of prudence. We have to slide into that reptilian role and do the thing that’s more bound to outcomes than our soul's desire. There’s a part of me that even feels selfish to admit the struggle. Who am I to deserve a life doing only what I love?

But at the same time, after changing to match so many environments, do we forget what our true color is? What we really look like in pure form?

I’ve chuckled a few times at the title of this piece, thinking of it like the Street Fighter arcade game with the classic voice over. If I hadn’t cancelled my Midjourney account I probably would have generated cover art as such.

Maybe viewing it as a battle isn't the most productive perspective. And I admit there’s an appropriate place for chameleon season in each of us. But, maybe there’s a time when the creator finally has the lizard dazed and defeated and we hear the exhilarating game voice declare “FINISH HIM!”

-Justin

There’s been a theme that keeps jumping out at me, which is - move. Stop perfecting and start pushing. Take action, especially when it’s uncomfortable.

Get your hands dirty and stop studying the soil.

Stop sharpening your axe and start swinging.

So over the past week I did that in three different areas:

I posted on LinkedIn for the first time in weeks. I struggle with it whenever I don’t feel like I’m 100% in my zone. But I took a minute to give an honest 4 month inventory of some things I’ve learned since I left my role. A lot of talk on there is about authenticity being the antidote to AI slop. Vulnerability leading to virality. It’s hella uncomfortable but it’s what I got.

In light of a small pivot I’m making, I rebuilt my personal domain with a new website. While i’m going to keep doing work on and with my wife at Charis, I’m broadening my sphere to offer similar work and services for other counselors and therapists on a larger scale.

Flying in the face of imposter syndrome, I also claimed my Every Expert profile by obtaining everyexpert.com/justin. At long last, I finally got a url/handle with simply my first name. But it had to come right next to the word “expert”, ha! (I also can’t believe Justin Welsh hadn’t claimed it for himself first) I’ll be tweaking it an recording a new video, but it’s live and open for business.