Hello!
I’ve spent the last three and a half weeks in beautiful Aotearoa New Zealand.
First, I had a good friend’s wedding.
Then, I hired a car and drove down the North Island to visit friends and family (including a two-month-old baby which was a special highlight).
Finally, I joined up with my key collaborators back in Auckland for some release parties for our TV show.
We dressed up like camp counsellors because the show is called Camp Be Better…
I’ve recently landed back in London after a 36 hour travel and am thrilled to be back. I’m currently taking stock of what to do next, considering the major project of my last year has now come to an end.
I’m entering the post-project-completion phase known as:
😱 The “WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE AND MY CAREER?” phase.
This is normal and expected, especially after such an intense project.
With this in mind, I stumbled upon a very fun and insightful activity that I’ve been excited to share with you!
🥇 Be the Only You
I watched a YouTube video from the How To Write podcast in which the host interviewed a tech writer called Kevin Kelly who said, “Don’t be the best, be the only”.
The concept is simple: Don’t waste time trying to be the best at anything. Instead, spend time being the only you. In order to do this, you should concentrate on being the you-est version of you possible.
This dude, Kevin Kelly, he has an awesome career. He founded Wired magazine, published 14 books, and now spends most of his time pursuing interests that have nothing to do with writing, like collecting taxidermy birds.
But finding the authentic you, it’s not as easy as doing a bit of soul searching. Kelly says:
It takes most of us, including me, most of our lives to arrive there, to figure out what that is … Most successful people’s lives have detours, backtracking, hard rights, dead ends, because they’re on a journey of finding out this really good thing.
How can we do this, find the traits that make us unique? My first thought was to interview myself, going through all the important memories of my past working projects and consider the trends… a lot of work. Luckily, there’s a tool for this kind of thing now.
🔮 Using ChatGPT to Delve Into My Creative Ego
When it comes to working with AI, the more specific your prompts, the better the results. With this in mind, my first message to ChatGPT was:
Hey ChatGPT, I have an idea. I want to get granular on how I work, what I’m good at and where I excel. I want to find how I can be the ‘only me’ in the most full way possible.
I want you to discover the specific traits and attributes that show who I am as a creator and collaborator and how that makes me unique. The purpose is to find my strengths and weaknesses about what makes me ‘me’ when it comes to storytelling.
I’d like to explore how I can be more authentic with my voice and the projects I spend time on moving forward. I’d like to focus on finding some key phrases that accurately express who I am and what I stand for when I tell stories.
How would you recommend we begin?
And ChatGPT, ever the obeying assistant, answered:
If you give me an overview of your experience—what you’ve done, what you’ve enjoyed or hated, where you’ve felt in flow vs. where you’ve felt friction—that can give us a big picture to start pinpointing your key traits.
Then, I will ask you some thought-provoking questions, and through your answers, we can identify the personal strengths, work preferences, and areas where you excel or struggle.
Does that sound good to you?
It sure did sound good. So, after a wrote a brief history of my creative life, from when I graduated Film School to the current day, ChatGPT responded with ten surprisingly insightful questions that related to my specific projects. It also gave me a taster of its psychoanalysis aptitude:
Thanks for laying out your history—there’s a lot to work with here! From what you’ve shared, I’m already seeing certain patterns: resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, adaptability, and a drive for creative independence. You’ve also shown that you’re comfortable wearing multiple hats, which is a key strength, but I’m going to dig a bit deeper so we can get more specific.
When I got that response, I got excited. Not only was ChatGPT’s initial thoughts about me accurate (of course I thought this because it was being complimentary), but the next ten questions it asked were even more nuanced. This could work!
The next questions were open-ended and varied, concentrating not only on how I worked as a creator, but also about the specific type of work I enjoyed making, such as:
What’s your relationship to structure and planning? For example, do you thrive under deadlines or prefer a more open-ended, flexible creative process?
and
In terms of visual storytelling, what specific imagery or types of moments stick in your head the longest? Do you find yourself obsessed with certain motifs, symbols, or shots? What do you want the audience to feel or experience visually when watching your work?
I took my time and answered each of the questions in as much detail as I could. I knew that I’d get better results with the more detail and honesty I answered, so I took a break and made a coffee, then got back into it. All up, I spent over twenty minutes typing almost non-stop.
📊 The Results
I hit Enter and watched the screen fill up with ChatGPT’s long and detailed response. Its analysis was broken down into Strengths, Challenges, Key Themes, and Creative Voice — each with multiple bullet points about how I worked and what seemed important to me.
I was only interested in Creative Voice, but I felt like we’d only scratched the surface. I asked for more granular questions:
That is a great summary. Ask more questions that will more deeply centre in on the nuances that make me a unique storyteller. The more granular and specific we can be, the better.
So, more questions came. And, after spending more time, my answers followed. Long screeds of psychoanalysis and verbose management-speak about the way I liked to work. I wanted to boil these down, so I asked:
Give me 3-5 key phrases that encapsulate not only WHAT I make, but also HOW I work. I will think of these as my Core Creative Traits.
The suggested phrases it spat out felt good, but lofty:
- Sharp, Fast, and Character-Driven
- Playfully Challenging Social Hierarchies
- Resourceful and Raw
- Humour and Heart
I wanted to make it even cleaner. I wanted my Core Creative Traits to be single words. After going back and forth, condensing and going through lists of synonyms, I settled on these:
- Optimistic
- Responsive
- Witty
- Provocative
Nice and clean! I dig these words. They feel good. Not only do they describe the type of work I like, but they also represent traits that I like to exhibit in my personality.
When I look at the Seen in Silverbridge series and consider the above words, it all fits:
- Optimistic — I always have a happy ending, and the series itself is about truth vs. corruption
- Responsive — One of the things I’m best at is rolling with any kind of punches that are thrown my way, whether that be crazy deadlines or a tiny budget
- Witty — Luce’s dialogue is especially sardonic, and the banter between the main four characters is often mentioned in reviews as readers favourite parts
- Provocative — The series deals with class, corrupt media, sexual relationships, and murder.
They fit!
🤷 Now What?
Okay, so now I have four words that represent my core creative traits. So what?
Well, I lean into them. I frame myself as an optimistic, responsive, witty and provocative person who likes to make optimistic, responsive, witty and provocative work.
Whenever a project presents itself, I take a second to think: Does this project align with my core creative traits?
Not only did I find the activity fun, I found it a profound experiment of self-discovery. It was a guided reflection of my career to date, and I feel like I got some clarity about who I am and what I want to continue putting my energies into. I’m going to use the four words as a sort of career compass from now on.
I’m back in London and the jetlag is starting to fade. It costs money to live here so I need to find work. What kind of work is it gonna be? I’m not in a place in my career where I can pick and choose, but now I have these four words to use as guidance as I hunt down the next project.
⌨️ Do It Yourself
I highly recommend doing this exercise yourself. Here is the prompt I used to get things started for you to copy paste into ChatGPT and adjust to your liking.
Hey ChatGPT, I have an idea. I want to get granular on how I work, what I’m good at and where I excel. I want to find how I can be the ‘only me’ in the most full way possible.
I want you to discover the specific traits and attributes that show who I am as a creator and collaborator and how that makes me unique. The purpose is to find my strengths and weaknesses about what makes me ‘me’ when it comes to storytelling.
I’d like to explore how I can be more authentic with my voice and the projects I spend time on moving forward. I’d like to focus on finding some key phrases that accurately express who I am and what I stand for when I tell stories.
How would you recommend we begin?
I look forward to hearing what you find out — let me know by replying to this email!
📣 Shout Out to: Camp Be Better
Camp Be Better is a six-part comedy show made in New Zealand, co-written, co-directed and edited by me (under a different name).
For those of you who are living in New Zealand, show Camp Be Better is available now to watch on TVNZ+. It’s also screening on TV2 on Friday nights.
I feel bereft at having finished this project and hope we can make a second season sometime soon!