The man in the box

Why wooden sticks keep most creators stuck

I was walking a new route this morning when I heard something. It sounded like some kind of beast. I turned to my right and saw 3 cows in a pen. Looked like a dad, mum and a kid. They were knee deep in their own shit. It had been raining the night before so it was extra sloppy in there.

The cage was tiny. Made of wood. Just a few wooden sticks stuck in the ground really. They easily could’ve broken out of this thing. Trampled it down.

But they didn’t. They just wandered around, careful not to get too close to the sticks. They have no idea how close freedom is. One big push and they’re out. Part of me wanted to liberate them.

But maybe they don’t want freedom.

Maybe the box is safer. At least they know what’s inside.

Accused of Homophobia

Not long ago I was one of those cows. Buried in my shit. Except the box I was in? I’d created it myself.

When I first started writing online, I was writing about whatever I wanted.

I had one goal:

Expression.

My secondary goal was to teach. So I built a website on Squarespace. Started posting weekly blogs. I loved it.

I’d spent all week thinking about what I was going to write. Consuming books while I mowed lawns in my day job. Then on the weekend I’d just splurge it all out. 2 massive writing sessions. On Saturday, one Sunday.

The set up was elite:

2 packs of nicotine gum. Fasted. Caffeinated up to the eyeballs. I’d just go and go and go. The funniest part?

I would always run out of time and just post it as is. Zero technique. Zero “best practices”. Just pure expression. This is how things would usually go Sunday…

“Ah damn, it’s 8pm. I better just post it now”

Barely proof read it. No edit. Just hit publish and promote it to my Instagram audience. I got a lot of DMs every time I’d post. I’d wake up the next day to my inbox flooded. But I still had no real concept of how many people were actually reading.

But then one day I was having lunch with my work pals. Out of nowhere one of them just erupts at me.

“YOU FUCKING HOMOPHOBE”

“What? Homophobe?”

“I SAW WHAT YOU WROTE IN YOUR BLOG. YOU’RE DISGUSTING”

So yeah… turns out my takes were way too spicy for my Instagram audience where I was promoting my work (I think they’ve since calmed down, as have my takes).

At least people were reading it right?

So I pivoted to X (formerly Twitter – R.I.P).

My audience there was 0. I had to build it from scratch. And then I fell down the hole…

I Created My Own Prison

This part of the internet was called “Money Twitter” for a reason. It was fun, but it was like being at school. Everyone was competing. Bragging about how much money they were making. People were literally banging out 100s of comments a day in order to grow. I was one of them.

And I managed to break through the noise. But I still felt shit, especially when people 10 years younger than me were making 2x more (or so they claimed) than I was.

My response wasn’t to get out of this weird little rat race. It was the opposite… I doubled down. I got obsessed with all the money twitter bollocks.

30x comments a day. Posting my earnings. Competing.

I got hooked on marketing. I got hooked on outcomes. Don’t get me wrong, it was great watching the money go up. But it was shallow. Pyramid schemey. I was only attracting beginners because my content was literally a beginner bragging about how well he’s doing.

When I got some success, that’s when the real trap got me.

I felt I had to put myself in some kind of niche. Defined myself somehow.

I started viewing myself as “this guy”. “The copywriter.” “The marketer.” “The entrepreneur.” “The coach”. All limited identities which kept me stuck. Creatively. Financially. Spiritually.

Especially as each of those identities were tied to one metric: revenue.

As a copywriter, you’re judged by how much money you’ve generated. As a marketer you’re judged by how much revenue you’re making right now. As an entrepreneur you’re judged by how big your company is. As a creator you’re judged by how big your audience is.

I got caught up in all of it.

Labels That Make You Feel Shit

Those identities are fragile. When you’re not “winning” in those domains, you have a bad month, you lose clients… you feel like you’re tumbling – no CRASHING – down the invisible hierarchy of the creator economy. You’re a failure.

Fear and paranoia dominate your mind.

“…Everyone is going to know I’m a fake”

“…My engagement is down… am I losing my audience?”

“…I told them I made this much last month… this month isn’t that high…”

I was pinning my joy to some imaginary hierarchy no one gave a shit about.

Fragile. Dangerous. Foolish. Because when you lose – no one sees it – but you feel humiliated. Like a failure.

And in the process, I lost my way. Didn’t enjoy my work anymore. I felt trapped.

I’d built my own prison.

I’ve done that a lot in the past. Grabbed onto an identity which feels secure. That people can refer to me as. But they’re labels.

And really the whole time I was looking for one thing…

To make a living being MYSELF, not someone else.

But I wasn’t being myself at all…

Here’s what I learned from all of it:

You don’t need a niche. You need a spine.

The most profitable creators don’t fit categories. They go deep. Get obsessed. Read weird shit. They make it personal.

They become artists BEFORE they get the fame, the money, the status.

That’s the secret.

Identity Is The Cage

Those cows were in a cage of wooden sticks. Knee deep in their own shit. Turns out, so was I.

But my cage was the layers of fragile identities I’d piled on top of each other.

The problem wasn’t that I wasn’t able to sustain the old identity. The problem was that I was allowing it to imprison me. Keep me from expanding. Stuck in my own excrement.

On January 1st, I had a conversation with a friend who helped me realise I could break out of the cage I’d built.

He asked me one simple question:

“What do you really want to do?”

Without hesitation:

“I want to write screenplays”

I’ve since written that screenplay. But let me tell you what I realised from writing it… The first part of that statement is more accurate than the whole thing.

“I want to WRITE…”

And what that REALLY means is I WANT TO EXPRESS MYSELF.

When I was pretending to be a creator… a copywriter… an entrepreneur… a marketer… it was all bullshit. It was all preventing me from doing what I really wanted to do.

Create work I love. Help people. Show the world who I am.

F*ck the outcome.

I got into this game to write what I wanted to write about. Not to build funnels and flex my earnings on social media. I got into this to express myself. I got into this to create art.

I’m a writer. An artist. The metrics are subjective. The cage is gone.

They’re Still There…

I walked past those cows again this morning.

Still there. Still knee deep.

Still careful not to touch the wooden sticks.

I wanted to push them over myself. Show them how flimsy the cage is. How close freedom is.

But maybe they’re not ready.

Maybe the box feels safer.

The cage was never locked.

They just stopped pushing.

So did I.

Until January 1st.

One conversation. One question. One push.

The sticks fell over.

I’m out.

The question is: are you?

Most creators are standing in their own shit.

Not because they have to.

Because the cage feels familiar.

The copywriter. The marketer. The coach. The whatever-you-call-yourself.

Those aren’t identities.

They’re wooden sticks.

One push and they fall over.

But you have to want what’s on the other side.

You have to want expression more than safety.

Art more than outcomes.

Freedom more than the familiar cage.

Most people think you need 60-hour weeks to build a real business.

You don’t.

I’ve helped dozens of creators build Freedom Machines with just 3 hours a day.

Real revenue. Real freedom. Real life.

Like Tim told me yesterday:

“I’m finally living this now. I’ve had some massive realisations and I know exactly what I need to build.”

If you’re ready to push, I can help.

I work with creators 1-1 to build $10k+/mo Freedom Machines — real businesses that run on 3 hours a day.

Stay classy.

– DW