Note From Tongal: “Re-evaluate Who Is In Your Corner” is part of a series of Tongal Community-written blog posts that were originally sourced in the Tongal Blog Open Call Project. Read more Tongal Community-written posts here and then Pitch us a topic you'd like to write about for the Tongal Blog!
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Love may be in the air, but how about unconditional support?
You are a creative force. You are prone to late-night work sessions, dazing off into space, and accumulating small notebooks like they’re free candies in a waiting room. And you need a good support system; people that are in your corner, on your team, rooting for you to succeed in your dream. But membership in your inner circle is not a lifetime appointment and from time to time it's extremely worthwhile to re-evaluate who is in your corner.
First off: the usual suspects, a.k.a the ones who are on the payroll. This may be the agent, manager, lawyer, publicist, business manager/accountant, etc. These folks are financially tied to your success and should be responsive to your calls and emails. That's the bare minimum. If they are not doing that, then they need to go, but replies are not necessarily contributions to your career. I'm not going to advise any further on when it's time to switch representation. All that I'll say is to take a beat and be sure to add them to your lineup whenever you decide it's time to get critical about your corner.
Remember all those projects you did and the people you met along the way? Peers and collaborators that sometimes find their way into the friend’s column of your life? The ones you email when you have something worth showing? Any art form comes with a competitive industry. For every “Like” on your social media status update about your career, there’s three times as many people out there mashing the imaginary “Dislike.” Jealousy is a very real rampant disease and your inner circle is not immune to it. Friends become foes and don’t always announce that they will be withdrawing their support. If you can spot it early, you can save yourself some trouble and heartbreak, but keep them around too long, and their negativity can manifest itself in countless destructive ways to your own trajectory.
Be wary of the ones that are only there for you in the good times. Make sure your corner is comprised of those who stick around in low moments. Through thick and thin. The only thing that spreads faster than jealousy is phoniness. The fake bandwagon obviously overflows when your stock is rising and it’s your preference if you want to let them hitch a ride for a couple of miles. But when that first wheel falls off, the ride is going to get extra bumpy. Trimming the fat when the going is good takes a special kind of discipline, but it’s a healthy exercise to ensure that everyone around you has the purest of intentions and your best interests in mind.
Another integral part of your support system is the mentors. You know, the ones that are much further along in their career or a former boss. Someone you contact for focused advice when you’re in a pinch, have a question or are at a crossroads in your career. Over the years, their counsel may have been invaluable to you, but mentors are also susceptible to an expiration date.
Sometimes mentors stop giving advice or even trickier they stop giving good advice. And I’m not talking about not replying to a query. People get busy, or they are on a deadline, or they have a personal issue arise, it happens. I’m referring to the mentor who is no longer interested in being a part of your support system and is reluctant to articulate this to you for whatever reason. And there’s a variety of causes and almost all of them are not necessarily any kind of wrong-doing on your part (unless you’re incessantly contacting them about unimportant matters, then that’s one hundred percent your fault).
Sometimes it’s as simple as you worked together too many projects ago, and their bandwidth to mentor is at capacity. Other times it’s because they hold on closely to the snapshot of when they met you. Maybe you were introduced to them as a young snot-nosed assistant and now you stand firmly in a completely different place in your career, but they can’t see past your initial time spent together. So their advice isn’t relevant, or they are incapable of taking your inquiry seriously because they don’t accept you in your current role.
Bye, mentor! Time to go. If this sounds like someone in your corner, then next time you’re purging your support system, it might be best to take him or her out of the rotation.
Remember, these are the people you are going to occasionally lean on in your creative pursuits. These are coveted spots in your life; treat them with care, and have the confidence to know they are worthy of evaluation. If your inner circle doesn’t look the same as it did five years ago, that’s perfectly okay, that’s growth. That means that you and the other person are customizing those slots, it might even mean that the other person re-evaluated their corner before you had a chance to. That’s okay too.
But now you know, go ahead, unlock your phone, reorganize your favorite numbers, and your career will thank you.
[Editor’s Note: Once you have re-evaluated your inner circle, you may find that there’s room for some new collaborators or friends. May we suggest Tongal’s Crew Finder? Crew Finder is a great way to connect with other like-minded creatives and crew up for your next shoot.]
