While most of my year is spent working through life and business at a somewhat comfortable rate, it seems that every year, almost in a rhythm, I find myself inevitably bunkering down for weeks or months at a time, working on the “next new big thing” that’s going to push the trajectory of my career in this creative field forward.
First, it was preparing to launch myself out of my old career. The next year, it was designing my life in my new career. The next year after that, it was writing my first book. And the year after, my second book.
And this year, it’s my first course. Masterclass. Course. Whatever. They’re the same thing.
It seems that as the years go by, the “next new big thing” for me seems to get bigger and bigger; more research, more effort, more ambition—it happened unintentionally and organically, but it’s a beautiful thing.
This “next new big thing” really took it out of me. I’ve been planning to do this course for years now at this point. I spent months working on the structure and script, months filming and editing and finessing. Hundreds and hundreds of hours from end-to-end. It’s a good thing the latter part of the creation process also occurred during the 107 days of lockdown here in Sydney. It definitely filled up the time.
But now, it’s done. And as I finally exhale from the finished product, doing a retrospective on the process reveals a lot of things about myself I only somewhat assumed to be true.
I’ll save those learnings for sharing later, but the short of it is that for my first go at making a full-on, top-to-bottom, comprehensive course, I’m both incredibly proud of myself, and I also think I may be addicted to this process.
There’s something about the anticipation of impact; this feeling I have where the thing I’ve worked so hard on for so many months is about to get released into the world. It’s a thing that I know has so much value. A thing that I know has the potential for real impact to someone’s creative career. It’s a great feeling.
I went into making this course with an idea of what I wanted out of it. But somewhere along the way I was so deep in the weeds I forgot all about it—the original intention of making this course in the first place; it was to be useful to people. To be of service. To have an impact on a photographer’s journey.
And in the re-realisation of this idea, the potential of it all makes me childish with excitement, and all even before a single soul has yet to see this Masterclass aside from me.
It’s because I know that this thing that I’ve made this year, well, it’s the most value-laden and information-rich product I’ve ever made, period.
It’s something that I’ve poured my heart and soul into, and while it’s my first go at making a course, it most certainly isn’t going to be my last. Far from it.
Even before anyone has even seen it, the idea, and now the journey, of condensing all of my knowledge into a “single value bomb” is now an idea I’ve become somewhat obsessed with, and while this course has been years’ in the making, my next years will be spent making new courses.
But for now, here we are, at the doorstep of a new journey. 24 hours before the release of my new Lightroom Editing Masterclass; the “next new big thing” from me.
I’m giddy with excitement right now, and I hope you’re as excited to master Lightroom as much as I’m excited to have a helping hand in your journey.
See you in the Masterclass.
