a little backstory.

It was the summer of 2018 when I realized, once again, I needed to reinvent myself. Not just a slight pivot, but a complete reevaluation of how I communicated my skill set to the world. For years, I had labeled myself as a filmmaker, which felt true at first. But, over time, I realized I was doing far more than that. Sure, I directed music videos, commercials, and feature films. I launched ad campaigns and headed entertainment divisions. But even as I wore all these hats, the identity of ‘filmmaker’ became a box I had outgrown. The world didn’t just need filmmakers anymore—it needed creators, thinkers, problem-solvers, and hustlers.

I had to ask myself, “What exactly am I?” I wasn’t just one thing. I was a filmmaker, a producer, a photographer, a designer, a content creator—a complete creator. And that realization didn’t come easily. It came messy, clumsy, and wild, like most things worth doing. I had to figure out how to position myself in a way that showed not just my skill set, but my adaptability, my ability to jump into the chaos and bring something out of it.

Looking back, I never had the luxury of being precious about my identity. My whole career has been based on diving into what felt like a suicide mission—jobs no one else wanted, projects that seemed doomed from the start. That’s where I found my comfort zone. I didn’t step into roles where I thought, “Yeah, I’ve got this.” No, I’ve always taken the ones where everyone agreed it was going to fail. That’s where I felt I could add the most value—when the odds were against me.

Over the years, something began to crystallize: anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Most of the time, anything worthwhile looks messy, difficult, and chaotic from the outset. But in a marketplace full of people trying to sell perfection—clean, organized, well-planned out solutions—I saw the truth: they were all failing. The ones selling polished professionalism were falling flat because, in the end, nothing important is ever clean.

This is where I had to pause and reflect on my journey. For so long, I questioned whether I was just being reckless, the rogue disrupting the professionals, or even disrespecting the process. It felt like I was always the odd one out—the one who refused to follow the well-worn paths, always flying by the seat of my pants. My friends who were methodical, organized, and professional seemed to look at me like I was crazy. And I can’t say I didn’t wonder the same thing at times.

Was I just an anarchist in disguise, someone who had no respect for authority or process? Was I creating chaos for chaos’s sake? But the more I reflected on my work, the more I saw the pattern. I realized, with a kind of uncomfortable clarity, that every project—no matter how carefully planned, no matter how “professional” the approach—was going to get messy at some point. Every single one.

Some projects start neatly, others begin in chaos, but they all end up in the dirt eventually. Whether it’s at the beginning, middle, or end, every worthwhile endeavor hits a moment where you have to throw out the rulebook. Some people start by following the rules, only to end up scrambling when things inevitably fall apart. I just stopped starting with the rulebook. For me, it was clear early on: everything becomes a broken play. So why not embrace it from the start?

It’s not that I was trying to buck the system at every turn. It was just that I had seen too many projects unravel once people realized that no amount of preparation could save them from the messy reality of creation. What I learned—slowly, and through plenty of stumbles—was that everything is going to be a fight. You have to operate in the midst of chaos, and not just survive but thrive there.

And then, in 2019, I officially launched The Doane Cast, my podcast where I began discussing these ideas. It felt right—almost inevitable. I had spent years talking about the messy, unscripted nature of work, and now I had a platform to share these thoughts. I didn’t know then just how much the world was about to change.

Within a year, the pandemic hit, and suddenly the entire world was living in the midst of a broken play. The whole planet was shut down, industries collapsed, and people were left scrambling to figure out how to survive in a world where nothing made sense anymore. And in that chaos, something incredible happened: I found the most success I had ever had in my life.

Why? Because I had been preparing for this all along. I had gotten so used to broken plays—projects falling apart, plans failing, chaos reigning—that the sudden collapse of order felt like home. I knew how to operate in that space, how to keep moving when everything else seemed to grind to a halt. My approach of not being precious was finally validated. The professionals were paralyzed, but I was moving.

That moment solidified what I had been learning for years: the world is not a clean, organized place. Every project, every endeavor, every creative process—at some point, they all get messy. The only difference is whether you’re prepared for it or not. And I was.

So, this book. This book is an extension of those thoughts. It’s a collection of moments from The Doane Cast, some stories, ideas, poems, and musings. It’s not going to be polished or perfectly organized because that’s not what this is about. It’s a series of reflections on what I’ve learned—and am still learning—about how to get things done without holding on too tightly to perfection.

So, here’s my not-so-precious introduction to this not-so-precious book. I hope it helps. I hope you enjoy it. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll show you why anything worth doing is worth doing badly.