My producing journey grew because I started gaining a reputation as a person who makes things happen. First theater. Then traveling theater. Then international traveling theater. A few more years and a couple more notches on my belt got me into the film game (which was always my goal). Then radio. Then podcasts and live events. 

Each project presented a unique challenge, built upon the skills from the last, and threw me an unforeseen curveball that required immediate, on-the-ground training, self-taught training. Learning (and failing) in public became the norm. You become the leader that everyone looks to, even when you’re feeling like the least experienced person in the room. But you do it because you’re the producer. You have to make it happen.

One of my favorite movies of this year's Oscar season was The Substance. Demi Moore gave the performance of a lifetime as an aging starlet who trades her lifeblood for a chance at being a younger version of herself. It's a gory depiction of the same idea I was circling around in that NYU thesis a decade ago, one that the ancient Yogis and Buddhists have been saying for thousands of years: attachment to an identity -- especially one that is based only on external validation -- is the ultimate form of suffering.