Our story begins in Burbank, California, 1986. A young actor with a broken foot is being driven back to a movie set, rehearsing his own firing in his head the whole way there.
His name is Cary Elwes. You might know him as Westley. As in, THE Westley. The Dread Pirate Roberts. The man who climbed the Cliffs of Insanity on a broken foot. (Turns out that part was not entirely fictional.)
Here is what happened. About a week into shooting The Princess Bride, Elwes decided to take an ATV for a spin, because that is exactly what a young actor living his best life on a 1980s movie set would do.
The ATV had other plans. His foot ended up under a rock, and suddenly he was facing two catastrophes at once: the pain of an injured foot and the certainty that he was about to lose the role of a lifetime.
So when he finally made it back to set and came face to face with director Rob Reiner, he did what any of us would do.
He pretended everything was fine. (It was not fine.)
Reiner saw through it immediately. When he asked what was going on and Elwes finally confessed, bracing for the axe, Reiner looked at him and said:
“Fire you? How could I possibly fire you? You’re the only one who could play Westley.”
Sit with that for a second.
They rescheduled entire shooting days around a broken foot. Because the director already knew, with complete certainty, what Cary Elwes brought to that role that no one else on the planet could replicate. There was no audition happening in Rob Reiner’s head, no mental list of replacements. Just the absolute clarity of knowing exactly what he had.
What does that have to do with anything? I’m so glad you asked.
Because here is what I see happening in our world of creative entrepreneurship, and I say this with every ounce of love I have for you: we spend enormous amounts of energy auditioning for a part we have already been cast in.
We watch what other people are doing and quietly wonder if we should do that instead, then sand down the edges that make us specific because we are afraid those edges will drive people away.
We act “fine” when we are terrified, convinced that the moment someone sees the real complicated truth of us, they will start mentally scrolling through their list of replacements.
Rob Reiner was not scrolling. He knew what he had.
Your people are not scrolling either. They found you for that specific combination of how you think, how you tell a story, what you notice, what you care about, what makes you laugh, what breaks your heart a little. That fingerprint is what they showed up for.
Engagement Maneuver One: Know Thyself, Grasshopper. Know what it is about you that your people cannot walk away from. Name it. Lean into it. Stop apologizing for the parts that make you irreplaceable and start trusting that your people already know what they have.
Which brings me to something I would love for you to consider.
If you want help figuring out what your irreplaceable thing actually is, and how to build a creative vision around it that your audience cannot ignore, come hang out with us at Wednesday Worldbuilders. It is tomorrow, it is free, and it is exactly the kind of conversation where we figure this stuff out together.
Off to rewatch The Princess Bride, Grasshopper. Vizzini spent the whole movie insisting it couldn’t happen, and the universe spent the whole movie proving him wrong with flair. I find that deeply comforting. 🥷
Have fun storming the castle,
RJ 🥷❤️🤖
P.S. As you wish.