The "Do More With Less" Mantra
🌟Career Coaching: What scrappy indie artists can teach the entire entertainment industry and where that mindset stops serving us.
I once knew a producer—an absolute warrior of the off-Broadway world—who tried to rewrite an entire play to eliminate a wall.
A wall.
It wasn’t metaphorical. The wall was the central scenic element. Three characters. One wall. The audience needed to see what was happening on both sides of it. In so many ways, the wall defined the play.
But she ran the numbers and tried to convince the playwright that the story would work just fine without it. Maybe better, actually. More abstract. More fluid. More "open to interpretation."
It didn’t work, of course. The wall stayed. And it was built with love and plywood and a set designer with a magic wand. But that producer’s impulse stuck with me. Her urge to cut the one thing the story actually needed. Why? Because we’re all incredibly well trained to do more with less.
If you’ve spent any time in the indie world, you know exactly what I mean.
We are the reigning monarchs of thrift. We call in favors, raid garages for props, beg venues for a few extra hours and politely bribe friends with wine and pizza to do a little marketing for us. Help spread the word!
This scrappiness is a superpower. It builds community. It fosters invention. It makes for great origin stories. But it can also become a paralyzing point of view. One that starts to shrink our vision without us even realizing it.
The entire entertainment industry is catching up to our scarcity mindset. Studios are slashing budgets. Networks are downsizing everything (except perhaps their payouts to government officials). Productions that used to get eight weeks now get three or four. Everyone is trying to survive by trimming, compressing, minimizing.
And somewhere along the way, we stop asking the most important question: What does the story actually need?
Sometimes the answer is a wall.
Sometimes it’s more time. More budget. More people in the room. Sometimes it’s refusing to replace a production team with one overworked unicorn who shoots, lights, edits and scores in the same afternoon.
There’s no virtue in starving a project to the point of weakness. There’s no prize for being the most exhausted person in the room.
I’m not suggesting we throw money at every problem. Most of us don’t have that luxury. But what we can afford is a mindset shift. Not only the confidence to ask for more, but also the underlying belief that we deserve to. Asking doesn’t mean we’re greedy or lazy or somehow less creative. And abundance isn’t something we can only earn after suffering.
What if we start from a place of abundance instead of lack? What if we approached our next pitch, project or production with a few questions: What would this look like if I trusted we will have enough resources? What would change if I didn’t know how much _______ cost? What if I assumed my work was worth real investment? What if I believed creativity and resources could peacefully coexist?
Maybe the wall is worth building. Maybe the thing you’re trying to cut is actually the very thing that gives your story power.
If you’re a creator, it’s worth asking yourself. Where am I thinking too small? Where have I internalized the myth that less is always more?
Because sometimes, “more” is exactly what the moment demands.
