Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jon Savitt. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Jon, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
As far as confidence, my relationship with comedy and writing definitely started while attending summer camp as a kid (the same camp Bob Dylan attended!). I’m such a big advocate for camp. I felt like it was an environment that really rewarded you for being yourself when no other place would — and a place where you could take big swings in a controlled environment.
I was literally ten years old writing bits and performing on stage with my cabinmates in front of hundreds of people. It was terrifying. It was probably so hard to watch. Our counselors would be like, “Okay, so today we’re giving a funny speech in front of all of camp during lunch.” And I’m over here like, hello I can barely pronounce my last name. But there’s no question that situations like that helped me.
At that age, I obviously didn’t know that I was going to be a writer professionally, but I think camp subconsciously planted the seeds of creativity and collaboration — and gave me some early tangible experience in bringing something from concept to completion.
Whether professionally or personally, I can almost always point back to camp as the place that gave me the tools needed to navigate situations.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I’m a writer and comedian — I do everything from writing screenplays to performing live shows to ghostwriting scripts and everything in between. I’m also currently writing a book!
Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate enough to perform around the country, sell some scripts and projects, and generally just make a living doing what I love — while being featured in some really cool places I grew up following (MTV, Funny or Die, Washington Post. Vulture, College Humor, etc).
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
There are a lot of important qualities that creatives should have (especially if you’re trying to make a living doing what you love), but my top three are probably resilience, discipline, and business sense.
First off, resilience is absolutely crucial. Creativity isn’t only super subjective, it’s often unforgiving. Ask any professional in the business and they’ll tell you that their work has been rejected more times than it’s been accepted. Easily. I have people come to me that say, “My script didn’t win this contest…or…this publisher rejected my book proposal, should I just stop trying? Find another job?” You have to keep going. You have to. Brush it off. Forget about it. It’s about the long-game. I always say that you have to do this because you truly love it, not because you want the ‘big deal’ or your name in fancy headlines. If that’s what your chasing, it’s going to be a long (and probably miserable) career.
Discipline is also critical. There are so many people going after the same jobs you are — and spoiler alert: they’re probably just as talented, if not more so. I don’t say that to be cynical, it’s just real. That’s how I feel about myself. I’ll honestly never say I’m the most talented writer — I just try to work extremely hard. Harder than the person next to me. It’s the willingness to wake up early, to work on weekends, to skip happy hour to finish that script. That’s just the reality of what it takes to make it in this line of work, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Lastly, I can’t stress enough how important it is to have some business knowledge about what you’re doing. I know it’s not fun. I know it’s boring. I know we go into the creative industry because we specifically don’t want to deal with this stuff — but it’s essential. I’m lucky enough that I started out in the advertising world, so I have experience with negotiating and contracts and such, but things really did start to open up for me when I started to take the business side of things more seriously. At the end of the day, you’re a brand. And if you actually want to make money doing this, you need to approach it like a business and like your work is a valuable product. Anyway, I won’t ramble on this but I do think a lot of folks often overlook it.
Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
Totally. And I feel overwhelmed a lot. It’s hard not to when you’re running your own business and making every decision.
My single biggest no-BS piece of advice is: do what you can control.
That’s it. That simple. Do what you can control.
I find most of my anxiousness or stress revolves around hypotheticals, or “what ifs” or things that are just out of my control. I’ve found that if I focus extra hard on what I can control, things often end up working out.
I sometimes even work retrospectively and say, “What is the ideal outcome of this project?” That way, I can put tangible and actionable steps in place that are within my control. Again, I can’t guarantee that everything will work out in the end, but I bet I can set myself up pretty well for success along the way.
A good example is early on in my career I would say, “This year I really want to write for Veep” or insert whatever show. But that’s just not in my control. It’s not realistic, even if I were the funniest person or best writer ever (which I’m not). There are so many subjective factors and boundaries with that goal. It doesn’t make sense.
So now, I’ll instead say, “I want to write the best possible spec script”. That’s something that IS within my control. It’s very realistic. And by doing it, I’ll open up a bunch more opportunities. Maybe even some I’ve never considered before.
It’s a subtle shift in mindset but I’ve found it really effective.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jonsavittwrites.com
- Instagram: @savitt_jon
- Twitter: @savittj
