The Most Essential Creative Skill

It’s Probably Not What You Think

You’ve probably heard the phrase. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

I used to think that was about networking. About working the room. About saying the right things to the right people at the right time and strategically placing yourself in conversations that would eventually pay off down the road.

But the older I get in this creative life, and the more I watch how things actually unfold for people, the more I realize that phrase means something else entirely.

It’s not about who you know.

It’s about how you make people feel.

And the difference between those two things is everything.

I’m a solo filmmaker. I’ve built everything I have from nothing. No industry connections when I started. No film school degree. No mentor with a list of contacts, handing me a path forward. Just a camera, and the willingness to walk up to strangers and ask if I could tell their story.

And somewhere along the way, something started happening that I didn’t fully understand at first.

People started showing up for me.

My name was being brought up in rooms I had no idea about. Opportunities were appearing that I never chased directly. Conversations were happening on my behalf between people I barely knew, and somehow those conversations kept leading to doors opening. Introductions being made. Projects landing in my lap that I had no logical reason to be considered for.

I used to wonder how that worked. I’d try to trace it back to some specific decision I made or some strategic move I executed. And then one day I stopped trying to reverse engineer it and just looked at the obvious truth sitting right in front of me.

It was kindness.

That’s it. That’s the whole answer.

Not my camera skills. Not my editing style. Not my follower count or my reel or my pitch. Just the basic, simple, completely underrated act of treating people well and meaning it.

Kindness costs nothing and compounds forever.

I know how that sounds. I know we live in a world that wants everything to be more complicated than that. We want the seven-step framework, the conversion funnel, and the growth hack that nobody else has figured out yet.

And look, I’m not dismissing any of that. Systems matter. Craft matters. Showing up consistently matters. All of it matters.

But here’s what nobody’s putting in their content while they’re busy talking about algorithms and monetization:

How you treat people is a skill. And it might be the single most valuable one you ever develop in your entire creative career.

I’m not talking about being performatively nice. I’m not talking about the hollow kindness that’s really just a strategy in disguise, where you’re being warm and generous because you’re calculating what it might return to you. People feel that. They feel it immediately, and it doesn’t build trust; it destroys it.

I’m talking about genuine, nothing in return, kindness.

The kind that shows up when there’s absolutely nothing to gain from it.

Let me give you a real example of what I mean.

You finish a shoot with someone. It went well. You got what you needed. The collaboration was solid, and you’re both happy with how it turned out. A few days pass, and you’re back in your normal rhythm.

Now, most people stop there. The project is done. You move on to the next thing.

But here’s what I do. I send a message. Nothing calculated. Just something real. For instance: “Hey, I just wanted to reach out and say thank you again. Genuinely. You gave your time and your trust, and I don’t take that lightly. I really appreciate you making this happen.”

That’s it. No ask attached. Just a person telling another person that they mattered.

You would be amazed at what that does to someone. I mean, truly amazed. Because most people don’t do it. Most people move on. And so when you take thirty seconds to reach back and say, “ Hey, you were worth remembering,” it lands in a way that sticks.

And then that person remembers you. The way you made them feel. And that memory travels. It gets carried into rooms and conversations that you will never be in, and it plants seeds you don’t even know are growing.

That’s how this actually works.

Here’s another example:

A creative friend you haven’t talked to in a few months. Someone you’ve crossed paths with, maybe collaborated with once, maybe just someone you genuinely like and respect. You have no reason to reach out. There’s no project on the table.

You reach out anyway. “Hey, I was thinking about you. Hope things are going well. Hope to see you sometime soon.”

Nothing more than that.

Do you have any idea how rare that is? Do you have any idea how much that simple gesture can change the direction of someone’s entire day? And then what it does to how they feel about you?

This is the stuff that builds a career. Not just the work. The way you show up between the work.

What you put out is ultimately what comes back to you.

I’ve watched this principle play out so many times in my own life that I can’t dismiss it anymore. It’s not wishful thinking. It is just the observable reality of how human relationships work when you zoom out far enough to see the full picture.

The photographers and filmmakers and creators who land the big opportunities, the ones who get the brand partnerships, the ones who get invited onto the campaign worth fifty thousand dollars, the ones who somehow always seem to be in the right room at the right time, they didn’t just get there because of their skill set.

They got there because somebody trusted them enough to say their name out loud.

And that trust wasn’t built in a pitch meeting. It was built in a hundred small moments where they showed up as a human being first and a creative professional second.

You can be the most talented filmmaker who has ever picked up a camera. Technically flawless. Very creative. And if you treat people like they’re beneath you, if you carry yourself with arrogance, if you make people feel like they’re just a transaction or a stepping stone, you will hit a ceiling. You will wonder why you’re not getting the opportunities that someone less gifted than you seems to keep getting.

And the answer will be this. Nobody wants to go out of their way for someone who made them feel small.

But for someone who made them feel seen? People will move mountains.

There’s a version of ambition that’s destructive. It’s the version that’s driven entirely by what you can accumulate. The followers, the brand deals, the recognition, the proof that you’re better than everyone told you you’d be. And I understand that drive because I’ve felt it. That hunger can move you in the early days. It can get you off the couch and out the door when nothing is working and nobody cares yet.

But if that’s still the engine running everything years into your journey, you’re going to find yourself arriving at destinations that feel empty.

Because achievement without genuine connection to the people around you is hollow. And the creative life built entirely on self-interest, on “what can I get, what can I prove, how can I win,” will eventually cave in on itself because that kind of ambition cuts you off from the thing that actually makes this life feel worthwhile.

Which is giving.

The fulfillment in this journey lives in how much you give. Not how much you receive.

This is something I’ve learned slowly, and I’m still learning. The more I build, the more followers I reach, the more I recognize that none of it means anything unless it’s pointing outward. Unless it’s serving something bigger than my own highlight reel.

When I crossed three million followers on Instagram, my first thought wasn’t about what I’d accomplished. It was about what that reach means in terms of responsibility. Three million people have let me into their lives in some way. That’s not something to be arrogant about. That’s something to honor.

And you honor it by being kind. By creating work that genuinely gives something to people rather than just demanding their attention.

The creators who last, the ones who build something that actually means something over time, they understand this. The audience can feel the difference between someone who is creating for them and someone who is creating for their own ego. And they will follow the generous one further and longer every single time.

Here’s another thing I want you to sit with for a second.

We are conditioned to think in terms of scarcity. Like success has a limited supply, and the more someone else gets, the less there is for you. Like being genuinely happy for another creator’s win somehow diminishes your own chances. Like lifting someone else up is a threat to your position.

This is one of the most limiting beliefs a creative person can carry. And I’ve watched it quietly destroy more potential than lack of talent ever could.

The truth is the exact opposite of scarcity. The more you genuinely want other people to do well, the more you celebrate other people’s work and cheer on other people’s wins without any bitterness underneath it, the more you start to operate from a place of real abundance. And abundance is magnetic. People want to be around it. They want to work with it.

When you stop treating the people around you like competition and start treating them like community, your entire world expands. The opportunities don’t shrink. They multiply.

I have seen this happen over and over.

So let me get specific about what kindness actually looks like in practice:

• It looks like being fully present when you’re with someone. Not half listening while you think about your next move. Actually looking at the person in front of you, asking real questions, caring about the answers.

• It looks like giving a genuine compliment with no agenda behind it. Not a compliment that positions you, just an honest acknowledgment of someone’s work or character or effort.

• It looks like checking in on people. Not when you need something. Just because you thought of them and wanted them to know it.

• It looks like showing gratitude in specific terms. Not just saying thanks, but saying what you’re actually grateful for and why it mattered to you.

• It looks like celebrating other people’s wins publicly. In an industry where everyone is competing for attention, being the person who lifts others up instead of quietly resenting their success is genuinely rare. And people notice.

• It looks like being someone who, when your name comes up in a room, the immediate response is oh I love that person. Not “oh yeah they’re talented but…they are not a very nice person.”

Your reputation is just the story people tell about you when you’re not in the room.

And here’s what I know from experience: that story has almost nothing to do with your best work. It has everything to do with how you made people feel.

I’ve had opportunities come to me years after I met someone briefly. A short conversation at an event, a quick message exchange after a collab, a small genuine moment that I probably forgot about within a week. And then two years later, that person is in a meeting, and someone asks if they know any filmmakers, and your name comes out of their mouth without hesitation.

You can only create these conditions by being the kind of person whose name people are glad to say.

I want to speak directly to anyone who’s early in this journey and reading this right now.

You’re probably focused on building your skills. And you should be. The craft matters deeply. Getting better at your work, being serious about your growth, pushing yourself creatively, all of that is non-negotiable, and I would never tell you otherwise.

But I want you to add something to the list of things you’re intentionally developing.

Practice being kind. Deliberately. Consistently. Not when it’s easy and not only when there’s something in it for you. Practice being genuinely interested in the people you work with. Practice reaching out with nothing to ask. Practice celebrating work that isn’t yours. Practice being the person in every room who lifts the energy rather than draining it.

Because I promise you this. Your career will go further on your character than it ever will on your camera.

The real opportunities, the ones that change the direction of everything, they don’t come through algorithms. They come through people. They come through someone who thought of you. Someone who vouched for you. Someone who trusted you because of who you are, not just what you can do.

And that trust is built over a long time, in small moments, through basic human decency offered consistently and freely.

We live in a world right now that sometimes seems to reward the loud, the aggressive, the self-promotional, the ones who are constantly out here proving they’re better than everyone else. And I understand why it can look that way. Social media amplifies a certain kind of performance.

But I want you to look past the performance and look at what’s actually sustaining the careers that last. Look at the people who are still here ten years in. Look at the ones who keep getting the calls, the opportunities, and the collaborations. Look at the ones who seem to just stay surrounded by people who genuinely care about seeing them win.

Those are the kind of people who give without keeping score. The ones who made others feel valued. The ones who showed up as a human being first, in every single interaction, regardless of what it might return to them.

That’s cause and effect playing out over time.

How you treat people goes further than you would ever imagine.

I’m telling you this as someone who has lived it. Not as advice, I read somewhere and decided sounded good. This is firsthand.

Be kind. Not just when someone does something for you.

Be kind. All the way through.

• To the person who has nothing to offer you right now.

• To the collaborator who’s just starting out and to the executive who runs the brand.

• To the stranger who slides into your DMs to say your work changed something in them and to the longtime follower who’s been watching you since the beginning.

Treat all of them like they matter. Because they do.

And then watch what your life starts to look like. Watch how the right people start finding you. Watch how the right doors start opening. Watch how the journey starts to feel like something worth having beyond just the outcomes it produces.

That’s the compound interest of kindness. It’s slow, and you won’t always be able to see it working. But it is always working.

And one day you’ll look up and realize that the most important thing you ever built in your creative life wasn’t a film or a following or a brand deal.

It was a reputation for being someone people were genuinely glad to know.

Start there. Stay there. Everything else follows.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

-Noah