Weekly thought leadership for creators who are done playing the wrong game. ๐ฌ Strategy, media, and the creator economy without the pipe dreams. Brought to you from Sasquatch Media Grounds, a production studio in Vancouver, WA.
๐ผ Electric Boogaloo rewired my brain
Published about 8 hours agoย โขย 6 min read
๐บ Why Second Place Stole the Show
Hey Reader,
We're heading into Q4 of one of the crunchiest years for small business I've navigated in my entire career, and between AI chaos, the midterms, and the price of literally everything... I know a lot of you are carrying some serious tension right now. So I'm not going to pile on. Instead, I'm going to let my somewhat insane, chronically online habits save us all. ๐ซ
Quick context: I'm a ballet-trained ex-ballroom athlete, and I am fucking TERRIBLE at hip hop. Like, insanely bad. ๐ซฃ Give me a class schedule anyway and I'll be there failing at shaking my tail feather, because it brings me so much joy. I was also born in 1979, which means Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo lived in my VCR for a decade and permanently rewired my brain. I genuinely believe world peace could be achieved through crew battles in a back alley that somehow has a perfect dance floor paved into the street. You know I'm right. ๐
Which brings me to my latest obsession: the International Dance League. Its first season wrapped in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago, after six elite crews from around the world battled across five cities. My favorite crew, Brotherhood out of Vancouver, BC, won every single regular-season stop. They were completely undefeated... and then at the championship finale, LA's GRV edged them out by less than half a point. ๐ The internet had a LOT of opinions.
One of the sharpest takes was that the league doesn't have enough teams yet, because running an elite dance crew is expensive as hell. Training, airfare, and visas get multiplied across every dancer for every stop (Brotherhood has 20 dancers on their crew, so you do the math), and these crews need real investors behind them. Huh. Sounds a lot like... BUSINESS. And a lot like what I hear when people realize what it actually costs to build a show that grows a fan base and fills their pipeline with customers.
But that's not the part I can't stop thinking about. What gets me is that the crew that came in second is the only crew anyone's still talking about.
All season long, Brotherhood didn't just rack up points. They won hearts. In Seoul, they went full Saja Boys with a KPop Demon Hunters tribute that had the hometown crowd losing it. In LA, they honored the Filipino roots of many of their dancers by fusing traditional Tinikling with hip hop in front of a crowd packed with Filipino fans. And they brought back the music and spirit of "Love Connection," the game showโthemed set that won them VIBE back in 2017. A crew that could have built every set purely to rack up points chose to honor their roots and their audiences instead, and fans felt every second of it.
THIS is how you build a legacy. As a fellow dancer, I literally cry when I watch people in the zone, feeling the music through their whole bodies and dancing their hearts out. That's what Brotherhood gave us, and it's why first place wasn't the winning place.
So here's what I want you to carry through Q4. Your podcast won't always win, your YouTube series won't always win, and your pitch to get on that stage won't always win either. A scorecard measures one night, but your audience remembers the whole season. You can get your panties in a wad over details that don't matter, or you can take the risk and dance your heart out. Either way, you have to go all in and invest in the vision you're building... and sometimes it takes a bunch of dudes having the time of their lives on stage to remind you.
๐ซ It's weird until it works. Check out what's new in the studio... โคต๏ธ
โ Your show should make money, not eat it
Last week, the very first live Sasquatch Summit happened right here in the studio, and I'm still a little giddy about it. ๐ซ
It was a cozy day:a small room, good snacks, and a group willing to go deep on the topic most events politely tiptoe around. We dug into how money actually moves through your shows, and how a podcast, YouTube channel, newsletter, keynote, or book can bring money in instead of quietly draining your bank account every month.
Alex Hopkins records a fireside chat about professional money management.
You know that feeling when you leave an event, say "well, that was nice," and then wake up Monday with the exact same problems? Yeah... we weren't doing that. Before the summit, every attendee shared their Q4 goal with me. Then each person got hot seat time to land on one specific action that would move their money needle in the coming week. No disrespect to vision boards, but we weren't chasing vibes. We were identifying for each person in the room... A thing to do by Friday.
Here's the part that floored me. Every single person in that room is building something completely different. And there was SO MUCH money just sitting there, waiting for an action that was mostly... send a message and ask for it.
That's also why I don't care how viral someone went or how big their following is. Plenty of people with huge audiences still haven't figured out how to make their shows pay for themselves. Attention isn't income. Action is what turns one into the other.
The Summit was never meant to be a magic day where perfect answers float down from on high. It's an anchor point. It reminds you that you're not alone, it reminds you to keep doing the work, and it reminds you that the really sexy outcomes come straight from solid systems and a clear production plan, which is exactly what frees your creativity to shine.
One more thing I learned: this isn't going to be a public event anymore. Money conversations get honest when the room is small and everyone's already in the work together, so in 2027 the Sasquatch Summit will be exclusively for Creator Economy Dojo members. Want a seat in that room? Fittingly, the first step is sending one message. โคต๏ธ
Can rage bait and viral topics get you massive clicks? Sure. But chase them long enough and your creativity drains out, leaving a beige blob that looks and sounds like everyone else chasing the same trends. Being weird might feel slower and less flashy for a while, but marching to your own beat is what actually lasts.
Never underestimate tech-savvy kids. When Meta clamps down on them, they don't log off... they move into the quietest corner they can find, like the comment sections of NPR's famously low-engagement podcasts. It's also a lesson for adults, because audiences don't disappear when a platform squeezes them. They just move wherever they can still talk.
Create & Cultivate just wrapped its annual ticketed festival in Los Angeles, and no matter how much spin gets put on it... attendees are saying they fucked up. People are sharing their stories, and they're worth hearing. Once you level up, you realize those aesthetic see-and-be-seen events aren't there to help you. You're the product.
I released a 90-minute Astrology and Tarot forecast covering July through December 2026 for $47. The second half of this year has a lot going on energetically and I had an absolute blast recording this. Several of you grabbed it immediately which tells me we are onto something here. This is my first experiment in bringing readings back in a sustainable way and it will not be available forever.
Something For Free
You Don't Have a Production Problem. You have an architecture problem. My free white paper breaks down what creator studios actually sell, what most creators actually need, and why those two things are rarely the same. Includes a self-audit to find out if you are ready to launch or ready to build. ๐ Download the white paper for FREE.
๐ Your Inspo Corner
Rebecca, potter and founder of Gravesco (whose viral "Not today, fascist" mug says it all), makes the case against unlimited-growth thinking.
After building a 14-person team and losing all her time at the wheel, she scaled back on purpose... proof that "enough" is a legitimate business goal, not a lack of ambition.
Some fine print... โThis newsletter, my website, and my social media channels may contain affiliate links to products, programs, or services at any given time. What that means is, if you purchase an item through one of the links in my newsletter or on my website, some or all of the sale monies will be paid to me as a commission. Pretty standard stuff, but l let you know this so you can make your own purchasing decisions.โ โ
May you manifest all of your intentions...
Starting with manifesting how you want to receive emails:
If it's time to part ways, here's where you can unsubscribe.
400 E Evergreen Blvd., Suite 317, Vancouver, WA 98660
โจ The Production Oracle โจ
by Mary Williams | @SensibleWoo
Weekly thought leadership for creators who are done playing the wrong game. ๐ฌ Strategy, media, and the creator economy without the pipe dreams. Brought to you from Sasquatch Media Grounds, a production studio in Vancouver, WA.
โ