Whatever your reason for creating, a good coach serves it.

My first instinct, the one I think most people have, was to gently steer him toward a loftier reason. Do it for the craft. Do it for the audience. Do it for something that sounds less like wanting a wristband to a party. The whole genre of advice around this quietly moralizes, telling creators to chase passion and not clout, as if some reasons are worthy and others are a little embarrassing.

But the more I sat with it, the more I realized that instinct was wrong, and not my call to make.

Everyone is here for a different reason

1. The Motivation Is Yours

   No reason needs approval

   A creator’s reason for building, whether art, money, fame, or social access, belongs to them alone, and it is not a coach’s role to rank or judge it. People pursue this work for many different reasons, none more legitimate than another. A coach’s job is not to assess whether the motivation is worthy. It is to serve the goal the creator actually holds.

Look squarely at why people do this and the range is enormous. Some love the art, the endless craft of getting better. Some are here for the money. Some want the fame. And some, like the creator who called me, want the access, the rooms and events that older paths to status used to gatekeep. Surveys of aspiring creators find motivations spanning celebrity and money, community, and the simple love of creating. There is no single correct reason, and there never was.

So who am I to tell a creator that his reason is the wrong one? The desire for stature is as real and as human as the desire to make art. My job is not to grade his motivation against some scale of nobility I invented. If I spend the conversation quietly disapproving of why he wants what he wants, I am not coaching him. I am just judging him with extra steps.

It was never my job to decide whether his reason was good enough. It was my job to tell him the truth about what reaching it would take.

The job is to educate, then help

Once I let go of judging the reason, the actual work became clear. What a creator in that position needs is not my approval and not my disapproval. He needs someone to tell him, plainly, what it actually takes to reach the sphere he is aiming for. The stature he wants is downstream of real things: a genuine audience, a point of view, a reason for those rooms to want him in them. That is teachable. Whether his reason is noble is not my department.

So my role is to educate him on what that climb requires, candidly and without flinching, and then to help him make it if he chooses to. The goal is his. The map is mine to draw. That division of labor is, I think, what good coaching actually is, and it is the opposite of the moralizing most people reach for.

What to demand from the people around you

1. Real Enough, Strong Enough

   The bar for your circle

   The people you surround yourself with must clear two bars. They must be real enough to tell you the truth and shape the journey with candor, and strong enough to actually help you reach the goal. Honesty without the capability to deliver is hollow encouragement. Capability without honesty is flattery that leads nowhere. A creator needs both, in their coach and in their circle.

This is the part that matters most, and it is true whatever your reason for creating. The people you let shape your path have to clear two bars at once. They have to be real enough to be honest with you. That means telling you the parts you would rather not hear, and shaping the journey by what is true rather than what is flattering. And they have to be strong enough to actually carry you toward the goal, with the experience and the capability to get you across the line.

Most people in a creator’s orbit clear only one bar. The cheerleaders are honest about caring but cannot actually help. The operators can help but will tell you whatever keeps you happy. What you want, and what is rare, is both in the same person. Candor and capability together: the willingness to tell you the truth, and the strength to deliver on the goal it serves.

As for the creator who called me, we are still talking. I told him what the sphere he wants actually asks of a person, and now the decision is where it belongs: with him. We will see if he wants to chase the dream once he knows its real price. That is not for me to decide either. It never was.