A nepo baby's main advantage is something you can emulate.

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Another TikTok video about industry nepotism (Yes, I am on TikTok!) gained traction last week. The poster chronicled their emotional journey watching a TikTok sketch writer/performer get hired on Saturday Night Live.

Initially excited because they liked this person's work and it was fun to see someone crossover from one platform onto another, the poster was disappointed to discover that the performer's father was in the business! All the joy for this person's success was gone. Another damn nepo baby!

But the fact that this young woman was producing her own sketches, performing them, and gaining a large following on the nepotism-agnostic algorithm of TikTok, tells us another story that I have been preaching for years.

The most significant advantage to a family business is not connections.

It certainly helps, no doubt. But after those connections, those artists must sink or swim on their own merits.

Those who achieve success through those connections do so because they are more ready at an earlier age.

But why is that? This is because the biggest advantage of nepotism isn't the connections; it's actually --

The immersion in the craft and the embedded belief that a career is possible.

Individuals who are isolated away from the business are far less likely to see success in this business as a genuine possibility.

They are far less likely to dedicate themselves to the craft at the expense of other paths.

If they DO decide to dedicate themselves…

There is no one around them to emulate, who can show them the way.

This is true for almost all performance-based professions. The younger you begin serious pursuit, the more advantage you have over those starting later.

There is a reason why coach's sons dominate college and professional quarterbacks. It's not nepotism. It's that they are immersed in the game from the moment they can walk.

Screenwriting, and the arts in general, is a mental battle.

And it can be grueling. When we do not achieve what we have hoped to, it is easy to blame others. Blaming others is, after all, a God-given human skill!

We can blame the system, the corruption, those trying to exploit us, or just those awful people on social media we disagree with.

Unfortunately, we're better at spotting when others do this, than we are when we do it ourselves.

The righteousness of blame and unfairness may feel good at the moment, but we all know intuitively that it does us no good. It does not move us forward or bring us closer to our goals.

This is the danger of the stories we tell ourselves. Once we tell ourselves that this is how the world is, we start living our lives as if it were true.

Once we're in that place, the only way out is to start telling ourselves different stories entirely.

Limiting beliefs kill careers in the crib.

And this is the prime advantage that so many who succeed have, including the nepo babies that draw so much ire.

Their beliefs align with their goals, which are pursued through their actions.

This is the advantage I had.

Like many early teens, I immersed myself in film and television and, using the family video camera, made terrible movies with my brother.

We didn't know what we were doing. While we had fun, it wasn't going anywhere.

At 16, I moved to Texas and attended a high school with a nationally established acting program.

Seriously.

A random Houston suburban high school was routinely sending actors to Juilliard and other elite schools and producing professional actors.

I joined this program, where I found my work ethic and confidence.

This is where I had upperclassmen to look up to and emulate, and this is where I concluded that a life in the arts was possible.

My point of all this is that I started a serious pursuit of this field at a young age. I was supported by a culture that supported it (perhaps more cult than culture, but that is a story for another time), and the possibility of a career in the arts was a given.

In my mind, I had the same advantage that any nepo baby out there has.

Because much of that advantage is psychological.

How I broke into the business was another happy accident, but it was an accident created by me just doing what I do. I was writing, directing, and acting as I had always done, and an agent tripped over it

It's not about connections.

We focus on this because it is the most obvious thing we see.

But for the TikTok creator I first mentioned, we don't see the effort to write and produce those sketches over the years, and the fine-tuning of her comedic voice.

We don't see the drive and gumption it takes to do it in the first place. How many of her peers wanted to do it, but passed on it in favor of something else.

Being around people who are doing what you want to do and doing it at a high level is a far bigger component of success than having a few connections to reach out to and ask for a read.

There is a reason why so many great artists arise from a larger cluster.

The jazz greats from New Orleans, grunge from Seattle, the actor's studio in the 1950s, improv comedy from Chicago, and the comedy community now in LA. It is not just a random chance that artists arise from the same place. They were immersed in the same creative culture.

You can emulate or counter some of the nepo baby's advantages.

Now remember, the primary advantage of the nepo baby is TIME. Because of their upbringing, nepo babies are ready at an earlier age. They are often hitting their stride in their 20s!

Time is a non-renewable resource, so that is one thing you cannot emulate once it's gone.

By 30, athletes' bodies are in decline, and artists' challenges grow exponentially at that age as well.

Unlike the athlete, however, the artists' age-based challenges are self-imposed.

Thirty is usually when we start to wonder what the hell we're doing with our lives. Our patience for being broke starts to wear a little thin, or we have a full-time job that eats up our schedule. Time becomes an ever-shrinking resource if we have children or face other life challenges.

Start as early as you can. Get in as many repetitions as you can.

As soon as you decide to chase this, go all in.

No matter your age, nothing can replace repetitions and the confidence that stems from them.

You need to write now and write often.

You rarely have as much energy to write as you do the first few years in. Take as much advantage of it as you can.

You must reframe your limiting beliefs.

This is the single greatest advantage of those that succeed. They don't have these (to be fair, they have their own demons, just not this kind.)

Some examples of limiting beliefs:

• I don't have time to write.
• I live too far from Los Angeles.
• I don't know anyone.

The key is to identify that we have the limiting belief so we can reframe it into what Michael Hyatt calls a "liberating truth."

Some examples of liberating truths:

• I have enough time to tackle what's important to me.
• I have a lower cost of living, which gives me more time to write.
• I can meet people and nurture those relationships.

We will often insist that our limiting beliefs are us just being "realistic" and that anyone who suggests otherwise is a hippie-self-help-delusional flake.

But my experience is that as soon as you accept that limiting beliefs are real, you will recognize them everywhere. You will see how much they control others, and you will want no part of that self-sabotage.

Spot your own limiting beliefs. Start with the things you complain the most about. Then reframe them.

Lean into your own experience.

If you haven't dedicated your early life to this craft, you will naturally wonder if it's too late for you. It is not. You will face different challenges, but it is not too late.

One advantage of being older is the unique experience you bring. One of my favorite working writers started in her late 30s. In her previous life, she was a lawyer, and she used that knowledge to write a legal thriller, which started her writing career.

But our maturity is not defined solely by our physical experiences.

This same writer recently sold a more commercial screenplay, but also far more personal as she tapped into family dynamics that she finally grew old enough to examine and understand.

She was not capable of writing these stories in her 20s, and neither was any nepo baby.

The last five screenplays I have written I could only have written in middle age.

As we begin to understand ourselves more, we will want to tap into the emotions and themes we are only now capable of exploring.

There is a reason why most writers in their 20s only write movies that, at their core, are really only about other movies.

I was as guilty of that as anyone. It's because, for most of us at that age, we only understand movies through the lens of other movies.

It's later that we see them through the lens of life.

It's not about who you know.

Nepo babies get introductions they don't earn. This is obviously true. And name recognition is real. It's an added story to remember someone by, "That's so-and-so's son!"

They will even get extra opportunities that they can take advantage of.

But again, so what?

They either perform or they don't, just like everyone else.

But here is the frustrating truth:

Getting read is not the hard part.

A great concept will open doors. A great concept will get you read.

A great screenplay without one, will take longer, but that will eventually get read, too. 

The hard part is getting there.

It's nailing the concept and the execution all at once.

It's that idea that gets people excited before they read it, and pages that deliver on that promise.

This is not to say that you absolutely must have a great high-concept to take a giant step forward in the business. 

There are many, many ways to do this thing. Plenty of ways still out there that we haven't even thought of yet.

What I am saying is that a great concept combined with a great screenplay will get you introductions.

It is a golden key.

Like the nepo baby, the rest is up to you.

The Story and Plot Weekly Email is published every Tuesday morning. Don't miss another one.

​ Tom Vaughan
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