How to Build Your Creative Tribe to Produce Your Best Work
For over two decades, I’ve been immersed in the world of high-concept fashion, image-making, and visual storytelling. If there's one lesson I’ve learned, it’s this: you cannot manifest your highest creative potential alone. Your tribe—the people you surround yourself with creatively, spiritually, and professionally—is the architecture behind every masterpiece. You are the vision, yes. But they are the scaffolding, the light rig, the emotional voltage, the hands that help carve the divine.
Here’s how to build that tribe—and not just any tribe, but one that elevates your art and your life.
1. Choose Energy, Not Just Skill
Talent is everywhere. But aligned energy is rare. I’ve worked with technically brilliant individuals whose energy diluted the creative atmosphere. Your tribe must be composed of souls who get you, who reverberate on the same frequency. They don’t have to be clones—but they must resonate with your values, your pace, your hunger, and your spiritual rhythm. Choose people who leave you feeling amplified, not drained.
2. Be the Altar You Want to Attract
If you want disciplined, emotionally intelligent, and spiritually grounded creatives around you—be that first. People often want a tribe that they themselves haven’t evolved to deserve. Become the mirror of the excellence you seek. Excellence attracts excellence. Integrity attracts integrity. If you are inconsistent, flaky, and ungrateful, your tribe will reflect that back to you.
3. Build Through Vibe First, Résumé Second
When I select a makeup artist, stylist, producer, or assistant for a project, I don’t open with “Send me your portfolio.” I invite them into a conversation. I need to feel their spirit. Do they listen with presence? Do they speak with intention? Can they handle creative pressure with grace? I care more about how you work than what you’ve done. Vibe isn’t fluff. It’s frequency—and frequency shapes the outcome.
4. Create a Culture, Not Just a Team
Your creative tribe should feel like a movement, not a gig. Whether it's a one-day shoot or a year-long project, curate a culture of excellence, respect, and sacred play. Let people know how you lead. Set the tone. If your studio is a temple, treat it as such—and make sure everyone who enters does the same. Culture is what keeps people coming back.
5. Have the Courage to Let Go Quickly
This is vital. Not everyone is meant to go the distance with you. Some are beautiful for a season, others for a sentence. If someone in your creative tribe becomes a source of confusion, stagnation, or low vibration—release them with love and immediacy. Protecting the energy of your ecosystem is more important than avoiding an uncomfortable conversation.
6. Build in Public, Elevate in Private
Public collaborations are exciting. But true creative bonds are built behind the scenes—through late-night problem solving, shared flights, silent glances on set that say “I got you,” and honest feedback that sharpens the vision. Treat your tribe like family, not followers. Celebrate them publicly. Pour into them privately.
7. Lead with Vision, Not Ego
When you're the visionary, the director, the one with your name on the marquee—it’s easy to slip into performance instead of leadership. But a strong creative tribe doesn’t follow ego. They follow vision. Your job is not to have all the answers. It’s to articulate the North Star so clearly that your tribe becomes self-activated toward it. That’s true leadership.
Final Words
Your creative tribe is your legacy in motion. Choose wisely, nurture deeply, and align fiercely. Great work isn’t made in isolation. It’s sculpted through communion—with those who hold your vision with reverence and bring their own genius to its unfolding.
You want to go far?
Go with your tribe.
