Yooo peace family.

So…I watched the Michael Jackson movie and walked out thinking something I probably wasn’t supposed to think.

Not “Was it good?”

Not “Did the actor do Michael justice?”

Not “Did they get the music right?”

My first real thought was:

Biopics are beautiful lies.

And I don’t mean that as disrespect.

I actually enjoyed the movie. It was sweet. It gave me a feeling I wish I had access to when I was a kid first getting introduced to Michael Jackson. Not because it could ever replace the real thing. Nothing is replacing the real “Thriller.” Nothing is replacing the real “Beat It” video. Nothing is replacing the feeling of watching Michael show up at an award show and feeling the whole room shift before he even touched the stage.

If you were alive for any part of that era, you know.

Michael wasn’t just a celebrity.

He was an arrival.

The man would step out and people acted like the king had entered the building. And honestly, he kind of had. Whether you loved him, studied him, questioned him, or wrestled with his story, there was no denying the weight of his presence.

I’ve been studying music, media, performance, and culture since I was little. Like four or five years old little. By seven or eight, I wasn’t just watching music videos. I was studying the clothes, the pauses, the camera angles, the mythology, the branding, the way people reacted.

So when I watched the movie, I wasn’t only watching as a fan.

I was watching as a creative.

And somewhere in the middle of it, I started noticing something.

Not what was there.

What was missing.

And that’s when the movie stopped being just a movie to me.

It became a question.

How do you tell the truth about somebody while leaving out some of the people who helped make them who they were?

That’s where I got stuck.

Because it made me think about us.

The creatives.

The artists.

The designers.

The writers.

The people trying to make something meaningful while also trying to explain who we are in a bio, a website, a caption, a podcast intro, an artist statement, a press kit, or a five-minute conversation with somebody who just asked, “So what do you do?”

And let’s be honest.

A lot of us are not telling our stories clearly.

We are hoping people figure it out.

We say “link in bio,” but the bio barely says anything.

We send people to a website, but the website feels like a hallway with no signs.

We call ourselves multi-hyphenates, creatives, artists, producers, designers, coaches, speakers, and visionaries, but sometimes people still leave confused about what room they just walked into.

And I get it.

Because trying to summarize your life is awkward.

Trying to explain your gift without sounding corny is hard.

Trying to tell people what you do when you do a lot of things can feel like trying to fold a king-size comforter into a sandwich bag.

But here’s the thing.

The short version of your story still has to be true.

It does not have to include everything.

But it should not erase the essence.

That’s the difference.

Every medium edits you.

A bio edits for clarity.

A movie edits for drama.

A podcast edits for intimacy.

A website edits for direction.

A conversation edits for time.

Social media edits for attention.

And rumors?

Rumors edit for convenience.

So the question is not, “Can I tell everybody everything?”

You can’t.

The better question is:

Can my story be shortened without being distorted?

That’s where a lot of creatives are losing people.

Not because the work is bad.

Not because the story is boring.

But because the story has no center.

One platform says one thing.

The website says another thing.

The bio says something vague.

The podcast intro says something deeper.

The flyer says something completely different.

Then when people try to describe you, they grab whatever piece was easiest to remember.

“Oh, he makes music.”

“She does design.”

“They do content.”

“He wrote a book or something.”

And now your whole life’s work got reduced to “or something.”

That’s nasty work.

But sometimes we helped them do it.

Because we didn’t give them a clear enough thread.

Grand Vibrational Design has me thinking about this differently.

Your story needs alignment.

Not perfection.

Not a polished corporate script.

Not some fake elevator pitch where you sound like you swallowed a LinkedIn profile.

Alignment.

The five-minute version of your story should feel connected to the full book version.

The bio should feel connected to the podcast.

The website should feel connected to the live conversation.

The press kit should feel connected to the person people meet in real life.

Different containers.

Same spirit.

That does not mean every version gets the same details.

Some rooms only need the doorway.

Some rooms need the hallway.

Some rooms are ready for the whole house tour.

But no matter which version people receive, they should be able to feel the truth of the house.

And this is where it gets serious.

Because eventually, your story will be told by people who are not you.

Actually, forget eventually.

That is already happening.

Every time somebody introduces you in a room, they are telling a version of your story.

Every time somebody recommends you, they are telling a version.

Every time somebody misunderstands you, they are telling a version.

Every time somebody says your name when you are not there, they are editing you down to what they think matters.

You do not control the final cut.

But you do control the offering.

You control what you repeat.

You control what you clarify.

You control what you put on the page.

You control what you make visible.

You control the trail you leave behind.

That brings me back to the Michael Jackson movie.

Because by the end of it, I realized I wasn’t mad that everything wasn’t included.

No movie can include everything.

No bio can include everything.

No Substack post can include everything.

That was not the problem.

The problem is that some missing pieces feel louder than scenes.

Some people are not side notes.

Some relationships are not bonus features.

Some influences are not optional.

Some names are load-bearing walls.

And when you remove a load-bearing wall, the house may still stand, but something about it leans wrong.

That’s the lesson I took from it.

Not that we need to tell everybody everything.

But that we need to know what cannot be removed without changing the truth.

So for us as creatives, the work is not just making more stuff.

The work is learning how to tell the truth of who we are with clarity, integrity, and enough shape that people can carry it correctly.

Not perfectly.

Correctly.

Because the short version of your story will always exist.

The question is whether that short version is faithful.

So I’ll leave you with what stayed with me after the credits rolled:

What version of your story are you telling right now - and what truth keeps getting cut out just to make you easier to explain?

-Gold

If this hit home, let’s take it to the deeper levels:

• Grand Vibrational Design – the framework behind everything I write and teach - for creatives who want alignment without the burnout.

• The Gold Giraffe Audio Notes Podcast – quiet reflections for when you need your mind to slow down but you still wanna move forward.

• The Book - The 12 Laws of Grand Vibrational Design – the full foundation in one place - the laws, the language, and the practices to build your creative life on purpose.

• My Music – sounds made from the same place as these words - for the days when you don’t wanna read, you just wanna feel understood.