Join the waitlist for the only book that shows creative professionals how to break through the value ceiling and achieve abundant success.
They lied to us. They told us if we just get better we’ll get paid more. “Buy this course. Go to this conference. Join this paid community.” Why isn’t any of it working? What are we supposed to do now as AI replaces us one at a time?
Aren’t you tired of all the “coaches,” course creators, and fake gurus selling you pipe dreams to $30,000 dollar months, dream jobs, and other products that don’t deliver on their promise? Why is that?
I’ve been a creative services business owner for over 15 years. I’ve experienced lower lows and higher highs than most creative professionals I know. I know how it feels to be so broke that you can’t afford to buy a used Christmas tree from Goodwill.
But I also know how to get to the other side – I have co-run a multi-million dollar creative business for the past five years. I’ve worked with global brands, built an amazing team, and hired or led countless creatives. If there’s one thing I have learned it’s this…
Ever wonder why some of the most talented creatives still live paycheck to paycheck? It’s because abundant success has very little to do with talent. Instead, it’s about breaking through what I call The Value Ceiling™.
The Value Ceiling is the invisible layer that makes creative services people poor, sad, and replaceable. Have you ever felt undervalued and underpaid? Is your work treated like a commodity–easily replaced? Are you afraid AI might take your career? That’s the value ceiling doing its job, and unless you break through nothing will change.
Talentish is my detailed blueprint for how to acquire the 7 uncommon keys to abundant success needed to break through the value ceiling holding you back from actually thriving.
Designers
Writers
Illustrators
Creators
Developers
Photographers
Videographers
Marketers
Designers Writers Illustrators Creators Developers Photographers Videographers Marketers
Who’s it for?
Talentish is not another resource on how to start a creative business – those are a dime-a-dozen. This book is also for in-house employees and creative services professionals of all kinds. Those who want to get promoted, get a raise, and thrive in their jobs.
This book is my love letter to creative services professionals of all kinds. Whether you’re starting out, or you’re a senior level expert who feels stuck and wants more, this is the book the creative industry needs right now.
- ✓ Secrets of abundantly successful creatives throughout history
- ✓ A step-by-step guide on how to shatter the value ceiling
- ✓ My path from $300/month to a 7-FIGURE creative business
- ✓ Find your your niche & become the go-to for what you do!
- ✓ How to succeed without starting a business or making content
- ✓ The flywheel of skills you need to master to outlast AI
- ✓ My stories of failure, let-down, and how I overcame it all
A snippet from the book
“It’s just for a few months,” I said to my wife as we unloaded another box back into the bedroom where she grew up.
“I promise, once we get out of debt we will get our own place again!” I pleaded with her to trust me as I placed a bag of clothes on the bed she grew up sleeping in. Only this time we would be sharing it until we could afford to get a place of our own. She wasn’t mad. She was fully committed. My wife would live in a one-room shack without complaining for a second. She’s always down for an adventure. In fact, she was my biggest supporter in that season where I felt so much shame as a provider. This, however, didn't feel like an adventure at all. No one wants to move back in with their in-laws. The shame I felt as a husband—as the person who promised to give her the world was almost debilitating. The year was 2012. My design business wasn’t making enough to provide for us. In fact, I wasn’t making any money—what I had, in fact, wasn’t a business at all. Hurt, confused, and hopeless were some of the many emotions I felt as someone who had been told my whole life I had the talent to succeed. I'd been applauded and awarded for my artistic ability my whole life, but at that moment I was starting to think I had been lied to. After all, if I was so talented then why didn’t I have the success to match it?
The answer is easy: Talent doesn’t guarantee ANY amount of success when it comes to being a creative professional.
The revelation hit me like a baseball bat to the head, only it wasn’t a Louisville Slugger I was making contact with. I was experiencing something that every single creative professional experiences in their career at different times. I had bumped into something that anyone like you and me with any sort of drive also bumps up against: I hit what’s called The Value Ceiling.
The Value Ceiling
The Invisible Barrier Holding Creatives Pros Back from MORE.
The value ceiling is an invisible ceiling that lives over the head of every single working creative professional on the planet. It doesn’t matter if you are a graphic designer, a photographer, writer, developer, musician, or video editor. There is a ceiling on how much money, impact, and success you can create for yourself, and this ceiling is strengthened by three layers. Each layer makes it harder and harder to break through.
The Perception layer. There is a limit on how much perceived value creative roles actually bring to a business or organization. Most businesses simply see creative roles as a cost-center and not a revenue-generator. This is why there’s a market rate with a cap (a lid) on it for your exact job or role. This perception layer is hard to break through because creative roles are becoming commoditized faster than ever because of things like AI and sites like Fiverr or 99 designs. These are producing what I call commodity creatives. These are creatives who are all in a race to the bottom (who can charge the least amount for their work) and it’s made it harder than ever to command prices you and I are actually worth, whether we work as in-house employees or freelancers. As long the market rates, outside forces like AI, and outsourced and crowdsourced platforms continue to drive down the price of what you do, there’s nothing to save you from becoming a commodity creative and smashing through this perception layer if you don’t find ways to increase your value.
The Scalability layer. There’s a limit to how many hours you can actually work. Face it, you are in a services-based job. This means that as long as you exchange dollars for hours you are limited. Unless you multiply yourself or your value you won’t break through. Even if you make six figures as a freelancer, you can only work so many hours, or on so many projects. If you work full time as a creative pro, there’s only so many hours in a day. The ability to make more money is severely limited by this part of the ceiling. Being a creative services professional is simply not scalable. This is why many opt out of doing creative work entirely and start creating courses or becoming coaches. They realize they can’t scale what they do, so they have to become something else entirely or try to offer services that are slightly more scalable. The fact remains: Until you reproduce yourself (or learn how to clone yourself) you will stay under this layer of the value ceiling where dollars are exchanged for hours.
The Character Layer. One of the greatest influences on the value ceiling holding you back is YOU. If you don’t believe you are highly valuable, you won’t be treated or compensated as such. Our limited self view and negative mindset keep us from breaking through because we hold ourselves back from becoming the kind of person who steps into abundant success as a creative professional. The other reason the character layer is so tough to break through is because many creatives don’t develop into the kind of human being needed to make it through hard seasons or stand out from others. We also commonly do not develop the character needed to make us desirable to the kinds of clients or employment that come with more money. Failure to take risks, overcome fears, and become a person people trust and rely on are what keep you stuck beneath this layer of the value ceiling.
These three layers all reinforce the value ceiling and its strength. This is why so few actually break through—it’s FREAKING HARD! If you can break through one layer you weaken the others. If you can break through two layers it gets even easier. Before I show you how, you must recognize and see that it’s the value ceiling you’re actually bumping into. You may be hitting the ceiling right now and don’t even know it! Have you ever felt underpaid? That’s the ceiling. Have you ever felt like the people you work for don’t fully see how valuable you could be to them? That’s the ceiling too. And have you ever laid awake at night, your brain illuminated with ideas and visions about what your employer or clients could do to really explode with growth and innovation but none of it ever comes to pass? Yep, that’s your head bumping right into the invisible value ceiling. Feeling inadequate, struggling with imposter syndrome, and constantly giving away free work, lowering your prices, and settling for a salary that’s way less than you know you’re worth are all symptoms of bumping into and living beneath the value ceiling.
This ceiling is what keeps creative people like you and me living paycheck to paycheck. It’s the blockage that perpetuates the vicious cycles of comparison that lead to imposter syndrome, fear, and timidity mentioned above. It’s the value ceiling that keeps us stuck in jobs we don’t like but need the money from. It’s the value ceiling that keeps our skills from being sharpened, expanded, and stretched, and it’s the value ceiling that keeps creative professionals of all kinds from experiencing the abundance that I believe is actually not only available to us…but rightly ours to begin with. It keeps us from traveling, getting new cars, buying homes, giving experiences to those we love most, and all the other things we want for ourselves and our families.
As a young and timid creative services professional I had no idea that it was even possible to have these things–but it is. It’s possible. It’s not only possible, it’s attainable for normal, talentish (even uneducated) creatives like you and I, not just the most talented or awarded. Once you understand this one, single principle you will see the value ceiling as clear as day. You will see your career and future in a totally new light. The phrase directly under this paragraph has the power to transform your life and your families lives for centuries to come.
You do not get paid for time. You get paid for the value that you bring to the marketplace.
I learned this valuable paradigm shift from a guy named Jim Rohn. Jim is one of the most famous motivational speakers and coaches of all time. His one minute lesson on economics is a tiny key that has the power to unlock a huge door to financial success for anyone, including creatives. He said this quote above, and then went on to expound on it, giving the simplest lesson on economics I’ve ever heard. His talk changed my entire thought process about how to get paid for my creative services. It illuminated that I was trapped under the value ceiling, not because I was creative…but because the marketplace was only placing a certain amount of value on what I brought to it. I realized that it wasn’t through working more hours that I could shatter that ceiling, but by increasing the value that I bring to the marketplace as a creative. Here’s the entire quote:
“We get paid for bringing value to the marketplace—it's as simple as that. It takes time to bring value to the marketplace, but we do not get paid for time. Many mistakenly believe they're earning, for example, $20 an hour. If that were true, you could just stay home and have the money sent to you. Clearly, that's not how it works. We don’t get paid for time; we get paid for the value we bring to the marketplace. With that in mind, here’s a key question: is it possible to become twice as valuable to the marketplace and make twice as much money in the same amount of time? The answer is yes. Could you become three times as valuable and earn three times as much? Again, the answer is yes. Five times, ten times? Absolutely—because our earnings are tied not to time, but to the value we create.” - Jim Rohn
Powerful, huh?
I knew when I heard Jim say this that he was right. I knew I was going to have to change something, and just working harder or trying to increase my talent wasn’t the answer. The value ceiling was keeping me from stepping into the impact I was capable of bringing to businesses as a creative person, and it was also keeping my wife and I stuck in her childhood bedroom, sharing a living space with my in-laws (who I love dearly).
I had to spend the next decade learning how to shatter that ceiling. The rest of this book will be me giving you a detailed breakdown of the seven things I had to learn to do so, and how I did. Any creative professional who decides to harness these seven keys will be able to break through the value ceiling in weeks or months, instead of ten years (like me).
Want more? Join the waitlist and be notified as soon as the book is ready!
©2025 Brandon J Triola
Brandon Triola is a creative failure of epic proportions. He was once so useless as a creative professional that as a married man he couldn’t even afford to provide enough for he and his wife to have their own place to live (Talk about a loser!).
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Many creatives start out with a silver spoon, but Brandon’s spoon was one of those plastic, fast-food spoons you find in your car’s glove box. With barely any followers on Dribbble, no college degree, and no massive agency experience, he’s gotta be on the Mt. Rushmore of creative failures. Heck, he doesn’t even have a Behance page. Today he co-owns a multi-milion dollar creative consultancy called Forrest.co, and employs a team of 15-20 creatives. When he’s not running Forrest, Brandon speaks and teaches creative professionals how to actually succeed via his newsletter, social media, and other channels. He’s also the owner of the Save The Creatives brand and lives in Nashville TN with his wife and four kids.
