Developing expertise or assets that are not easily copied is essential; otherwise you're just a middleman.
The one path that never works is the most common one: doing nothing at all.
If you're not the best in the world at what you do, then you have to get better.
The joy of art is particularly sweet, though, because it carries with it the threat of rejection, of failure, and of missed connections. It's precisely the high-wire act of "this might not work" that makes original art worth doing.
'Good enough' stopped being good enough a long time ago. so why not be great?
Defending mediocrity is exhausting.