Claiming Undeserved Credit is Awfully Unpleasant - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 68

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 1 - January 23, 2026

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 67  - June 26, 2026 

Early into my TV phase, filming a scene for American Rehab Charleston, the showrunner pulled me aside, and delicately said, “You need to stop saying 'we'.” As previously described, off camera was an army of tradespeople and designers and producers working hard each day for months.

Something that felt normal throughout this experience was that in the grand plan, beginning to end, the rehabs were a large team effort. Of course, having a deluge of people all at once instead of a daily trickle was a big adjustment. But having involvement from plenty of others in the middle is common on most of my projects.

What had made it feel somewhat typical were these usuals, beginning to end. I’d measured up the house after becoming the owner. Then I reworked it on paper before planning out how to take it on, with much of this thinking going on organically as I cleaned out and organized anything left behind.  

Throughout filming I began to understand all of the parts and scopes of the project that would be excluded. And this allowed me to get a handle on the finishing and buttoning up of loose ends after everyone else left. Overseeing the last leg until I sold also felt like familiar territory, a pattern all my project houses shared.  

As always, I was solidly tuned in to what help I'd need to restore the property completely, but since I narrated the project and progress on camera, my actual role was diminished substantially, even more than I’d expected or realized going in. And since I was doing so much less than usual, I considered saying “we” as a compromise, a stretch on what I felt was normal and what was truly going on around me each day or off and away filming off site.  

Back to this moment of directions from the showrunner. After laying out my points, making it clear how I felt more comfortable using we, this producer explained it in a way that was close to something like, “I hear what you’re saying, but you’re the only one on camera. Viewers aren’t going to see anyone else. So, you need to try harder to say, ‘I’ and ‘me’ instead of ‘we’ and ‘us’.”

In my view, giving deserved credit was not just the right thing to do, in a business sense it was prudent. As I fully understood, genuine appreciation, recognition, and acknowledgement inspires people. Giving due credit was another form of payoff; currency paid out to the skilled craftspeople we desperately needed. It was the sort of thing that fueled the necessary willingness to keep grinding.

In the back of her mind, I think the producer understood this and she astutely added, “It’s okay. Everyone gets it. They understand what we’re doing here.”

With effort, I got better at all of this, but it was a private, unappetizing battle. I’m not sure which was worse, the moment I accepted credit and had it recorded, or watching these scenes play out on the television screen months later.

The thing is, everyone is an absolute. And since there were dozens of people impacted, it was an overgeneralized embellishment. Everyone didn’t get it and I couldn’t blame them. Who wants some home rehabbing blogger in spic and span clothes accepting their deserved glory? Who would want to watch a show with their families where I’m being celebrated for their efforts after months of coming in early or staying late, missing time with them, friends, and neighbors?

The producers weren’t contractors. They sincerely didn’t understand what they were asking or how it might have made the tradespeople feel. I did and I should have worked harder until the TV creators understood.

To me, going along with this credit taking approach was just another misstep on my part. I suppose I was trying too hard to accommodate producers. It was such an amazing opportunity, and I didn’t want to seem difficult, as if the break had gone to my head or that I was ungrateful. This expectation was just another beyond my navigational skill level.

This serves as another example of my failed leadership. I could have called a meeting with the producers, maybe even brought the contractors in. This sort of air-clearing heart-to-heart would have gone a long way to ease heartburn. And it would have paid dividends the production company was unable to understand but benefits they surely would have felt.

In my opinion, with no TV experience backing it up, it would have been better if I’d done the normal thing on camera: pointed out how the tradespeople had come through for all of us. Just the normal attitude as a customary way of thanking them for their parts.

And just because those on the construction side were getting paid, that didn’t lessen the sting of me getting all the acknowledgment. Financial compensation is not a legitimate bandage, not when someone like me knows better, or should have been in a better position to do right by those with the utilized skills and talents.

As I’ve steadily admitted, I didn’t know television. But my career in construction and renovating meant something. Other than HVAC work, I’ve done most of the other trades and scopes at least once. And except for plumbing and electrical, they’ve been solo missions. But that didn’t qualify me to be recorded as if I was the site superhero with all the answers. Part of the fun of each project is learning, growing as a renovator, and adding onto my own cache of knowledge and skills.

What I’m trying to make clear is that not “everyone” got it because that’s not how it was. And believing something like this is nonsensical. Producers expect to be mentioned within a production’s end credits. Contractors deserve appreciation as well and my part, even though I was being cooperative, is/was the opposite of this gratitude, what is a vitally important ingredient in any construction effort when it’s genuine.

Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 69 - Coming Soon