We all have something that we enjoy doing. Something that makes us happy. Most likely, when we think about it, that thing is something that makes us no money. Perhaps it’s going for a walk, or spending time with our loved ones, or singing songs, or writing stories, or playing football on a Sunday morning.
It’s all perfectly acceptable until we find pleasure and happiness in doing something that some people make a living from, or something people have in their minds could potentially make you money. At that point, we get incited to seek a way of monetizing it or – even worst (and God forbid) – when we derive pleasure from doing something like singing songs or writing a book at a non-professional level, we are often reminded that we are never going to make it big. But in so doing they miss the point entirely and they can even spoil it for us!
IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT MONETIZING
When I started this website, I was quickly asked why I wanted to do it. I explained that I enjoyed researching these topics and writing the articles and that I hoped of touching and improving some lives in some ways. I was quickly told, in no uncertain terms, that I was never going to make it work: the competition is fierce, you are not skilled or qualified enough and you haven’t got the right concept idea. After licking my wounds for a while, I found myself scrolling through social media and I came across a picture of the sea in Menorca, where I had lived for a while. I immediately had a wave of happiness remembering the lazy days pottering about in flip flops, breathing in the sea air and basking in the sun. I missed it. I then put down my phone and picked up a book I was then reading. I loved it. I was reading about the unconscious, the knock-on effects when there is a lack of self-esteem and how to improve one’s life! I then logged in to my website and scrolled through some of the articles I had written. I had forgotten some already…and as I opened them, I started reading some of the passages. I loved them.
It was then that an idea quickly came to my mind and I’d like to share it here with you. I like going to the beach, looking at the sea and sunbathing. Do I make money from it? No. I also like taking walks in woodlands. Do I make money from it? No. So, should I now stop going to the beach or taking walks through nature because they make me no money? Of course not!
I decided there and then that although my little website may never make me much money, because it made me happy, it was good and worth enough to me. I don’t need to be the best out there. I just need to be the best I can for my own sense of worthiness, while doing something I enjoy.
LEARN TO READJUST YOUR DIRECTION
A friend of mine, who used to earn good money working in the media sector, aged thirty-plus decided to change career path. He wanted to work in the city analysing companies, becoming a fund manager and managing money for big companies. He took time off from work and for nearly three years he studied twelve hours a day in the library to become an investor. Bear in mind, this is someone who could not wait to get out of University and get a job. But did he do that because he wanted to earn more money? No, he did it because he enjoyed it.
One day he happened to speak to a guy who worked for a city firm and asked for some advice on how to get work in that industry. He was told that by the age of thirty he would be aged out because no one would take him out and that he was deluded and hopeless to believe he could become an analyst. The guy went on to explain that the sector was competitive and full of very bright people who come out from top universities and that no one would be interested in him. However, he advised my friend that perhaps if he leveraged his experience in media he may be able to become a media analyst for a small company.
My friend contacted more people but the feedback did not change. The thing with my friend was that he did not want to become a media analyst for a small company. He wanted to become a fund manager. Eventually, despite the feedback, he decided to think out of the box and find a way of making it work for himself. He quit his media job, sold a property and started investing his own money. It is true, he does not walk into a city job managing hundreds of thousands of pounds for big companies and getting large bonuses, but he gets to invest into his own portfolio and along the way he managed to turn that into his main and only source of income.
What did he do? He changed the direction a bit!
SOMETIMES CHECK THE STARS AND SMILE
Talking to a friend of mine who is a composer, he confessed that when he started making music he did not know if he was ever going to make any money from it. He went into it because he simply loved it. When he was not composing, he was missing it. When he was not in studio, he was missing it. Despite what people told him, that the music industry was corrupted and that he’s be lucky not to end in poverty, he reflected on the fact that he did not need to make it big. He was not aspiring to become the biggest composer or the next A lister. He started to look at the music market and what made him think was the fact that as much as there are big markets out there, there are also small markets! Although a few record labels told him he was not A list material, he could be B, C, D or even E list material. Who cares about the label if you get to do what you love!
When we talked about how he came to make a living making music in the sub list markets, he told me that the areas where he had his greatest successes where the areas where things happened easily, where the stars somehow aligned…(or whatever you want to call it – he said)…and when things just seemed to flow. He found that people around him were able and even willing to help him, hence putting him in a better position to leverage his chances making it easier for himself.
That positivity, that energy and enthusiasms you get when you love doing something is contagious and, in a world, where people are often following the flow afraid of being anything different, it does get you noticed!
Former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss, author of Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It, explains that when people are in a positive frame of mind they are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). The positive impact of a smile on your face or in your voice, applies to the smile-er as much as the smile-ee.
When Tim Ferriss wrote his first book, The Four-Hour Workweek, the manuscript was rejected by twenty-five publishers. When eventually the contract was signed with the twenty-sixth publisher, Ferris decided to ask why his manuscript was chosen. He was curious to find out what they had seen in it that twenty-five others had not. The answer is rather enlightening! “Nothing,” was the reply. “We can understand why publishers have rejected this work. But we aren’t’ betting on the book, we are betting on you. We believe you will do anything and everything you can to make the book successful.” As you can see doing what you love with a bit of determination and self-discipline can really make magic!
LISTEN TO THE ADVICE, BUT MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE SEEKING
Be careful who’s advice you take. If that person does not really know what you are talking about, if that person does not know your business or industry, or if that person does not have some of the same values you have, then their experience is not relevant to your area.
When my friend was told he was no A lister, it took him a bit of rethinking to realize that he did not want to become an A list celebrity. Having worked in the media and music industry myself for fifteen years, I understand very well the compromises celebrities have to make when they make it big. They work hard, their life is always on the spotlight and no matter how strong they are, eventually the criticism gets to them too. What they say is often deliberately twisted to make the news and everything they do or say is put under the microscope. Even the best and strongest crack. As an audience, you only see a side of that glamour life.
The same applies to other career paths. After fifteen years working in the media industry, I decided to leave. This is something that a younger me, who only wanted to work for MTV, would have never thought I’d say. When I started my career in media that was all I wanted (and oh boy, I enjoyed it for over a decade), but as the years passed, I realized that to go up the ladder meant I needed to became a top producer, a commissioner or a CEO. I had seen some of my friends climb the ladder and I had seen them work long hours and on weekends, getting stressed and traveling for work only seeing hotel rooms and conference halls. I did not want that life. The people who lead that life and make it big, and I do have friends who have happily succeeded in that path, are people who have to be focused and tuned in all the time, but they love it – they dig it! The question is: the idea of being an A list celebrity or a CEO on top of his game may sound appealing, but do you really want to put up with all of the compromises that that life comes with and would you actually enjoy it?
Here’s an important point: just because you are not going to be the next big shot it does not mean you do not have a place or that you cannot become successful within that business or area of interest. There are many ways to success and you may actually find that what you started of by regarding as success is not what you want after all. Perhaps being a singer songwriter in D class gets you to write and sing the stuff you actually like without the life restriction and criticism that an A list celebrity needs to deal with day in day out.
BACK TO THE BASICS – DO ENJOY!
Let’s get back to sitting on a beach or taking a walk in nature not making money.
Aren’t these things key to life?
Think this: people go to work and take a holiday to go sit on a beach and they make no money. In fact, people do lots of things that make them no money! But the minute we start to say we want do something that makes us happy, which people have in their minds could potentially make you money, they miss the point entirely. Remember: you must enjoy what you do!
If you are missing something, then that is the thing you should be doing because that is what makes you happy. If you like painting, paint away. If you like writing, write away. Do it for yourself. Do what makes you happy because these are the things that draw us, that makes us alive and vibrant. That is a good test of what is important. Little disclaimer: of course, you can’t always go and do everything you miss, for example, drugs are not good! Use your head and follow your heart.
If it makes you happy but makes you no money, don’t try to overthink it too much because it costs you money anyways to go sit on a beach, go on holiday, purchase nice clothes, buy a house…etc…etc. It’s part of life.
Furthermore, my personal advice: don’t be afraid to live your dreams even if others see you as an unworthy nobody! Robert Miles, Swiss-born Italian record producer, composer, musician and DJ, went knocking for two years at every record label’s door before his 1995 composition “Children” finally got signed by a small independent label and went on to sell more than five million copies topping the charts in many countries. A music producer friend of mine, who was partner in a big record label, famously turned down Anastacia because at the time she was over thirty and that was, and still is today, considered old in the music industry. That was just before she made her international breakthrough in 2000 aged thirty-two with her debut album “Not That Kind”.
I’m not A lister but does it allow me to express myself and send out my message? Yes, so hear me roar and I hope you will follow suit Impostor Syndrome free!
