Warning: Passion will never be a passive money stream
If you work hard enough, you can make it.
Says every YouTube side hustle video, MLM social media post, and expert interviewed on podcasts. Of course, if you’re willing to buy their $200-$1500 course, your chances of financial freedom are nearly guaranteed even though their results aren’t typical. Don’t worry, there’s a special just for you to get the class at the greatest bargain they have offered yet, as long as you sign up in the next 60 minutes.
I’m just gonna go ahead and call it, bullshit!
But how can I be so certain? Authentic personal experience. I’ve spent the last year of my life chasing page views, researching SEO, and taking the aforementioned classes. Did I end up with freedom? Nope.
Instead of one full-time job that I loathe, suddenly I had two. My fulltime side hustle stole what little time I had left for my family. To add insult to injury it paid peanuts. Sadly, the peanuts have been a recent upgrade from squat.
Obviously, it’s simply not hard work that makes the difference between making it and not. Sometimes it all comes down to timing. Like it always has for the history of human existence.
Who else wants to be free?
Why are we so drawn to these amazing opportunities? It’s the, Someone else made it, so surely I can too. I’m willing to put in the time, research, and money to get started, mentality, also known as the millennial trap.
Ask the experts peddling their classes how they made it and a surprising majority will tell you that most of their income comes from their classes.
That’s right, they make their money from hopeful people like you and me craving escape from the clock-in/clock-out routine. They sold us a bag of dreams that will likely deliver minimal results.
Do you know what makes it worse? Once you finish their class they arrogantly ask you to become an affiliate, pushing their classes to your friends and family who want to live free.
Here’s a quick way to tell if it’s valuable or garbage
Are you looking for freedom from the corporate world, or are you looking to fuel your passion? This is the single most important discernment determining the value of the class.
If you’re trying to escape the 9–5, be wary.
The first free video gets you very excited about the possibility of working from home in pajamas. Toward the end of that hour-long video, you’ll be informed of the paid class you can take that will explain everything in detail, making it possible for you to repeat the steps these experts took to get where they are now.
First of all, the video wasn’t free. You just invested an hour of your life to watch a video that promised to be helpful, but really it’s a way to peddle a product. That’s essentially the longest infomercial you have ever watched. What is an hour of your time worth?
Secondly, a portion (probably a considerably large percentage) of their income comes from selling this class. You have to question how successful they have really been.
However, if you’re looking to feed your soul fire, look for the classes that focus on honing your craft avoiding ones that promise to teach you how to market. You’ve made your choice and it’s a fine one. I happened to have made the same one recently.
#1 way to reset your desire
After chasing the side hustle lifestyle for this past year, I became burnt out. I spent 12% of each day writing, while I spent 88% of the day on marketing. I felt depleted, my writing visibly suffered, and I had halted all growth.
I quit.
I just quit writing. Every time I thought of going to my office, instantly my head began to throb, my eyes grew heavy, and my shoulders would creep up into my neck.
For about two weeks I avoided writing, quit social media, and spent a lot of time meditating in nature. I also had meetings with friends, spoke to my mentor, and focused on my family. Utter bliss. Then a funny thing happened, I felt inspired.
So I wrote. I shared the piece with a few friends and they agreed it’s the best thing I have written yet. I can thank Kelly Holmes of Sticky Blogging for that (because, like I said, courses that help you fine tune your art are worth it!).
Somehow I had missed such a simple problem. Probably because chasing insignificant analytics kept me from working on improving my writing.
Banish overwhelm once and for all
My passion is writing. It’s how I share my inner world with others. Conveying the depth of the human experience and sharing our triumphs and tribulations in the form of written words. Through my art, I hope we feel a little less alone, a little more “normal”.
How can that creative expression be sold, or more importantly, what happens when you try to sell it? It cheapens the whole process from start to finish. I, the artist, no longer create from a well of wonder, beauty, and expression, but work toward page views, website traffic, and money.
Diseased and malnourished, the art rots before us without ever having a chance to flourish.
How to keep ownership of your soul and follow your passion
Writing for the art of prose on the page does not pay the bills. Of course, we need money to survive. The dream to capitalize our natural gifts makes linear sense. We may as well get paid for doing what we’re good at, right?
Wrong!
If you’re chasing a side hustle you better know exactly how much of yourself you’re willing to compromise. As for me, I’m drawing the line at my art.
So no, I won’t participate in the chase for a side hustle any longer. It’s a greedy monster distracting me from my passion.
You won’t see any top 10 lists or clickbait here. What you will find is raw emotion, honesty, torment, and elation, because that is what I have to offer the world. Honing in on and sharing the experiences we, as humans, have facing the world and all its surprises.
If you’re interested in chasing arbitrary trivialities, please follow someone else. Only those concerned with significance and complexity need find me here.
Good luck in your endeavors and I hope you stop short of trading your personal value for meaningless garbage. Instead of working hard to “make it”, work hard to make your art better.
