Sex, Cash, and the Two-Pronged Approach to Vocational Fulfillment
Even if you aren’t an artist, nobody likes to sell out. At the same time, nobody likes being poor. Today I want to introduce a topic Zach and I will be diving into this week on the HofTalk podcast — the Sex & Cash Theory.
I was first introduced to the Sex & Cash Theory while reading Hugh MacLeod’s book Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity. Here’s the basic idea, you have one job that pays the bills (Cash) and one job that feeds and grows your creative side (Sex). For example, working your 9–to-5 and doing open mics at the local comedy club. Or writing for a boring trade publication during the day and working on your noir detective novel at night. Or acting in commercials to pay the bills and starting a comedy troupe that writes, acts, and produces their own films. You take care of your basic needs but allow your artistic side to thrive, whether in hopes it’s one day lucrative enough to fully support you or if it’s only meant to exist as a side project that feeds your soul’s need to express itself.
We all wish to find something that does both, the elusive “never worked a day in my life” gig — that compensates us handsomely but allows us to be true to our authentic self. But life is rarely this clean cut. It’s almost too much to ask from one job to be both lucrative and entirely true to your passion and allowing for the creativity, autonomy, growth, and excitement you desire. You can choose a strategy of only working a single job and chasing the combination of all those factors that makes you the happiest or you can augment what one job lacks by taking on another (or several) that provide what’s missing.
Personal growth, especially in an area of lesser experience, is an especially compelling reason for using this strategy. When we’re well paid by an employer, it’s typically because we’re very good at something. If you want to do something new or something that you don’t have a lot of experience with, you normally need to accept less compensation and take a few steps back on the ladder. Companies are in the business of paying for performance, so if you want to grow a skill that isn’t valued at your current job and you want to keep earning the money you earn, you’re going to have to make that investment on your own with the extra time you have. And because love of the game is a key motivator behind your “Sex” pursuit, it makes it easier to put in the hard hours late at night when you’re tired or on the weekend when your friends are at the beach. The people who are truly fulfilled are willing to pay the price.
So how about you — what do you do to balance the need for money and your hunger for artistic expression?
