Make Your Own Money

Have or Be Making Money Now

It probably isn’t your dream job and you may still be bumming rides off your buddies and living off ramen but don’t be stupid. Stay out of debt or at the very least don’t dig that hole any deeper. It will cripple your ability to progress. I cannot emphasize this enough. There are crazy people who get lucky with debt but the general story repeated time and time again is that debt kills careers. Take your time. Learn how to be frugal and manage your little bits and pieces. This all will turn to serve you further down the road. When you’re young the green you’re after is a toolset of experiences not cash. These walls which close you in now soon will be the fortress from which you will rule the world.

Learn Something

If succeeding in business were a simple progression (which it really isn’t) this would be step one. You need to know something. You must be good at doing or making something. My suggestion however is to not run off to college before you know what that something might be for you. There are cheaper ways to discover what you’re good at and might enjoy. Truth of the matter is though that right now you probably don’t and shouldn’t care too much about finding your “something”, you just need to get your hands dirty in a world which is very much bigger than you. You need to do stuff and gain experiences. Travel a bit. Do some pro bono work. Serve in an organization or two. Learn how to become passionate about something. Fall in love with some random project that doesn’t really directly benefit you. Lose yourself in someone else’s interests and become a part of someone else’s success. After all this yeah, maybe go get some formal education, but stop assuming your path should look like everyone else’s. Forge your own path because it really sucks to wake up and realize you’re not the one living your own life.

Do Your Own Work

Now that you’ve had some wild experiences and you’re high on the excitement of creating to serve it’s finally time to begin generating your own work. Tons of it. Caution to the wind and perfection as your furthest thought for now is your time to make. Draw upon your wealth of experiences to fuel your creative passions and just make tons of shit. Don’t even focus on any particular industry if you don’t want to. Explore whatever fancies you. Learn about it, invest in pursuing it and just create things all day every day.

Share

Now take all these crazy random things you’re making and share them. Feel free to make a total mess here. You’re not building your business today so don’t pretend like you are. Today you’re sharing yourself with other people. Join all the social media. Make all the email addresses. Buy all the domain names. Do what you must to make. Paint is flying and there’s no need to stop and organize anything yet. Also there’s no pressure right now. Pinterest kinda sucking to keep up with? Drop it. Tumblr sort of becoming your thing? Maybe forget about updating your Linkedin and Flickr profiles to spend some more time investing in that community. It’s your call, so make it. Don’t focus on creating or keeping a following. Likes? Pfff! How needs them?! You’re a creator and the world is your refrigerator. Post all the things!

Charge For It

Okay. Gear shift. Or actually shift your entire mental machine. The transition from sharing your creativity to charging for it is one I really screwed up in my own journey. You should probably read about that. Suffice it to say though that you need to understand the world doesn’t owe you anything. You don’t deserve to be liked or paid for your work and while droves of people may say they “love” and “like” your work it doesn’t mean anyone is obligated to pay you for that stuff. Truth is it might just be horrible. Or at least horrible for my uses. I can love that you love it but I don’t have to pay you squat for it because quite frankly my needs are different then your expressions. What you make likely isn’t going to solve my problems. So there’s a shift needed. From random creation to focused craft. To taking someone else’s problem and filtering it through your unique set of creativity. It’s the finest point of the creative process. It is the culmination of all your work up to this point. To take a skill set you truly enjoy having and with it make something truly helpful to other human beings. These won’t always mesh perfectly. Some days you’ll hate what you have to do to really solve the problem, especially in your early days, but at the end of the day you’d rather be doing no other thing come tomorrow morning.

Keep Learning

So now you’re making a little money. You’re helping people. You’re likely starting to get burned out. People are running all over you and you may be getting sick of what was once all you wanted to do for the rest of your life. Humans are built this way. To move forward. To make hard things easier. To make the machines do the boring things so we can do the fun stuff. So keep learning. Take the time to build the random things no one is paying you for. Expand your horizons and close the doors on old tired seasons which are now far behind you. Don’t be afraid to move on. With the same passion with which you started, move forward.

Raise Your Rates

The beauty here is that as you learn more you become more valuable and indispensable. Your skill set becomes a rare thing just as you yourself are a single unique individual. Employers and clients can find fewer and fewer of you who can do what you do. So charge more. You’re worth it. You’ll get better work, have to work less, be able to give more, whatever you want. You’re building your career and it wasn’t cut like everyone else’s. This one is yours and it’s actually worth something now.

Take Initiative

Your success must belong to you. No one else can win this for you, otherwise you didn’t really win it. Own your mistakes and own your successes. Make the phone calls, write the emails, take the time to do the hard things that gets your blood pumping. Success isn’t easy but it sure as heck is a ton of fun.

Take Risks

So now the future is before you. As it always was and always will be. Don’t shiver now. Stand tall and fall hard. Try big things and explore all the avenues that interest you. Also, remember that success is never something you arrive at, because it’s not something we were made to chase after but rather to walk in. Moving from season to season. Ultimately success isn’t a measure of how much you’re able to make, but how much you’re able to give, and we give best when we know most. So learn, change, grow and don’t be afraid. Stick to your gut and go kick some butt!