Sex sells. But the reality is never as good as the commercials…

Yann Girard
Aug 24, 2017 · 5 min read

… or what you really need to be able to do “your thing”…

Money.

Money really is the only thing you need to be able to do “your thing.”

To follow your passion.

And live your dreams.

No matter what everybody else out there says.

No matter what all the gurus say.

Or all the self help books.

Or all those life coaches.

Well, there actually is another thing you’re going to need.

You’re going to need a lot of time.

And patience.

Time and patience to get better at your thing.

So here’s the thing…

If you don’t have enough money, if you don’t have your basics covered and if you don’t have any financial stability, then it’s just really, really hard to make anything work.

No matter how much work you’re willing to put in.

No matter how much you’re willing to hustle.

If you’re constantly worried about not being able to pay next month’s rent, then you’ll never be able to see.

You’ll always be blind.

You’ll always make short term decisions.

And short term decisions will always lead to long term pain.

So whenever someone tells you that you should just go out here, that you should just do your thing, follow your passion, live your dream and do what you love, try to remember this…

Work on your financial stability first.

It’s the most important thing.

And it doesn’t really matter how you cover your basics.

Or how much or how little you need to cover your basics.

The only thing that really matters is that you’re financially stable.

That you’re able to cover your expenses.

No matter what.

So you have some time and freedom to experiment.

To learn new things.

And to invest in yourself.

If you don’t have that freedom, that freedom to invest in yourself, to be patient and to put in the work without having to worry about anything, then following your passion, doing your thing and doing what you love is a petty bad idea.

And whenever someone tells you to follow your passion, to do your thing and to live your dreams, study their past.

Figure out how they got started.

Figure out whether they were actually following their own advice when they got started.

Figure out whether they covered their basics first or if they went ahead with nothing.

It’s very likely they covered their basics first.

Maybe they had some sort of safety net.

A family that’s doing relatively ok.

A job to pay the bills.

A side gig.

Or whatever.

When I started I had two years of expenses in the bank.

I live a very simple lifestyle, so it didn’t take too long to get there.

I worked a job for 18 months and saved almost everything I made.

So I was able to build up my freedom fund relatively quickly.

Maybe it’ll take you longer to build up that freedom fund.

Maybe you’re going to do many different things on the side while you still have your job.

Maybe you’re going to start a side business.

Or get a second job.

Or do consulting.

Or freelancing.

Or whatever.

So why do you need that money?

Why do you need that freedom fund?

Because it’ll take a lot of time until you get to a place where you’re going to be able to make a living doing the things you love.

Maybe you’re never going to get there.

Maybe you’re not patient enough.

Maybe you’re running out of money.

Who knows?

The only thing I know is this…

Doing your thing and following your passion is expensive.

Very expensive.

Because you’ve gotta get good at it first.

Very good.

And that’s going to take a lot of time.

But not only is it going to be expensive because life is expensive but because you’re going to have to leave a lot of money on the table to get started.

I barely made any money during my first 3 years.

Those 3 years were equal to almost $200,000 in salary I would have gotten if I stayed at my job.

Sure, you can become a yoga teacher in just a few weeks.

But there are millions of yoga teachers out there.

And to be able to make a living you’ve gotta be one of the best yoga teachers out there.

Or you’ll barely be able to get by.

And that takes time.

Becoming really, really good at anything in life takes a hell lot of time.

You can become a writer or a blogger even faster than that.

You don’t even have to go to Bali and go through a two weeks long course.

You can get started right away.

All you have to do is to open up Word or your phone or your tablet and you’re already a writer. Or a blogger.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be successful. Or any good…

Just because you can get started right away doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful.

The easier it is to get started, the harder it’ll usually be to become one of the best out there and be able to make a living.

Simply because you’ll be competing with everybody else who’s competing with everybody else.

So the only way you’ll ever be successful, the only way you’ll ever be able to make a living blogging, writing, singing, painting or whatever is to become one of the best of the best out there.

Sure, you can combine things you love and do things at the intersection of it, but you’d still have to become really good at it.

And during that time you’ve somehow gotta be able to take care of yourself.

To pay for food, rent and everything else.

If you think it’s going to take one year, it’s probably going to take 10 years.

If you think it’s going to take two years it’s probably going to take 5 years.

If you think it’s going to take 3 years it might maybe take just 4 years.

You get the idea, right…

So whatever it is you’re trying to do, make sure you achieve some sort of financial stability first.

And it doesn’t really matter whether you work as a security guard, at Mc Donalds a warehouse or whatever.

The only thing that matters is that you’ve got your basics covered and then use your free-time to work on getting better at “your thing.”

Whatever your thing is.

I know it doesn’t really sound as sexy as “follow your passion” or “do what you love.”

Sex sells.

But the reality is never as good as the commercials…

“Money is not for buying things. Things don’t make us happy. Money is for buying ourselves some freedom to do the things that make us happy.”

This was a part of my new book The Underdogs Guide To Winning When You’ve Failed At Almost Everything. I’ll release the next part tomorrow. It’s also available for pre-order for pay-as-much-as-you-want. You can grab your copy here: https://gum.co/XHyRD


Originally published at yanngirard.typepad.com.

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Yann Girard

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I think, live & breathe here: http://yanngirard.com

Thought Pills

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