I just finished reading the book THE ONE THING by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.
I'm now in a state where I find my chest tight with the same encumbering fear I get when I think about narrowing down my focus to ONE purpose for my life.
The concept is simple, but applying it is not. I have seen mild success in many aspects of my life, but none that have permitted me to do more than make enough money to survive...I've never done more than 30K a year, and I'm 27 years old.
In order to give the best context I can without writing my entire autobiography, I'll recant a few pivotal moments (now that I'm editing this particular post, I don't feel like I've truly had my FTE...)
Anyhow, the book basically postulates that in order to achieve extraordinary results, we have to focus deeply (something I have struggled with greatly) on the ONE activity that will be the progenitor of our goal(s).
I'll do my best not to let this veer too far into "rant" territory, but I've had this issue for a while, and I'd like to gather some feedback from the wonderful minds that populate this forum.
My main motivation for posting this, is an organized and yet cathartic eruption. I want to burn off the impurities that have been indwelt into my being and have held me back time and time again.
Read on and you'll see why I've been pretty much broke my whole life, and how I'm aiming to change that.
You see, I'm an artist by trade - I went to school for animation, and ended up as a freelance illustrator/concept artist.
But the problem is that I love creating art and practicing it for my sake, and tend to start sabotaging my successes when I start performing it as a service for others.
In the second quarter of 2014 I was working in-house as an illustrator at a local studio. I was making 1k a week (the most I've made to date) and was miserable. I got home and was spent on levels I didn't know existed.
Even before I had a way to articulate the SCRIPT, I could feel it tugging at my autonomy, and basically gave into depression. This spell of sorrow caused me to put in my two-week's notice after 3 months.
Fast forward to 2015. I'm one of the 12 Illustrators from around the world to get a plane ticket to California Via the L.Ron Hubbard Association and their yearly contest. I didn't win at grand finals, but I got to meet some of the industry greats, network a bit, learn a lot, and received external validation for the work I'd put into my craft.
Even after that, I still couldn't bring myself to work more than 40 hours per week as a professional artist. Long periods in front of the screen, client feedback, low pay, and a plethora of other negatives just kept burning me out (depression + quitting current projects.)
A "dream job" in that industry would leave me feeling dead inside before long. This is something I struggle to come to terms with, as younger me really wanted to be a highly-regarded fantasy artist.
My path also forked into music as well.
In 2016 I started making small profit via art courses and my YouTube Channel began to grow. I was dating a girl who was the lead singer of a stoner rock band, and when I saw her perform, something inside me shifted.
I was awed, yet envious. She and her band were slaying it. During their set list, for some reason, I had this deep regret that I hadn't chosen music as my creative pursuit.
Seeing her under the vivid lights performing her heart out while people banged their heads - this made my art seem so droll. She was an entity, that for a brief series of songs transcended herself as a person, and became this on-stage event.
I wanted that experience.
So I bought a cheap guitar and started practicing - little did I know I had a smidgen of talent, and developed the ability to play, produce, and write my own songs.
I obsessed over getting better at music. I hadn't felt this creative since I first started pursuing art. I would stay up late producing on my computer, and spend hours watching programs on YT on how to improve my compositions. I would sing scales in the car all the time, write lyrics all over my journals, and pick up my guitar whenever I had a spare moment.
Here's a little instrumental I made with a few spare hours:
Fade
Friends and people I didn't know were a bit impressed that I had a decent voice, and that I had learned to play so quickly.
However...My income dropped.
Since I wasn't putting much time and energy into my business or side hustle, my art rusted up, my sales went down, and what little following I have online started to wane.
If trying to be an artist AND a musician wasn't enough, I've been a part-time model and commercial actor for the past 5 years. I've worked for Best Buy, Target, Columbia, and other brands that my agencies marketed me to. I've taken acting classes and honed my chops enough to get paid for being in local short films and televised commercials.
At one point I wanted to pursue it, but the end result just wasn't exciting enough for me, plus I don't really enjoy studying the scripts or repeating lines ad nauseaum. The process isn't all that fun - unlike music. Acting makes me feel like a living puppet. Much like doing art for others makes me feel.
Music has had the least amount of development, and hasn't made me a dime, yet I love it the most. I don't aim to be a cover artist, but someone who's known for his own project(s).
Art has been the longest-running in my life, the one I've invest the most into. I still enjoy it a lot, but it burns me pretty bad when I have to do too much client work. I like making sales of my courses and working on content for my side-hustle though.
Acting? I've more or less dropped it. Despite being fairly good looking and booking gigs from time to time, I just don't like the results like I do with visual art or music.
In closing:
To bring it full circle - I feel pretty lost choosing my ONE thing. My mind has worked assiduously to undermine my focus and success in many areas, and I would cherish some outside wisdom to help me narrow it down and pull out a purpose I can actually give my all to.
I'm also afraid that even if did give everything I had to ONE of these paths, are they too slowlane for me to ever ascertain the financial freedom I seek?
The likelihood of amassing riches as an artist or a musician are pretty weak in contrast to being an entrepreneur. It's just a different spectrum for providing value.
I'm drawn mostly to creative fields, aligned with being a learner and a maker, more so than a manager or a salesman.
Assuming I could make a decent living as a musician, what then? Even after touring and getting signed to a label in a somewhat dying industry, I'd still be far from rich. I'd end up having to teach or open up some sort of personal brand/business. Even just getting signed, booked for shows and the like, would probably take me another 9-12 months even if I gave it 150%.
My ideal would be to create a valuable personal brand for my art and music. I want to synergize the two to create my USP - much like Gorillaz. Art (maybe animation) and music combined to form a potent entertainment experience.
So in short, I want to create songs and art. I want to become a millionaire by doing so.
From what I gather, this isn't traditional entrepreneurship. I don't have an above-average mathematical mind, I can't code, and I please my clients as a service-provider, but burn out quickly and don't make much $$$.
Am I just way off base here? Can you see something with this information that I can't? If you had these skill sets, what would you do?
Even just writing this I feel a bit better, like I've homed in on what I'd actually like to make my purpose. I hate being borderline broke, but I'd regret living to be 80 and never trying to make this dream come true.
If you've read or skimmed this far, you have my thanks. Even if you don't want to respond. I'll still be updating my progress thread and contributing to the forum, I've just had to get this off my chest because I keep freezing up due to analysis paralysis and indecision.
Feel free to share your own stories and hopefully we'll be able to shatter these paradigms together.
I'm now in a state where I find my chest tight with the same encumbering fear I get when I think about narrowing down my focus to ONE purpose for my life.
The concept is simple, but applying it is not. I have seen mild success in many aspects of my life, but none that have permitted me to do more than make enough money to survive...I've never done more than 30K a year, and I'm 27 years old.
In order to give the best context I can without writing my entire autobiography, I'll recant a few pivotal moments (now that I'm editing this particular post, I don't feel like I've truly had my FTE...)
Anyhow, the book basically postulates that in order to achieve extraordinary results, we have to focus deeply (something I have struggled with greatly) on the ONE activity that will be the progenitor of our goal(s).
I'll do my best not to let this veer too far into "rant" territory, but I've had this issue for a while, and I'd like to gather some feedback from the wonderful minds that populate this forum.
My main motivation for posting this, is an organized and yet cathartic eruption. I want to burn off the impurities that have been indwelt into my being and have held me back time and time again.
Read on and you'll see why I've been pretty much broke my whole life, and how I'm aiming to change that.
You see, I'm an artist by trade - I went to school for animation, and ended up as a freelance illustrator/concept artist.
But the problem is that I love creating art and practicing it for my sake, and tend to start sabotaging my successes when I start performing it as a service for others.
In the second quarter of 2014 I was working in-house as an illustrator at a local studio. I was making 1k a week (the most I've made to date) and was miserable. I got home and was spent on levels I didn't know existed.
Even before I had a way to articulate the SCRIPT, I could feel it tugging at my autonomy, and basically gave into depression. This spell of sorrow caused me to put in my two-week's notice after 3 months.
Fast forward to 2015. I'm one of the 12 Illustrators from around the world to get a plane ticket to California Via the L.Ron Hubbard Association and their yearly contest. I didn't win at grand finals, but I got to meet some of the industry greats, network a bit, learn a lot, and received external validation for the work I'd put into my craft.
Even after that, I still couldn't bring myself to work more than 40 hours per week as a professional artist. Long periods in front of the screen, client feedback, low pay, and a plethora of other negatives just kept burning me out (depression + quitting current projects.)
A "dream job" in that industry would leave me feeling dead inside before long. This is something I struggle to come to terms with, as younger me really wanted to be a highly-regarded fantasy artist.
My path also forked into music as well.
In 2016 I started making small profit via art courses and my YouTube Channel began to grow. I was dating a girl who was the lead singer of a stoner rock band, and when I saw her perform, something inside me shifted.
I was awed, yet envious. She and her band were slaying it. During their set list, for some reason, I had this deep regret that I hadn't chosen music as my creative pursuit.
Seeing her under the vivid lights performing her heart out while people banged their heads - this made my art seem so droll. She was an entity, that for a brief series of songs transcended herself as a person, and became this on-stage event.
I wanted that experience.
So I bought a cheap guitar and started practicing - little did I know I had a smidgen of talent, and developed the ability to play, produce, and write my own songs.
I obsessed over getting better at music. I hadn't felt this creative since I first started pursuing art. I would stay up late producing on my computer, and spend hours watching programs on YT on how to improve my compositions. I would sing scales in the car all the time, write lyrics all over my journals, and pick up my guitar whenever I had a spare moment.
Here's a little instrumental I made with a few spare hours:
Fade
Friends and people I didn't know were a bit impressed that I had a decent voice, and that I had learned to play so quickly.
However...My income dropped.
Since I wasn't putting much time and energy into my business or side hustle, my art rusted up, my sales went down, and what little following I have online started to wane.
If trying to be an artist AND a musician wasn't enough, I've been a part-time model and commercial actor for the past 5 years. I've worked for Best Buy, Target, Columbia, and other brands that my agencies marketed me to. I've taken acting classes and honed my chops enough to get paid for being in local short films and televised commercials.
At one point I wanted to pursue it, but the end result just wasn't exciting enough for me, plus I don't really enjoy studying the scripts or repeating lines ad nauseaum. The process isn't all that fun - unlike music. Acting makes me feel like a living puppet. Much like doing art for others makes me feel.
Music has had the least amount of development, and hasn't made me a dime, yet I love it the most. I don't aim to be a cover artist, but someone who's known for his own project(s).
Art has been the longest-running in my life, the one I've invest the most into. I still enjoy it a lot, but it burns me pretty bad when I have to do too much client work. I like making sales of my courses and working on content for my side-hustle though.
Acting? I've more or less dropped it. Despite being fairly good looking and booking gigs from time to time, I just don't like the results like I do with visual art or music.
In closing:
To bring it full circle - I feel pretty lost choosing my ONE thing. My mind has worked assiduously to undermine my focus and success in many areas, and I would cherish some outside wisdom to help me narrow it down and pull out a purpose I can actually give my all to.
I'm also afraid that even if did give everything I had to ONE of these paths, are they too slowlane for me to ever ascertain the financial freedom I seek?
The likelihood of amassing riches as an artist or a musician are pretty weak in contrast to being an entrepreneur. It's just a different spectrum for providing value.
I'm drawn mostly to creative fields, aligned with being a learner and a maker, more so than a manager or a salesman.
Assuming I could make a decent living as a musician, what then? Even after touring and getting signed to a label in a somewhat dying industry, I'd still be far from rich. I'd end up having to teach or open up some sort of personal brand/business. Even just getting signed, booked for shows and the like, would probably take me another 9-12 months even if I gave it 150%.
My ideal would be to create a valuable personal brand for my art and music. I want to synergize the two to create my USP - much like Gorillaz. Art (maybe animation) and music combined to form a potent entertainment experience.
So in short, I want to create songs and art. I want to become a millionaire by doing so.
From what I gather, this isn't traditional entrepreneurship. I don't have an above-average mathematical mind, I can't code, and I please my clients as a service-provider, but burn out quickly and don't make much $$$.
Am I just way off base here? Can you see something with this information that I can't? If you had these skill sets, what would you do?
Even just writing this I feel a bit better, like I've homed in on what I'd actually like to make my purpose. I hate being borderline broke, but I'd regret living to be 80 and never trying to make this dream come true.
If you've read or skimmed this far, you have my thanks. Even if you don't want to respond. I'll still be updating my progress thread and contributing to the forum, I've just had to get this off my chest because I keep freezing up due to analysis paralysis and indecision.
Feel free to share your own stories and hopefully we'll be able to shatter these paradigms together.
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