BUSINESS AND MONEY, OR ART AND MADNESS?
Allow me to be perfectly clear:
You can put money first, or you can put art and doing the work you were called to first, but you can’t do both.
Spoiler alert, in case you really don’t care to read the rest of this post right now and just want the juice:
Yes. You CAN succeed wildly in both areas. It’s a fucking tricky tightrope to walk though, and one that depends upon you ABSOLUTELY knowing what your absolute priorities are and absolutely committing to LIVING by those priorities.
This piece is for those who want to learn not only how to walk the tightrope but how to dance gleefully and twirl merrily on one foot down the fucking tightrope, stopping for the occasional loop-de-loop.
You wanna have it ALL, baby, on your terms, where you get to show up each day as the crazy mad creator you are but where you also run a freaking EMPIRE and lead your own revolution?
You can.
You can.
You can.
And actually as far as maintaining the balance on that oh-so-high tightrope goes, it’s like anything. Learn the moves and how to roll with them and you’ll be able to do it with your eyes closed.
Of course you’re going to fall and probably break a TON of bones (or at least get a ton of knocks) a gajillion times first, but hey – you already know that. Might as well fall hard on the way to your TRUE dreams, right?!
So yes. Having it all. Absofuckinglutely doable.
But let’s be CRYSTAL clear first about what actually matters more to YOU?
Money – ?
Or your art – ?
Which is it gorgeous? Which is it for right NOW? Just be honest with yourself! It’s okay if it changes along the way, and well it might, but right now you have to choose, because if you don’t know what you most want to make?
You’ll likely make nothing.
Which is how creators end up both broke AND frustrated, not making money and also not doing their true work!
If your focus is money, then in this world – the online world, and much of the off – your task is simple:
Find a way to attract or hook in clients with a burning deep need
Be able to help them fill that need
Offer them (for money) ways to fill that need
Repeat repeat repeat.
Of course most people who try to make money online don’t because they manage to screw up at least one if not all of those simple steps. Maybe because they haven’t taken the time to learn (or apply) the details of each step but maybe – just maybe – because they don’t really CARE.
Because at the heart who they are? Is someone with a song within them, just waiting to be let free.
Someone with music that wants to escape –
And with powerful creative madness they want to shake the world with.
And as they go through the motions, of building a business, of marketing, of lead generation, of selling, of serving and delivering, the underlying and often dominant feeling is FUCK THIS SHIT.
Because these people?
Were born to create not hustle.
CAN they hustle, can they hustle like nobody’s business, can they make a TON of money following the system?
Of course! But that’s not really my point here is it, and besides … the effectiveness of following the system depends upon following the system in the first place, and the problem with not really GIVING a fuck about all of those rules … systems … strategies … is it’s tough to consistently ACT like you give a fuck.
You might do it for a day –
Or a while –
And maybe even give it some really good effort –
But you’ll always, ultimately, veer back to the path your heart is pulling you towards.
And if this is who you are then honey you can SAY your focus is making money right now – it needs to be, it has to be, you have to MAKE it so, YOU NEED MONEY and then later you can do the work you REALLY want to do; it’s okay, you don’t mind! – but seriously –
QUIT TRYING TO BE SOMEONE YOU’RE NOT.
You can HUSTLE without being a hustler at your deepest core.
You can TEACH without being a teacher at your deepest core.
You can SELL without being a salesperson at your deepest core.
But you can’t be an artist, a creator with a message of truth, someone born to shake the world, at your deepest core, and ignore that calling.
You can’t, quite simply, because you WON’T.
And let’s be honest … haven’t you experienced that already?
You go through the motions –
And about the business –
Of building your business –
But you just … can’t.
And you don’t know why.
And it scares and FRUSTRATES the hell out of you, when you’ve spent money, and time, and a GOD damned hefty amount of energy learning the RULES of this whole thing and you can totally SEE HOW THIS SHIZ WORKS but yet you just don’t freaking well DO it!
And your mind screams at you, daily:
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?!”
Can I tell you?
There’s nothing wrong with you …
And you need to let go.
You need to let go, first and foremost, of putting the money and the business ahead of your true work, your art, your fucking CALLING honey.
IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT YOUR CALLING.
And whether you’re actively PURSUING that and so therefore reaping the REWARDS of that (the ultimate of which of course is the reward of doing your true work, but yes I do also mean money and impact!), or whether you’re just telling yourself ONE DAY, either way –
IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT YOUR CALLING.
So you might as well save yourself the TROUBLE –
The PRETENSE –
The silly GAME –
Of being a big bad business boss.
Can you DO that, as weLL?
YES YES YES. But you can’t BE that, and before you do ANYTHING, if you want to actually build a life you do love and live the life you were BORN for, you’re going to have to start focus on BEING who you actually are, who you were called to be, and who you truthfully want to be.
So what DO you want to be gorgeous?
Someone who knows the ins and outs of online marketing, and rocks that shit, makes a ton of $$ and even a difference, but all the while your soul is SCREAMING with the pain of not being allowed to BREATHE?
Yes? GOOD LUCK THEN, and on your way! Nothing to see around these parts … firstly because you’re fucking DOOMED, for the reasons I just outlined about how you DON’T EVEN FUCKING DO THE WORK anyway, and also by the way even if you’ve managed to make MONEY this way you know it does NOT feel like wealth … and secondly because you bore me to tears, and I have nothing for you, nothing I’m even CAPABLE of teaching you, so LEAVE.
But if you want to be the you who you were born to be –
The wonderful terrifying you –
The you who has a message to fucking shake the WORLD with you –
(And who also, by the way, FULLY intends to make and impact millions!) –
Well then baby –
Really – !
Why not just start bloody well being that person then?!
Why continue this ridiculous FARCE of trying to build a business when really what you want to do is create create CREATE?!
Why continue putting MONEY ahead of the work you were BORN for?
But okay, I know – don’t answer that! Because you need money. Because you need to build your audience, right, so that you can then share that true message and work with them! Because you want to reach those millions, and well, that’s what you’re trying to do. Because you want to be an artist and a revolutionary fucking leader!
Yes.
But WHAT COMES FIRST?
Do you see my point here?
You can try to make money based on doing the true work you were called to do, but if your focus is on making the money as your HIGHEST ‘need right now’, then you will NOT in fact be doing the true work you were called to do.
You’ll be performing, for peanuts, like a monkey. No matter how much you try to keep it real.
The art can only come first if the art comes first.
The art can only be true if you let it out the way it wants to come out.
Your message can only shake the world if your intent in getting that message out there is GETTING THAT MESSAGE OUT THERE, not profiting from it.
Put your art first.
Put your art first.
Put your art first.
Put your fucking SOUL first.
But how do you then –
(I hear you wondering) –
Make sure you make MONEY from it?
“How do you guarantee me this will work Kat?!”
Oh, well that’s easy.
I don’t.
I guarantee nothing.
Wait, no, that’s not true –
I guarantee that if you don’t give yourself permission to do the work you were called to do you will NEVER stop regretting it and your soul will slowly whither and die and no matter how much MONEY you make along the way, as you stuff down your deepest cravings and ignore the life you were born to expressively LIVE, it will mean NOTHING.
How’s that for a guarantee???
I kinda like it … !
But also, this.
Fucking TRUST, bitch. Trust is a choice. Choose to trust that you not only have permission to do the work you’re called to do and to let it out how it COMES out no matter what ANYBODY might have to say or think about that, but choose to trust also that you can PROFIT from it, financially as well as in other ways.
Can I tell you a pathway, a system, a step-by-step strategy of how this might work?
Yes, I can. It’s worked for me. It’s working for me. I make a ton of money and a helluva’n impact and it’s all (now) based on showing up each day as the crazy mad creator I am, and simply sharing my true work and my message.
You can learn from my pathway … certainly.
But ultimately my pathway is my pathway, and you’re going to have to pave your own. They won’t look the same.
The ‘short’ version is simple:
* Do your true work.
* Do it without question and without limiting or filtering or editing yourself.
* Do it because it must be done, not because of what doing it can do or GET for you.
* Share it. Often. Everywhere.
* Invite those who resonate – who LOVE it – to join you on this pathway, to join your community, your tribe, your groups, you.
* Invite them to give you money in exchange for more of you, or more of your true work.
Is there more detail?
Yes, of course.
Does it matter?
No, not really. Or at least not now. Because right now, and really always, all that matters is are you first doing the WORK?
Are you doing the work –
You were called to do –
Born to do –
Expressing it FULLY?
Are you running GLEEFULLY down the fucking tightrope, flying high on the power of being who you ARE?
Or are you holding on –
Oh so tightly –
Gripping with fear –
And trying to inch yourself along –
KIDDING yourself that if you get to the other side you’ll get paid and so you made it?
You can get paid baby. Anybody willing to inch their way along and follow the steps from A to B can get paid. Most will do it that way because they believe, that if they stand up and run and dance as they feel called to, they will fall.
What they don’t realise, perhaps, is that when you fall, along the path to your true calling?
You’re allowed to get back up again.
And that one day, if you get back up enough times, if you commit to dancing and running with freedom and glee, you’ll MAKE IT TO THE OTHER SIDE.
And yeah you’ll get paid.
As much as you choose, really, although that’s a post for another day.
But in getting paid?
You’ll also change the fucking world, starting with GIVING the fucking world what you always had to give.
You can believe –
Or not believe –
What I’m trying to say here.
But you do have to choose.
Money, or art?
Holding on, and inching your way along, trying to follow the rules so that you can get to the other side and get paid?
Or running freely down the tightrope of life like the crazy mofo you are, believing that it’s NEVER about whether or not you fall and really it’s not even about whether or not you make it, it’s about whether or not you actually stand up and go for it in the first place.
Everybody will fall.
Every creator will be judged.
Every pathway will end up WILDLY different to what you first imagined, or how you tried to make it.
Of course most won’t even FULLY try in the first place because of these and other fears.
They’ll put money before art and in doing so likely make neither.
Will you?
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