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How to do what you love and make good money | Derek Sivers

sive.rs · 608 words · saved by 1 readers

Let’s look at the ingredients of this plan. First: balance. You’ve heard about balancing heart and mind, or right-brain left-brain, or whatever you want to call it. We all have a need for stability and adventure, certainty and uncertainty, money and expression. If you have too much stability, you get bored. If you don’t have enough stability, you panic. So keep the balance. Do something for love and something for money. Don’t try to make one thing satisfy your entire life. Each half of your life becomes a remedy for the other. You get paid stability for part of your day, but then need creative time for expression. So you push yourself creatively, expose your vulnerable art to the public, feel the frustration of rejection and apathy, and then long for some stability again. Each half is a remedy for the other. About the job: Be smart, and choose something that pays well with a solid future. Look for statistics in your area about what pays the best when factoring in the required training.

People with a well-paying job ask my advice because they want to quit to become full-time artists. But full-time artists ask my advice because they’re finding it impossible to make money. (Let’s define “art” as anything you do for expression, even just blogging or whatever.) For both of them, I prescribe the lifestyle of the happiest people I know: Have a well-paying job. Seriously pursue your art for love, not money. Let’s look at the ingredients of this plan. First: balance . You’ve heard about balancing heart and mind, or right-brain left-brain, or whatever you want to call it. We all have

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