Mastery Before Money: Why Going All in On Your Craft May Be the Best Strategy
Mastery Before Money: Why Going All in On Your Craft May Be the Best Strategy
Creativity requires a calm and relaxed state. Operations and finance require structure, discipline and implementation.
🤩 Hey! I’m Alberto. With my newsletter I want to help you reach your full potential and live your ideal life with a content-based business.
This time I bring you a guest author: Benjamin Antoine. He’s a part-time creator with a deep passion for the craft of writing.
In 2016 I failed at an ebook publishing business.
I wanted to make money!
This was THE way to make money back in the day. I subscribed to the gurus. I bought a course and followed everything in it. Religiously.
My role as the business owner was essentially that of a marketing coordinator.
I employed VAs
I hired ghost writers.
I paid graphic designers
I scraped Amazon's book category pages.
I even bought software to analise rankings and jump start book promos.
The idea was to outsource product creation to virtual assistants and focus solely on marketing and distribution. Essentially it was no different to a faceless YouTube channel. The ability to make money hinged on getting the books ranked.
In this letter I want to help you gain clarity so that you can build something in alignment with your values. We are going to explore conscious and unconscious goals. What actually drives you and why you should focus relentlessly on your craft.
“Selling ebooks” sounds very simple but there were a lot of moving parts to this business. Moving parts that I was not interested in managing.
I fell flat on my face! It turned out that I was not as driven by money as I had initially thought. I had several competing goals in my head.
Yes! I wanted to make money. But I also wanted a sense of meaning. I wanted to find my “thing”. I wanted to feel legit. I wanted to create. All of these goals superseded the goal of making money. I just didn’t know it. In other words, I had no clarity.
Stated vs. unconscious goals
Most people don’t realise it but the stated goals they have consciously chosen are competing with the unconscious goals which actually drive their behaviour. When the unconscious and conscious are not aligned you become confused. You feel uneasy and don’t make progress. This is the main reason I failed in 2016.
Stated goal: I want to start a YT Channel
Actual goal: I want to get rich. I want to be famous
Stated goal: I want to become a creator
Actual goal: I want to look cool. I don’t want to look stupid.
Stated goal: I want to make money
Actual goal: I don't want to sell. I don’t want to promote
The people you see online have singular goals. They have clarity on what they want to achieve. Just publishing content is the tip of the iceberg. Many of the large creators in your feeds are either signed to agencies or have teams of people working for them.
Yes, the terms “solopreneur” and “one person business” have become popularised by people like Justin Welsh and Dan Koe but if you watch their content closely enough you will realise that they are not solo at all.
Contractors and freelancers are not employees and so technically you can call yourself a solopreneur even if you have virtual assistants, editors, social media managers and consultants working for you.
They know what they do best and what they enjoy the most. Everything else they delegate or automate.
It’s just a high leverage, low risk way of doing business. In fact I would go so far as to say the big creators that you see in your feeds are not creators at all. They are entrepreneurs.
Perhaps a better way to phrase the question is: Do you see yourself as an entrepreneur or as a creator?
This is an important question to answer. It’s tempting to lie to yourself. However, being truthful about your motivations is essential.
While there is obvious overlap between entrepreneurs and creators there are key core differences which drive behaviour in diverging directions.
Entrepreneurs start businesses. Their goal is profit. Their focus is solving problems. They are driven by market demands and customer needs. Entrepreneurs are constantly looking to improve efficiency, effectiveness and productivity. The essential skills are sales and marketing.
Creators develop a craft. Their goal is self-expression, creativity, or building an audience around their work. Business, monetisation and profit are secondary. Their primary focus is the act of creation itself. It’s driven by passion and artistic self-expression. In the extreme form, creators feel uncomfortable thinking about monetisation. They just want to create and share things with the world.
Pretending to be in it for the craft, when you’re really in it for the money will lead you to fail at both and vice versa. I’m speaking from experience here. I wanted to be a creator. I wanted to actually write books myself. I got zero satisfaction from editing books written by ghostwriters.
The ebook publishing course I bought was for entrepreneurs. It was for people looking to solve problems in the market, not problems within themselves.
We all have unique interests, aptitudes and experiences. It’s possible to learn any skill you want to. But that is the key. You have to want to.
If you can find excitement In sales funnels and email sequences. In creating and converting leads. In hiring delegating and training VAs that’s great. You may well make a lot of money.
But if this gives you the heebie jeebies focus on your craft. Put everything into cultivating your passion and developing your skills. My desire to create something I was proud of never died.
In 2022 I started my YouTube channel. My desire was to learn video. To find new ways to express my thoughts and feelings. It was challenging but fulfilling. It helped me develop my creativity and storytelling abilities. I now feel fully aligned running this channel. It brings me a sense of meaning and purpose which is what was lacking in 2016. I just didn't know it then.
Focus on building an audience around your work and have patience with monetisation.
This is why I advocate for jobs. A job solves the monetisation problem early on. It allows you to build your interests into full blown passions and monetizable skills later on.
My 9-5 gives me peace of mind. I am able to create without falling victim to audience capture. I do not need to constantly sell. I can be me. My true self. I can figure things out at my own pace. There is a rare freedom in that. It’s something which I miss among the large creators of today.
There’s a reason why companies separate CCO, CFO or COO positions.
They require different skill sets. They demand different mindsets. They have different incentives.
Creativity is about ideas. This requires a calm and relaxed state.
Operations and finance are about results. This requires structure, discipline and implementation.
That is why there are so many starving artists and also why the most successful artists are successful because they have people to take care of monetisation.
The struggle is guaranteed, success is not. So why not take pleasure in the struggle?
Forums, Blogging, Youtube, Twitter. The people who came to these platforms early did not come to make money. Monetisation was not even a question at that time.
They started because of a unique passion. A quirky interest or a deep desire. They wanted to connect and share something with the world. If this is you double down on that. Make that your singular goal.
Focus on building your skills, passion and desire into an unquenchable fire that cannot be stopped.
Focus on fulfillment on the meaning that it gives you. Do it for the pure love and joy that it brings you.
Create something which you are proud of. Something which represents you. Your values. Your identity. Your world view. Become unstoppable.
Become a 2Hour creator.
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Thank you for having me Alberto. I appreciate it 😀
This is great advice. I think I’ve definitely misaligned conscious and unconscious goals. I think in some ways I’m even struggling to quite clearly define my unconscious goals.
How do you think one best goes about fully grasping unconscious goals?