I had an illuminating conversation with a man—let’s call him Aditya—who, although successful as an entrepreneur, identifies more with being an artist than being a businessman. Aditya has built and sold two creative businesses, and during that time, described feeling a tension between his creativity and the importance of making money.

This note explores that conflict.

Money vs. Creation in Today’s World

This tension is front-and-center for people trying to make their living in the world as creatives or content creators—podcasters, bloggers, YouTubers, Insta influencers, musicians, whatever. Whether you are a “creator,” a “creative,” or an “artist,” you have two questions in front of you:

1)      Do I make what I want to make, or do I make what the market wants

2)      When do I start charging money for what I make

I’m not going to discuss the second as I don’t have any well-formed thoughts on that question. Aditya and I talked mostly about the first question. He gave me a hypothetical using a band. When a band is making music just for the sake of making music, the way it shows up and the music it makes is going to be different from what it does when the objective is money. When you add a record contract to the process of creating music, the entire dynamic changes—in Aditya’s words, “the soul gets priced out.”

The emotions that come up for me when I look at the process of creation this way are anger and sadness. The anger says, “I wanted to make something that I want to make, but now I am being forced to serve another master which is money.” The sadness is saying almost the same thing, which is “I wanted to bring things into the world, but since things that don’t make money can’t be created, those things are now lost to the world.”

Underlying these feelings is a hidden assumption or judgment.

The Judgment: Only Creation That Earns Money is Worthwhile

Is this true? Is money the point of creation?

Many people feel this way whether they realize it or not: “anything that doesn’t earn money isn’t really worth my time,” or, “I should be doing something that earns money.”

This makes sense. Money is a yardstick for value for most people. Even I have said before that in the ideal version of capitalism, the way it is supposed to work is that we create value for others, and we get compensated for the value we create with money.

However, the key words here are “for others.” If from the very beginning, it was understood that I’m only creating something for myself, would I expect to earn money from it?

Who Do We Create For?

To me, this is the critical distinction Aditya didn’t make at the beginning of our conversation: creating for ourselves is different from creating for other people.

For example, I’m hungry and I am about to make myself an omelet. I am creating something for myself. Do I expect to get paid?

I recently went to a writing event in Austin and two successful newsletter guys asked me how I’m thinking about monetization on my blog. My response: I’m not thinking about it at all, at least not right now. I write mostly to organize my own thoughts, especially on the macroeconomics and finance notes. On the emotions & finance notes, I mostly care about whether my ideas accurately reflect what is really going on for people. Sometimes I have a conversation with someone (like Aditya) and the topic hits so strongly for me that I feel like I just have to say something about it. Either way, for the most part I’m making all this stuff for me, not for you. (I do care about whether my ideas reach people though, so please ask your friends to sign up :)

It’s different when we are creating for other people. To me, creating for others is about service, about improving their lives in some way, about creating value for them. When we create value for others it is honorable and right to ask for money in exchange. When our creativity is deployed with the intention of serving others, there is no tension between creativity and money.

I think this is where the band gets confused. If you want to serve your fans, then make them happy and improve their lives by creating the music they want (if you don’t know what they want, the record label will tell you) and they will gladly give you their money in trade. If you want to serve your own soul, as Aditya would put it, then create what your soul wants to create for itself and don’t ask for money in exchange.

Serving your own soul and serving others are both noble causes—just understand that you can’t serve two masters. So pick one.

Exercise

Journal on the following or discuss with a friend.

1)      Noticing

What tension or conflict do I feel between my desire to create, and my desire to earn money? If I feel tension, how does that tension manifest?

It could manifest as a sensation in the body, resistance to the creative process, or in other ways.

2)      Exploring judgments

What judgments or assumptions do I hold about the exchange of money for creative work? If I don’t earn money for my work, or if I earn little, what does that say about the quality or value of my work? What does that mean about my value as a person?

3)      Commitment

If I desire to create, how does it feel to contemplate committing to a single master?

Can I commit to serving others?

Can I commit to serving myself?

There is no wrong answer here! Whichever path you contemplate, it is likely to feel scary. I’m not saying that you should commit to not making money—when we feel financially insecure, it is very difficult to close off any avenue for making money. Nor am I saying to ignore the soul—sometimes it gets hungry and simply wants an omelet.

Just try committing to one of them (it’s temporary!) and see if it gets your creative juices flowing.