Is it a business or a joy project?

I know you need to express your creativity. For that, you need to have space and time. The problem is, that we’re busy and need to make money to pay the bills.

So you think why not combine these two needs of making money and expressing your creativity, and start a business where you can make money and be creative?

The problem is that trying to fulfill both of those needs with the same project at the same time doesn’t work. Trust me, I tried.

The rules of the games are different for creativity and building a business.

Creativity doesn’t like pressure, like deadlines or making X amounts of money. Creativity wants to explore, follow its curiosity and create when it has ideas. Creativity wants to do whatever it wants to do, no matter whether other people like it or not.

Whereas to build a profitable business you need to understand what other people need and fulfill their needs. So of course, you can be creative to achieve that but ultimately it’s always about compromises. Your heart wants this but paying clients want that. You get money for doing X but rather do Y. And creativity doesn’t like compromises. The heart wants what the heart wants.

And that’s why maybe it’s best to separate these two needs: a business is to serve people and make money, and expressing your creativity is to follow your curiosity, create and share.

So what do you want: to express your creativity or to build a profitable business?

Maybe you want both, but if you had to choose one thing, for now, which one would you choose, in this phase of your life?

If you want to express your creativity, it might be best to have a stable job, so that you can pay the bills and then, focus your energy on your creative project - I call it a joy project.

Your joy project might make money at some point, or it might not, but that’s not the point. Its point is to create something, for example, a podcast, a book, a community, a course, etc.

So is what you want to build a joy project or a business?

How does this resonate? Have you ever tried to do both at the same time with the same project, and did it work for you? Because maybe there’s a way and I haven’t found it yet ;)