The Risk in Attaching Our Passion to Our Livelihood
There are times that a harmless celebration can translate into a shady and contemptuous boast.
“I don’t work for anybody.”
“Do what you love and you’ll never work another day in your life.”
“I quit my job and hustled for myself.”
“Your salary is the bribe they pay you to forget about your dreams.”
Perhaps it pops up on your social media feeds a few times per hour. Someone has started a business and simply not gone out of business after three years, and now they want to offer you advice on how to be successful. Many of those posters have yet to acknowledge the fact that 98 percent of their projects are funded from crowd sourcing and GoFundMe campaigns – they are still in business and “doing what they love.”
We have it bad in the Black Community – telling people that they are wasting their time and talent by clocking in at a job every weekday and working on their dreams after hours and on the weekend.
There is something so careless about telling a young person to leave a salaried position to jump into the realm of the unknown during a public health crisis. We simply shouldn’t offer such poor advice. Perhaps more helpful would be to tell young creatives to only give the job what the job pays for – each and every day.
Don’t overwork. Don’t take the job home. DO NOT STOP working on your dreams, just because you’re sitting in a cubicle, sitting behind a desk or standing at a counter. Take your notepad to work and jot down those ideas. Research and study during breaks and lunch. Wherever the Wi-Fi goes in that office building, so should your dreams.
The pandemic is giving most creatives valuable time to create, network and reevaluate the desires of our hearts. The pandemic has also shed light on what the country deems essential and how a steady flow of income can be halted in an instance. Who wouldn’t love to work on his or her truest passion all day, every single day and be successful while doing so? We all deserve that, but the truth is – this reality can come later in life or not at all.
When running a business, customer service can make or break you. Communication skills or the lack thereof can make or break you. A few bad Google reviews or low ratings on social media can take years to recover from. Believe it or not, many of the people who will tell you that you’re foolish for not leaving your corporate job the moment you have a business idea, struggle with how to speak to people. Some of them delay their responses to customers when they’ve had two consecutive weeks of low sales.
As a Black Business owner of nearly 13 years, I’ve seen both the highs and the lows of ownership more than a few times respectively. I was the photographer who loved natural light sessions and then I reached my third winter as a photographer and saw that more clients wanted to shoot indoors. I rented a studio, only to realize that 75 percent of my sessions were still outdoors – in natural light.
One spring, my business soared and I thought that I no longer needed my income as a teacher. For two years, I sat in my storefront studio and realized that not too many people were booking family portraits during the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.! Guess why? Because the children were at school and the parents were at work.
Photography is my passion (one of them), but during those two years it felt like my job. Sessions felt more like business transactions. On days that I didn’t have a shoot, I felt less than as a person. The art of photography became attached to my livelihood and I simply didn’t enjoy it. Today, I am three months removed from my most recent studio and a natural light photographer once again. Winter is approaching again. There are some weekends that I have 10 sessions. Some days I have no sessions and I use that time to look at my old portfolios and study what I could’ve done better. Some days I go outside and photograph squirrels and leaves. I still get my teacher paycheck the same day of each month.
I’ve had industry “friends” tell me to my face that I’m foolish for not walking away from my day job as a teacher to “follow my passion.” I actually think that I’m protecting my passion right now. One day, we will be together full time – but today, during a pandemic - is simply not the day.
It has to be your timing moreso than the recommendations of people who aren’t footing the bills.
Quit your job – when you are ready.
Expand your business – when you are ready and can professionally maintain such an expansion.
It is very much possible to work toward your dreams while being responsible. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
The truth is many independent business owners are struggling and guess what? Just like misery loves company, well…
