“From Passion to Profit” used to be my tagline, and it’s still one of them, but I don’t feature it much anymore because while I have (and do) help clients make money doing what they love creatively, the process is more involved than that slogan implies.
For one thing, it’s too pithy. Going from Passion to Profit can take years, if what you mean by ‘profit’ is paying the rent. Making a living from your creative innovations is not a pithy process. It can be a very long-winded one, with many steps and stages along the way.
This is not meant to discourage, but rather to help you adjust your expectations of yourself and the process. If you rush to ‘profit from your passion’ trust me, it will slow you down.
Or worse, when you expect to make a living at your nascent business or via your paintings, you will be putting the wrong kind of pressure on your passion…which can kill it!
Your work can sell eventually, but before it does you may need to trod a path laden with mistakes and setbacks which inevitably pave the way to excellence. Note that I didn’t say perfection! Excellence is not perfection, it is professionalism. Professionals are excellent at what they do.
They did not get that way overnight.
I have coached writers who did not get published until their third novel. By then, while their earlier work may have merit, it was not yet honed to the point that merged their voice with the demands of the marketplace. This is not the same as compromise or pandering. This is maturity. It takes maturity to work with an editor and agent in creating a product that will sell.
When I was a young actress studying at a conservatory in the 1970s, the instructors had a lot of very unfortunate latitude with regard to their behavior. Way before #MeToo, back in the bad old days, at many institutions, the guru school of teaching was pretty standard. This fostered an incredible arrogance and license in certain personalities charged with the development of young talent.
One such ‘guru’ thought that doing commercials as an actor was ‘selling out’. What kind of high-handed bullshit was that? Instilling that belief alone probably spelled the premature death of many careers. This same teacher loved to tell the story of how impressed he was by Faye Dunaway’s commitment to her craft because she propositioned him to get a part in something he directed.
Then there are the ill-advised shortcuts that backfire. When I was first eligible to join Actors Equity as a SAG member at the age of twenty, my friends said I should jump at it!
Yes, my Equity card enabled me to get into Equity auditions. Then I found myself competing against seasoned actors…actors who had honed their craft for years doing non-equity summer stock. That’s where I should have been cutting my teeth. You cannot buy your way to excellence. It can only be earned.
If your passion is writing, write. If you can earn money writing something you’re not passionate about, do it! If you’re an actor and are fortunate enough to land a national commercial, take the money and run. Sock away those residuals until they accumulate so that you can buy a house or start your own production company.
When you are a creative entrepreneur with ADHD, it is particularly tempting to believe that there are shortcuts you can take to success. When we don’t develop the executive function enabling impulse control, we may show our work too early, and try to compete in arenas wherein we do not yet have the skills to hold our own. Learning to manage the need for speed and sparkle can be painful, but it is necessary. Patience is more than a virtue, it is creative survival itself.
More than anything, it helps to have honest support, which cannot always come from peers. Avail yourself of people who can help you examine your motives and discern your best path forward. Perhaps my new tagline should be ‘Creativity Profits in Wisdom’.
Not as alliteratively catchy, I know…but closer to the truth.
