This post is not about personal finance or investing like usual. It is intended to provide practical career advice for creatives. It also connects to financial independence in the end. Don’t feel pressured to read it if you came here to read about money lol. It’s quite long, personal and is an attempt at creativity. It is also the result of a comment I received a long time ago asking about my thoughts on creativity. No affiliate links are contained within this post. There are only Google Adsense ads and links to internal posts. 

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I spent the other evening going through old notebooks of mine from 2007 and 2008. I probably have 20 or so of these kicking around.

They’ve been sitting in a cabinet beside my desk for years now. I just haven’t felt the urge to look them over because it hasn’t seemed like it was long enough yet.

But it has been over 10 years now. A lot has changed. 

In a way, it’s almost as though I knew what was to come. My notes were scattered with drawings of broken hearts, drooping roses, and full of faces with melancholy expressions. Sounds pretty sad, right?

However, after reflecting back on it now, it’s clear that I wasn’t sad at all—I was on the right path. I needed to be creative then as much as I need to be creative now. It feels like I don’t have a choice.

The only difference is that I believed in my creative abilities then. You could tell by observing the individual details in each sketch. I sketched without the pressure of others opinions, and without the lingering effects of a structured environment. 

If you could not create, would you die? – Dennis Hopper

Structured Environments Kill Creatives

In my opinion, structured environments kill creative people. It’s premeditated murder.

Instead of allowing a creative person to find their way by using their unique skillset, normal people will try to “help” a creative person act like them. They will even go out of their way to engage the creative, because they think there is something wrong. It’s as though they think a creative person has always wanted to be normal and they are the one person to help them out. 

Furthermore, they don’t understand how creative people gain energy. Creatives are wired different. Similar to how an introvert needs to be alone to recharge, a creative absolutely has to create. It’s a method of expression, and it accomplishes the same feeling that an extrovert has from congregating in a group to play a board game.

What they don’t realize is that their efforts make everything worse. They are so good at operating with a set of instructions that they don’t comprehend how a creative would be limited by rules. 

For example, I have 141 blog posts published and over 250 posts if you include drafts. I’ve written most for free on my own time. But if I was to write a blog post for an organization, the process would become totally different. The creative process would be sucked out, and it would become more about meeting a checklist.

If you’re truly creative, DO NOT PURSUE YOUR PASSION AS A CAREER. It will destroy your passion. Choose a career that allows you to help people, and pursue your passion as a side hustle.

First I should clarify that there are many creative people that are happy with their career. There are successful musicians, actors, bloggers, photographers, writers and more.

When I suggest that a creative person should not pursue their passion as a career, I mean that you shouldn’t expect to be fulfilled if you are a writer working for a large company. You won’t have your full artistic expression, and you won’t want to do it in your free time any more. It will destroy your passion.

If you are an average person that is not earning money from your creative interests, I am suggesting that you would be better off to keep it as a side hustle. Simply put, it can be extremely challenging to make money if you’re not the best of the best, or if you’re not privy to the right connections. On top of that, some artists never even get recognized for their work during their lifetime. It’s so tragic that genius artists like Vincent van Gogh and F. Scott Fitzgerald never really amounted to much while they were alive.

But this is why creatives must also learn to be practical—you can still gain personal fulfillment from being creative if you keep it to yourself, and you can still earn a living with a job that allows you to help people.

The worst thing for creative people is to not be creative because they just die. – Jordan Peterson

How I learned NOT to pursue my passion as a career (Part 1)

The truth is that I studied business marketing in school because I was trying to start a clothing company.

After that failed, I obtained my first full-time job in the financial services industry and let go of my creative side. I felt the pressure of my age to start acting like an adult. For a while it seemed like creativity was just an immature thing I did in my past. Shit was I ever wrong!

Anyways, I applied the same passion to work that I had always applied—I was interested in investing, so I aimed at a career working with investments. After about 9 months in my first role, and after I passed the Canadian Securities Course, I became a Mutual Fund Advisor. 

Honestly, everything was going swell for a while. I liked the people I worked with, my pay was increasing, and I was investing in stocks like crazy. But then something started to seem wrong. 

I started to have extremely depressing thoughts on my way to and from work. At first I didn’t really think anything of it, and I didn’t realize the profound effect it would have on my relationships. The different person I was forcing myself to become caught up with me, though.

I have always been introverted, but my personality started to become flat, antisocial, and basically dead. 

In addition, I was forced to recommend investments that I would not recommend for myself. I had no creative input and I began to feel disingenuous with my advice. It made me despise giving advice.

Part 2

Next I switched to the stock brokerage. I thought it would be better because I wouldn’t have to give advice anymore. I would have the opportunity to see what self-managed investors are investing in, and I’d be able to continue to buy stocks on the side. But I soon learned that my brokerage accounts would be monitored, my trades would come after client’s trades because I was licensed by IIROC (I’m not licensed anymore), and that I’d have no time for my own creative hobbies because I was studying all the time.

Even though I wasn’t blogging then (basically wasn’t allowed), I spent a lot of free time creating charts to document my dividend income. That was my creative outlet at the time. However, after a 1.5 hour commute home and after studying for a derivatives exam, I had no time for anything creative.

Then, worst of all, it had an impact on my relationships. I started to withdraw from everyone. Anxiety attacks and terrible depression followed shortly after. 

It wasn’t until I took a year off that I started to feel better. The headaches disappeared and so did that constant feeling of tension that I had been wearing like a headband. My sleeping pattern improved and I got back to having incredible energy. After I while I even became interested in being social again.

It took a while for it to click in, but this was all about creativity. During my time off, I spent my time on day trading, blogging, photography, reading, writing, and exercising. I felt amazing.

But then the time came for me to go back to work again. Guess what I did?

Part 3

I did as I had always done before—I pursued a career based on my current passion, which was blogging and social media at the time. Frankly, I was very fortunate to obtain the job I obtained. It was in the digital communication and social media field. But not too long after that, the same issues started to come back. Depression, anxiety, headaches, exhaustion, and wanting to withdraw. This time I ruined social media for myself. 

Luckily, I have been able to shift away from social media in a career setting since then. And what do you know…I enjoy social media again. What a surprise.

All of this has led me to believe that your passion will only work as a career option if you are the type of person that enjoyed school. Many creative people never become successful with their passion as well, which is why I believe it should be approached with a plan B. 

In short, keep your creative passion as a side hustle, and choose a JOB (not a career) that allows you to help people. You’ll get the fulfillment from helping others, and you won’t have to take your work home with you. 

Life is great when you find the right combination 

Of course, the best case scenario is that you’re a talented enough artist to support yourself. 

But if you’re not, the perfect combination for a creative person is a stable job that pays the bills and provides them with free time. 

In my opinion, the job should be based on a skill, but it should be slightly unrelated to your creative hobby. This is because it is easier to be motivated to work on something different after a long day. It becomes a creative outlet to deal with the long day and ends up feeding your creative hobby. 

This is why you’ll find a lot of artists working as bartenders and other less serious roles. And I’ve experienced this first hand while working in retail. I wasn’t surrounded by people that were in it to build a career. They were photographers, small business owners, and students in school.

That type of environment can be extremely productive for creative people as long as they can support themselves financially. 

In turn, it’s important to find the right combination to be fulfilled. It should be a role that allows you to help others, so that you gain fulfillment by contributing to the community. And it’s better if the job is slightly unrelated to your creative interest.

Creativity can be applied to anything—it’s about the approach

You might be wondering…

“who does this asshole think he is trying to offer advice to creative people?”

Well, I can tell you what kind of asshole—whether I’m good at art or not, it’s become fairly obvious that I’m wired a bit differently, and I’ve almost always been doing something creative. That’s usually when I’m at my best.

But I also want to make it clear that creativity can be applied to any career or interest. It’s all in the approach. 

For example, creativity can be applied to clothing. Even though I don’t care about it as much now, fashion and style is definitely a form of art. Some people just really know how to put colours and current trends together in their own way. 

I also think creativity can be applied to any career—you just have to want to become a master of your craft.

Basically I’m saying that you can view yourself as creative no matter what anyone else thinks. Just remember the now famous artists that never received much recognition while they were alive.

Concluding Thoughts

So why am I telling you all this? 

In a nutshell, art is one of the reasons why I am a chasing financial independence through investing. Of course, I totally love investing because you can be creative with it as well. But as I alluded to in my basic blogging goals for 2019, financial independence is about creativity for me.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that it is neither possible nor healthy to suppress creativity. 

I’ve also realized that a lot of supremely talented artists lack an ability to market themselves. Ultimately, this was the reason I previously held two Toronto art shows for emerging artists—I wanted to help artists—I still want to help artists.

Moreover, my hope is that this post provides practical advice for artists that are not earning a living from their craft. 

I only have one other request for those that consider themselves to be creative: Never stop.

Questions for creatives: Do you agree that working in careers related to your creative hobby can ruin it for you? Do you agree with my advice to separate your passion from your career? Would you agree that this is practical advice for creatives?