Money Was Never the Enemy of the Work… or What Some Call Art

**Matthew Gottesman** (0:02)
Welcome to The Niche Is You. My name is Matt Gottesman, at Matt Gottesman on Instagram, and this is my daily podcast where I create short, quick hitting episodes to help you uncomplicate life, creativity, and the pursuit of your highest self. There's only main character energy here. Now let's get into it.
Welcome to episode 815, Money Was Never The Enemy Of The Work. Money was never the enemy of the work, or what some may call art, right? You're allowed to earn from your gifts. Welcome to an era of autonomy and accountability, and the gifts that have been bestowed upon you, you are allowed to earn from your gifts. Now I know some of you are like, oh, that's obvious. Yes, and often at times, as we were raised, we were taught, oh, this bucket over here is what gets paid, and this bucket over here, well, that's a little too niched, that's a little too off cuff, that's not part of where success is found and where the money is found, et cetera, et cetera. And I've talked about this a bit on my Substack before, that you are allowed to enjoy your craft, love your craft, do whatever that is, whether physical art or being creative with technical type businesses, everything from technology to accounting and everything in between, because you love it, and you're allowed to make money from it. And I mean, you could even find this in the Bible about stewardship with your gifts, with the money, and how it actually teaches you how to use it, and how to create community around it, and actually how to grow personally and community-wise, and others, and taking care of things, and taking care of people. So I'm going to read the first part of a Substack I have that's coming up, and then I want to really jump into this episode. But here's how I started off this essay, basically saying that we were taught that caring about what your craft earns makes you less devoted to it. And I think the opposite is true. The reason why I say this is because you used to hear back in the day, someone say, oh, you want to go become a painter? Oh, you want to go become a music producer? Or, oh, you want to go do... And now, I'm obviously using the physical arts at this point, right? But I do believe art isn't anything. I'm going to talk about that here momentarily. Because any devotion to craft, no matter what that is, whether you're a lawyer or a gardener, devotion to craft and creativity is art. But we were taught that only certain fields are where the money is. There's like two piles. I'm going to get into that here momentarily. But basically, we grow up sorting out talents to two piles. One pile is where the money comes from, the responsible one, the one with a title and a path and a name your family can say out loud at dinner. The other pile is just for fun. It's the thing you do at night, the thing you never quit anything for, the thing everyone tells you is lovely as a hobby and reckless as a life. So you can already see why. This is what I started writing on my Substack. I'm like, I got to bring this to all of you guys now. I said, I don't think that sorting system survives this decade. I'm not sure it was ever true. Doing what you love is work, real work. The lie was never that it's hard. Anyone who's actually built something from a calling knows it's hard. The lie is the quiet one underneath it, which is that you're supposed to do it for free. I know how many of you right now are actually listening to this and be like, thank you for saying the thing out loud. Because also there's this compromise of like, oh, well, if you love the art so much, why don't you do it for free? Oh, well, you love doing accounting so much, why don't you do it for free? Oh, you love being a doctor so much, why don't you do it for free?
We are all bestowed gifts upon us. No matter what that path looks like, we are also allowed to earn from it. And not only that, it's a responsibility. That's why even on my Substack with the group that I've got with the creator founders, a creator and a founder, you are allowed to be the steward of the gift, creativity, and you are allowed to be the operator of the gift, the founder, in which you are managing it and growing it, right?