No Financial Sense

Things that don’t make any financial sense:

• Raising children

• Taking care of elderly parents

• Having pets

• Going to church, or attending a weekly religious function

• Tithing

• Mentoring

• Volunteering

• Caring for a disabled loved one

And, of course:

• Choosing a career in the arts

The great lie we’ve been fed by an out of control, economy-first world is that for something to be worthwhile, it has to generate money.

And musicians unconsciously fall into that pattern of thinking like everyone else. If I buy this piece of gear, how much money can I generate with it? If I invest in an ad campaign for my latest record, will it allow me to recoup the money I spent in ticket sales?

This way of thinking splits are attention between two opposing metrics:

  1. How do I create the best art I can make?

  2. How can I invest well so I can see a monetary return on my investment?

When art inevitably doesn’t return the investment of time and money that we’ve made (because it was never fundamentally designed to do that), we get discouraged and frustrated. Some quit, others become jaded.

The only two questions we should be focused on is:

  1. How do I create the best art I can make?

  2. How do I make enough money overall so I can keep making that art, while keeping up my financial commitments?

Eric BarfieldComment