No cheesy suite or hoodie needed:
Supplies:
A Google doc/Excel sheet (What’s come over me?)
Song: Million Bucks by Maino on Spotify
Pick my income? Who does that? Isn’t salary something you grovel for with manipulative tactics? This is the plan I’m currently using that makes me want to get out of bed in the morning. No, I’m not a millionaire, YET. I’m not playing at Sir Richard Branson or even a finance specialist. I went to art school. I do know that years of business classes and working for Internet marketing gurus made me want to poke my own eye out with a pencil.
First we’re going to talk about cash in a “take what’s yours,” attitude. If you’re going to get uncomfortable click the X on the top right corner. I came from a house where talking about money in a positive sense never happened. I used to hide from my Father when the credit card bills came.
This changes all of the panic mentality around money.None of this is rocket science and I have no idea why people don’t do this. If it’s not fun you’re doing it wrong.
1. Select your ten top interests. These go in the top row of your Excel sheet. I don’t care if you’re flipping burgers right now or cleaning bathroooms. This is for you. I don’t care if you’re fending off a case of the blues because somebody left you in the park. You have ten different interests. My interests that I listed are (photography, design, marketing, public relations, writing, fitness, travel, fashion, event planning, and theater). I also have a column for non-profit work and random things that didn’t make sense in the other categories.
2. Each interest becomes a profit category. Put each interest as a column header. You are going to bank $100,000 in each of your own interests. Being a New Yorker, I never believe people when they go dropping numbers like they’re tacos. How are you going to get to $100,000?
3. Pick 10 projects for each category. This may take a bit of brainstorming but if you’re into everything from construction to body building you can get to $10,000. I know you can get to $10,000 by designing five websites or photographing five weddings. Most likely, you’ll totally outgrow that $10,000 benchmark.
4. Did you just suggest that I open 100 businesses? Not all at once, clearly. If you have enough projects going you’ll see momentum somewhere.
5. I’m sure someone is thinking, “What if one of these things fail?” You have 99 other things in your Excel sheet. Go do those.
6. I always encounter people who feel like a business must have huge costs to get started. Trying to meet just the $10,000 benchmark insures you won’t go to crazy trying to open a theme park (yet).
7. A list of 100 ideas to execute may freak you out if you see yourself as “just an illustrator.” I think it’s okay to develop a wider definition for ourselves. Fear of failure makes us come up with things like, “never a corporate sellout,” or “too down to earth want something like that.” Also, what’s cooler? A broke illustrator or one with ten projects in the mix? That they picked. In the words of Seth Godin, “pick yourself.”
8. Have fun with this. Some ideas won’t seem like a full time calling like running a film festival in your neighborhood. Except, that’s the kind of fun thing a girl could do for the rest of her life.
9. If you’re philanthropic you still have to brainstorm ways to make a profit. That’s a topic for another piece but wanting to help people is not an excuse to starve. If you’re selling the tickets to that concert for charity make sure you get paid. You’re going to learn to write yourself a check for helping people.
10. Share these with friends. You have someone in your life who will take interest in your personal training business, retreat to Bali, and bike tours.
11. Share your spreadsheets with me! I love seeing these.
“Million dollar ideas are a dime a dozen. The determination to see the idea through is what’s priceless.” - Robert Dieffenbach
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