Writing about my views on money based on the perspective as an animator and immersive storyteller
Opening up on my own perspectives on wealth generation, self-actualization and lifestyle
This has been a very complex subject for me to write about. But one thing is for sure, there’s no one size fits all perspective.
One of the challenges of talking about money in creative professions, as opposed to say more standardized white collar jobs like law, medicine, technology is that our financial goals are directly tied to how our creative input (lifestyle, personality, city, childhood upbringing/traumas/inspiration, pace of productivity etc.) directly shapes our creative output.
In addition, managing things like pricing, distribution, audience, royalties, licensing, brand partnership, sales is very hard to measure because it depends so much on each individual.
This is a very important distinction to make. Many of the financial planning advice you read about on the Internet is heavily skewed toward more of those traditional professions, and do not account for these distinct variables.
That’s why black and white narratives such as “I don’t do this for the money” or “I want to get rich" are not helpful in addressing many of the nuances that come from financial planning for creative professions.
By relying on these blanket statements, we create an ambiguous relationship with money that give us a less consistent strategy on what type of lifestyle fits our personality.
Rich/wealth means different things for each individual or lifestyle. It’s much more important to set stronger boundaries regarding what is most important, rather than create blanket, surface level statements that don’t account for the distinction between creative input and output.
Four criteria that matter most to me:
Cities that have strong cultures for writing/producing animation / interactive storytelling. (remote is great but it only goes so far since we see everything in terms of filters)
Cities that have cultural amenities, and professional/business/political organizations catered for Asian/Asian-Americans
Cities with a strong established tradition for landscape architecture or integrating nature with their urban environments
As I make decisions based on long term thinking, versus micro-decisions (see This is how the most decisive people measure time), I value environments that have a strong environment for R&D, which can also include a strong self-care budget
I think it’s okay to say, hey I value these type of cultural amenities and self-care in my lifestyle and prefer budgeting for these amenities. They shape my creative input which then shapes the products I give out.
And thus, this shapes the type of higher budgets and projects/employers I decide to work with.
This data also gives me fine enough data to ask myself: “What level of sales/marketing strategy you want to have for your content. What type of marketing strategy do you need to ensure you can meet X amount of sales/subscription?”
I believe by having a much more nuanced discussion on money that accounts for financial planning for how your creative input shapes your creative output is the key to strong success in life.
It removes much of the ambiguity that comes with money by reducing our life to blanket statements about wealth generation that don’t account for a person’s individual or family needs. And it is different for every individual. Let’s celebrate that.