Getting a side hustle doing what you love sometimes means persevering through people flat-out telling you that you can't …
Many people have something they're passionate about that's outside of their main job. A natural outflowing of that passion is a fire in the belly. With time, this translates to proficiency or even expertise because there's the desire to get better.
For lots of people — including myself — this passion is music. I've been a musician for over four decades. I started playing piano first, then trumpet and voice. Later, I took up drums.
I'm trained as a scientist, but if you were to back me up against a wall and ask me what I was above all else, I would tell you I'm a musician.
The (depressing) definition of a musician
I've seen this definition of musician a number of times on the Internet:
“A musician is someone who loads $5,000 worth of gear into a $500 car and travels 100 miles for a $50 gig.”
While this is a little stereotypical, there's always the shred of truth.
What underpins it is this: There are a lot of really, really great musicians out there.
What also underpins it is this: For the most part, people want to hear music for free, no matter how good the musicians are.
So take a whole boatload of fantastic musicians and set them in a market of $250 gigs (for the entire band) or a fraction of a cent per stream, and this translates to a hard way to make a living.
“You'll always have your music”
My parents invested tens of thousands of dollars in my music education (mostly in the 1980s) between instruments, music lessons, and music camps. In 2019 dollars, this would easily be in six figures. This was far beyond the “you're going to take piano for your own good” level; I had shown an aptitude in music early on and this was my “thing.”
At the same time they were spending mildly obscene sums of money on my musical development, they were steering me away from being a professional musician.
Why? you might ask. As it turned out, the son of one of my father's coworkers, who was five years older than me, was a piano prodigy. If I ever had thought I had it going on, I just had to look at Matt could do, and I'd come back to reality. Yet, even as good as he was, it was far from a sure thing that he would “make it” as a musician.
I didn't have to look beyond my small home town of a few thousand people to find a level of musical expertise that I could never attain.
So, I pursued physics and math and kept my music at the pro-am level. I played in groups and played for my own amusement, but was content (resigned?) that it would remain an occasional, irregular source of income.
“There isn't any money in that”
This doesn't mean that there aren't opportunities for musicians.
After coming down to Virginia, I started playing music more actively in church. Eventually, I'd get into leadership positions.
The music is good and playing is spiritually fulfilling, but except for paid worship leaders, the positions are volunteer.
At FinCon in 2015, I spoke with someone who'd just given a talk. He mentioned during the talk that he was a church musician.
When I mentioned that I had some ideas for doing a side hustle based on that, he was dismissive. It took him less than half a second for him to come back with, “There's no money in that.”
And that's where the conversation ended.
Words like that tend to stop you cold, regardless of whether you've heard them before or not.
Well … let me tell you about that …
Like I mentioned earlier, church music is spiritually satisfying. So I kept doing it as a volunteer just like I had for the previous sixteen years.
Earlier this year, I was told that our worship pastor was going to make the announcement that he was leaving to plant a church across the country.
They wanted me to fill in the musical parts of his job and would call the new role Music Director. Based on my involvement at that church over the previous decade, I was a natural choice for the role.
Oh … and they would pay me for my efforts.
So, as of the beginning of next year, the church has budgeted $8,000/year for my stipend. (And, before you do the math, yes, that works out to a little over $666/month, and no, we're not superstitious.)
So … yeah, Mark, there is money in that, and I'll be getting some of it.
Getting a side hustle doing what you love
Don't lose hope on getting paid to do what you love. It may take a while to happen. I believe it would have taken longer to happen if I had tried to force it. I wasn't even really looking for a paid position. But here we are, and the income is enough to cover about half my mortgage.
If people tell you there's no money in what you want to do, brush the comments off. They're not you, and they probably have no stake in it anyway. Who cares what they think?
I recommend just continuing to do what you love, and the money will follow.
I think I've heard that somewhere before.
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