Focused - 27: Bird in the Bush

Episode Date: August 8, 2017

Passion projects can be an enjoyable outlet. But how do you balance the work that pays the bills with the work that feeds the soul?

David Sparks and Jason Snell spent their careers working for the establishment. Then one day, they'd had enough. Now, they are independent workers, learning what it takes to succeed in the 21st century. They are free agents. Welcome back to Free Agents, a podcast about being an independent worker in a digital age. I'm David Sparks, and I'm joined by my fellow host, Mr. Jason Snell. Hi, David. How's it going? Great, Jason. Today, we're here to talk about passion projects and paying the bills. So,

Jason, can we do both? I feel like we can and we should, but this is one of those areas where indulging your passions, things that you're excited about. I don't want to be one of those areas where indulging your passions, things that you're excited about. I don't want to be one of those people who says don't do them because that would really be stupid. I do them all the time. But I think there are issues to think about when you're embarking on them and trying to keep them in balance with the rest of what you do. And that those are the, those are the tricky things about it. These are the, I think, how would you define passion projects? I sort of define it as, these are things that you're excited about and you want to do, but they're not the ones that

pay the bills. I'm a little different. I feel like passion projects are the things that you wanted to do before you went free. And there are things that you, that may pay the bills, but they're, they're different than what you've usually done. things that you, that may pay the bills, but they're, uh, they're different than what you've usually done. And it's something that may have potential or may not. Yeah. I think, I think they may pay the bills is right. Um, or they may have the potential to pay the bills.

I, I, I will get into it a little bit, but yeah, I, I agree with that. That's interesting. The idea that these are the, these are the things that are not maybe this, let me, let me try to frame it this way and see if you follow this one. Passion projects can be something where if you really wanted to maximize your revenue, you would not do them. You would focus on these things that are like, this is where I make my money most efficiently. And if I could fill my entire working life with just this thing, I would be at my most successful in terms of money. Whereas a passion project is something that is not going to be as effective. It might not pay

anything or it might still pay something, but it's not, you know, it's not the thing that you could theoretically do 100% of the time and maximize your income. You do it for other reasons. Yeah. Like if your, your traditional gig is your bird in the hand, the passion project is the bird in the bush. And, uh, but maybe you really want to go check out that bird in the bush. That's why it's your passion project. I think part of this is it kind of plays into the whole thing about being unleashed. You know, once you leave, I spent the other day talking to a bunch of lawyers in a big firm and you could just see some of them were thinking, you know, and, but, but the whole idea of leaving is once you become unleashed, suddenly you're responsible, you know? And I always like, you know, because everything to me comes back to

Star Wars. I think about George Lucas, right? He made the original trilogy. He had all these people in the studio giving him grief. I guess it was a miserable process, but it made these amazing movies. And then he goes out on his own. He's got no one in charge of him. And he makes movies, which some people would argue are not as good. So, so that's something I thought about when I left. Okay, now I'm off the leash. Does that mean I'm going to indulge my worst, um, my worst traits or am I going to be able to police myself and, and do things in a way that makes sense and passion projects tie into that? It's like I could see myself getting lost in passion projects and not being able to pay the rent.

Yeah, that's the, uh, that's the nub of it. I think right there is you, what we're not going to say in this episode is don't do passion projects, right? We're going to say that they're important, spoiler alert, for the rest of this podcast. projects cost in terms of opportunity cost, you know, in the terms that every, even if they make a little bit of money, every 10 hours, you know, you spend on your passion project a week is 10 hours that you probably could be spending on better paying core work. Not necessarily, you might not have that work available and your passion project may grow based to fill the space where you're not working on stuff that's uh better paying work although you could argue that that time could have been spent prospecting for more work right so it's it's you got to keep that in mind and not let it get out of balance where you realize

you're running yourself ragged on passion project and letting the quality of your core work slide because in your mind you you've got this thing, this thing had to happen, and it's super intense. And you lose, the danger is you lose sight of the fact that that was the passion project thing, and that you need to keep your eye on the ball of your main thing, and not let it slide, not get your priorities out of whack. The other problem with the passion project is it's a moving target. I really feel my original passion project was getting free of the law firm. It was the actual establishment of free agency. It was a passion project in a lot of ways. So, you know, once you get out, then you start looking

for the next passion project. And I do think keeping in your head a clear idea that there are these things that you're doing that aren't going to make as much money, but that you are passionate about is good, but you need to keep them very clear in your head. I think one of the easiest ways to get in trouble is to stop thinking about them in that respect. I think you make a really interesting point about your passion project being your free agency. I think we all need to be aware of that, that the danger is, and if you're listening to this podcast and you're not out there on your own yet, then the danger is making it about the breaking free. And that is an important life decision and it has lots of benefits. But once you've broken free, you still need to then do things. And if your passion was for the act of breaking free,

that is over. What happens now? And how do you channel that? It's funny. We've talked about this in terms of having different revenue streams. These are themes that keep coming up in the show. But I do feel like sometimes that passion project is actually business development. It isn't always, but in some cases, a passion project can be a way to experiment either with future directions for your business, something that you can't really justify in terms of value today, but that some part of you is like, I'm interested in this. I think this might be an interesting thing to do, but I don't know what all is involved and I don't know if it's going to work. I think that that can be the case. Sometimes also it can help with long-term career planning. Maybe your passion project is something that allows you to learn,

learn a skill, learn a technology. And even though your passion project may be learning how to write swift programming code so that you can make the Star Wars Sphero robot in your house be programmable and or teach your kids how to do it or whatever, like you might also be thinking in the long term about whether you want to brush up those coding skills or become somebody who is capable of writing code. And so the passion project is also kind of a gateway to future professional development, even if that particular project is not part of your core business. Yeah, I mean, we haven't done the show yet on what does the future hold, because

when you're on your own, you've got to be responsible for that. But I do feel like there's a little overlap here where you may have something that you're passionate about that you may see as something growing into something that helps, you know, pay the bills in a few years. So, but I don't think that's a mandatory point of it or requirement. I think some passion projects may be, you know, coaching the little league team or just volunteering at church or something else. And when you work for someone, it's a lot harder to take on those commitments because you don't know. When you're not the boss, you don't know that you can necessarily get off the right days to do practice or go to rehearsal or whatever. So you've got these options in front of you. or go to rehearsal or whatever. Um, so you've got these options in front of you. Um, these are things you may want to do, but you still have to pay the bills and how do we strike the balance?

Yeah. And also, I mean, keep in mind that, um, the passion project can be a moneymaker and sometimes that makes it easier to do a passion project is that it is bringing in money. It may not be as much, but it's bringing in some money. So, side projects can be passion projects, but they don't have to be. Like, I do think that they run the gamut. So, what are some of your passion projects, Jason? Well, so, I've got a bunch. I mean, I would say my core core business the way i've kind of viewed it is what where do i make my money where's the thing that if i had to stop all the other things i could make a living and that's not really true i i have so many diverse revenue streams that i couldn't stop and

just do one but i would say like you know my core is doing technology stuff so it's six colors and it's the relay podcasting, especially upgrade and download. I would say, I would say the, uh, biggest chunk of, for me of passion project is the incomparable, which is the pop culture podcasting. And it does pay me, uh, the main show, uh, the incomparable that I host has ads on it. And we have a membership plan where people support the shows that I do and I get money from that and that's great. But it is most clearly the passion project in that I do it because it's fun. And if it wasn't fun, I wouldn't do it.

Instead, I would try to crank up more technology work. Instead, the fact that it pays me some is a justification to keep it going and not feel like I'm being irresponsible, entirely irresponsible in doing it. I would also say that within the scope of the incomparable, as well as to a certain extent, this podcast and liftoff on relay, but also like total party kill and the game show and some of the other stuff that we do on the incomparable those are largely you know we make a little bit of money because we have ads and we have a sponsor that we'll tell you about in a little bit but it's a smaller piece and on its own it probably wouldn't justify doing it it's it's a thing that allows me to justify doing something i want to do by giving it a little

bit of money coming in so I can say it's, you know, I shouldn't feel terrible about doing it, right? In the case of free agents and liftoff, that's the case. In the case of something like Total Party Kill, which is the D&D podcast we do on The Incomparable, you know, basically I do that because it's fun and it's never going to be and it's it is the most clearly on it's a spectrum but that's like on the hobby side of the spectrum where it's absolutely like this is i do this because it's fun and people get to have hobbies and people get to have fun and because my hobbies and my professional life are kind of mixed together it's a little

harder to see but anyway that that's sort of how I would consider it is fundamentally, The Incomparable is my passion project. More specifically, it's all the podcast work that I do that is coming, doing shows that are fun, but don't actually generate any appreciable revenue for me. And then I would also throw in my passion project. any appreciable revenue for me. And then I would also throw in my passion project. I'm on a nonprofit board. And I'm on that board because I really care about the organization. So, that's a volunteer thing that I would classify as a passion project. I work on that a lot. And there's no, I get nothing back for that. But I'm doing it because I care about it. And I feel like it's important. And it's a volunteer outlet for me. How do you classify yours? Yeah, I mean, it's similar. I feel like this

show is a passion project. It's something I feel like I have to get out of my system. We don't make a lot of money on it, but I really enjoy doing it and I love hearing from the people who appreciate the show. But I think I've got a couple others. One of them on the hobby side is I play my saxophone. I practice scales and modes. I sit here alone and play it. I'm not in any band or anything. There's no reason for it, but it just makes me feel good. And I feel like it's one of the things I get to do because I work from home so often now.

When you're in an office full of lawyers, playing your alto saxophone for an hour a day is not necessarily going to work, right? But I also have things that I think are kind of passion like the, you know, I do the podcast and like you, I have a law practice and I have a kind of a geek business that I do. But the books to me and the videos that I make there, they're done as one offs there. Um, there are things I get really excited about. I love doing and, um, and I have some thoughts on that later, but, but it's just a, those are things I really like doing that kind of go beyond the normal stuff you do. And I really enjoy doing them. And I guess I would call those passion projects too. So mine run the gamut to things that

are things I can make money on and things that I can't, but I feel like all of them are super important to me being happy. Maybe that's a big piece of it. Passion projects make you happy. Well, it's right there in the name, right? You have to feel passionate about something to do it. The whole point is all things being equal if if you were a robot right if you had no no feelings or if you were a vulcan i'm gonna bring some star trek you brought in star wars earlier you and you suppress your emotions you're like no no i'm gonna follow this logically the passion projects are the things you probably wouldn't do because there's got to be, even if they pay you, they're not paying you enough. That can't be the only payment, right?

Instead, they're paying you in pleasure for doing them. Whether it's the act itself, whether it's the diversity of work, that's something that we haven't talked about, but I wanted to mention is, I feel like diversification of the kind of work you do can be huge in terms of recharging your batteries, in terms of your, you know, being able to shift to a different type of work. So if your whole, you know, working, I mean, I imagine you feel like this too, that, that you could fill your life with legal work, but by having this tech stuff that you do, like that's a, that's an entire, entirely different kind of thing. I assume that when you

shift gears like that, you're kind of giving your brain a break. That's certainly how it feels when I shift gears, going from, like, podcast editing to writing an article. It's like, it's a relief just in the sense that it's a different kind of work. Yeah. And to me, I mean mean i could even argue that all of max sparky is a passion project because i'm i'm really passionate about getting this stuff out there and i enjoy the the whole participation and the community and in a lot of ways you could say the whole thing is a passion project you know i was thinking when you were talking about um things you would do if you were a vulcan the flip side of that is what if you won the lotto, right?

Right. You know, a passion project comes out because it's the thing you want to do after you're independently wealthy. Yeah, I think that you make a good point. I feel like if I was, if I won the lottery, I would still be commenting on, I'd like to think I'd still be doing a version of what i'm doing now but less of it right um yeah but that's partially because i've been able to build up what i do to be things i like to do because i mean make no mistake i like to do the tech stuff that i do too i i'm fortunate to have built a business and make a living doing stuff I like to do. It's just that the tech stuff is the stuff that I would categorize as

pays the bills. And the other stuff is like, pays some bills, but is not the core and is not as efficient for the work I put into it. And yeah, if I won the lottery, what I would be able to do is rank all that stuff based on what I was enjoying. And the rankings would be a little bit different than what they are now. But not a lot different, I feel like. But I think that's a good tool to use is like the stuff that you would do, you know, if you're thinking of retiring and you're like, well, I'm still going to do stuff. I'm still going to stay active. That stuff is stuff that's got passion behind it. That even in retirement, you're like, no, I'm going to still work on this because I care about it or I love it. Yeah, I mean, when I ask myself a lot of questions, I feel like I think I do everything I'm doing now, maybe a little bit less.

A little bit less, right? Because you've got to make some time to travel and go to the beach. But otherwise, yeah. And when I realize that, I realize that I think I'm doing it right. I mean, at a fundamental level, that things are doing okay if i feel that way yeah and not everybody has the has the not everybody has the privilege the uh the is lucky enough to have like constructed it i think we're both lucky in our in our current situations to be able to do stuff that we love sometimes you've got work that you that you really don't like but it pays

the bills and that's fair then then and that is a good way to calculate out what your passion project is it's the stuff that you do that you don't do only to pay the bills yeah but also i i'd say that both you and i put a lot of years in getting to that point absolutely and doing stuff that i i would always as a manager i would always explain to junior people and i'm sure they hated it but it was like you know i know we're going to try to give you stuff that you like to do, but you got to understand you're new here. There's stuff that needs to be done that nobody wants to do. You have to do some of it. Like you can't just do the things that, that, uh, we have in this organization that please you. Part of your job's existence is that you need to do this do this work that nobody wants.

And I know you don't want to do it, but you got to do it. And the fact is, you can like it or dislike it, but that work has to get done. And yeah, you and I have both done plenty of that work. Well, you know, before we move on, I want to take a minute to talk about our sponsor this week, and that's our friends over at FreshBooks. Because passion projects are great, getting paid is also great, and FreshBooks is there to help you do that. To all the free agents listening right now, if you could reclaim up to 192 hours of your precious time this year, would you? Of course you would. Our friends at FreshBooks make cloud accounting software for freelancers that's ridiculously easy to use, and they can help you do just that. By simplifying tasks like invoicing, tracking expenses, and getting paid online,

FreshBooks has drastically reduced the time it takes to get for over 10 million people to deal with their paperwork. So, you know, if you've got FreshBooks and you want to get paid, you just create the invoice online, you send it. They've got this new notification center that's great. It's like your personal assistant. You always know what's changed in your business and you want to get paid, you just create the invoice online, you send it. They've got this new notification center. That's great. It's like your personal assistant. You always know what's changed in your business since you last logged in and what needs to be dealt with right away. They also automate the late payment reminders. This is a mistake I made in my businesses. Sometimes people are late payment, they forget, it falls through the cracks, and I don't remind them for months and months. And then it gets to be like six months and I send them a reminder, and then I look

like the idiot because it took me six months to tell them that they didn't pay their bill. FreshBooks takes care of that for you, so you can spend less time chasing payments and more time working your magic. So, you know, FreshBooks is a great system. When you email a client an invoice, FreshBooks can show you whether they've seen it, which puts an end to the guessing games. Uh, they now have over 10 million users. Uh, these guys are really understand this business, but they've managed to stay a pretty small company, landing them the title of small giant on Forbes list of best small companies

this year. So if you're listening to this and not using FreshBooks yet, now is the time to try. FreshBooks is offering an unrestricted 30-day free trial for listeners of the show. 30 days. So there's no credit card required. All you have to do is go to freshbooks.com slash free agents with no space and enter free agents on the how did you hear about it section. That's important because that gets you the 30 free days and it makes us look great and we want to look great so we thank fresh books for their support of the show and bringing this great system to 10 million users and more so compared to passion projects you've got paying the bills you've got the thing that you know you need to keep doing

you know to keep the trains running um uh is it? Do you find trouble getting focused into that if you get too into the passion projects? Does it get in your way sometimes? It's really hard because you've got to try to calculate out how much effort you're putting into passion projects and putting into your more important in terms of paying work. And, you know, we've mentioned time tracking on the show before, and you don't have to be a complete time tracker to do this, but I feel like it's really important that you are aware of the amount of your time that you're spending on your passion projects so that you don't let it get out of hand. You can't just kind of go on and do what feels right and hope that it all adds up in the end

because I think that can be dangerous. Yeah, one of the things I did was on the legal practice, I figured out how much do I need to earn off this business, which you were right earlier, the more I work it, the more I earn off of it. And there is work out there for me. It's not like I'm missing from work. But how much of this do I need to work to make sure I hit the bottom line? You know,

I've got certain obligations with my wife and my kids and, you know, just paying things. So I try to, I try to make sure I hit that. For me, I know that there's a certain number of hours I need to work to make that happen. And I figured that out kind of on a daily basis. And part of my, the way I judge myself every day is, did I hit, you know, the magic number for the law practice today? And once I do, then I feel a lot more free to go explore other things. Interesting. My take on it is a little bit different because I've got, rather than thinking of it in like the hours of the day, because I've got a lot of things that are on a weekly schedule. got rather than thinking of it in like the hours of the day because i've got a lot of things that are on a weekly schedule so it is about sort of making sure that the things i schedule weekly

are in balance and are not are not out of whack but you're right about that number that that is something um that we've i think touched on before but it's really important to state again which is it's so easy when you're doing this on your own to keep on saying yes. I mean, we talked about saying yes and saying no, to keep on taking on work and not leaving space to do other things, whether it's passion projects or whether it's just personal time. And I don't want to, again, make the assumption that everybody out there who's doing this is turning away work because they've got so much work to do. Sometimes you are struggling to get the paying work to do the job. It's absolutely true.

Sometimes, though, if you're fortunate, you can build up a business and build up some momentum and you've got maybe not unlimited, but you've got a lot of work you could take on more than you can take on. limited, but you've got a lot of work you could take on more than you can take on. And it is so important to be aware of where your comfort level is. And that's going to give you the confidence to say, this is where I stop. Because if you want to spend time with your family, if you want flexibility in your schedule, and if you want to work on passion projects, you need to be aware of what that comfort level is. And I struggle with this even now, almost three years in, where I was talking to my wife the other day, and it's

actually, she does the books for us, and I occasionally ask her to do reports for me. And the reason that I do that is because I want to sit down with her and talk about where the money's coming from. Because it's very easy for me to lose sight, especially since the way I get paid is really nuts. You know this from the stuff that we do here at RelayFM. The ads that came in that month, we get paid. And it's just kind of like a blob. We don't get... As so many free agents do, we don't get a it's just kind of like a blob. We don't get, you know, as so many free agents do, we don't get a paycheck, right? We get money here and there and here and there. And that makes it so easy to lose sight of what, you know, that direct connection between you work

here and you get paid, right? You have to either keep it in your mind or you need to refresh. And so I have my wife do the reports for me and we sit down and look at like where the money's coming from and where it's not and it's so powerful because that lets me set that balance again and say um like just the other week i said this which is i i want to work enough that we're okay but what i'm not interested in doing is taking on more and more and more work and like killing myself with work because i'm afraid we're not going to be okay even though we already passed that bar and we're okay and that's really easy to do and that crowds out the passion projects and crowds out the personal time so um so even though this is kind of tangential to passion projects i think it an important point, which is you should know where that line is so that you can feel comfort to then pivot, you know, make a change and spend some of that time that you've got left on stuff that is not the thing that got you to the bar.

And that can be hard. It's so easy to lose sight of that, for me at least. And that can be hard. It's so easy to on passion projects that they're losing money. I think it may be just the opposite. It's like you have lost opportunities because you're afraid to do passion projects. True. It does go both ways. It totally goes both ways. What we said earlier about how passion projects can lead to interesting places, and are recharging your mental batteries, there are lots of things that you are losing out on if you're not allowing yourself to do them, but you need to know when that point is.

So here's a problem I'm dealing with in my life right now. So I have this law practice that helps pay the bills. I had Depression-era parents that just drilled into me. Both of them were super poor. I mean, during the Depression, my mother lived in an abandoned cabin in the backwoods of massachusetts and my grandfather trapped foxes that's how they this is the thing you and i have in common because my dad was a child of the depression and he was

born in his parents were from minnesota but he was born in in oregon and his brother was born in i want to say like nevada or. And it never really made sense until I realized they were, they were literally traveling around the country looking for work because they couldn't support themselves. I mean, there were points where my parents just didn't have food. And that sticks with a child. You can, you and I can both attest that growing up with these depression era parents, it is, it makes their view of life is very different. Yeah. And so that's why it took me 22 years to, to leave and go out on my own when I probably should have taken 12. But the, the, um, but that still sticks with me now. And, uh, my,

one of my biggest passion projects is writing these books. I love doing these books from Max Markey. I love the whole process. I love writing them. I like making the videos and everything just makes me happy. And I have not released one since I went on my own, where I was releasing them yearly when I was working for the man. And part of that is just trying to get the new business rolling and everything. And part of it is my internal inability to, to not, to put the legal work down enough to get this stuff done. Because in my head, my depression era, growing up kid head, it's like, okay, I cannot abandon this stuff at all at the, you know, at the cost of everything. And, and I'm feeling bad now, you know, but I, I'm in, I'm in work now and, you know, I, I'm actually really feeling,

but I've been, I've been hard on myself, you know, as the second year went by and I still hadn't released that book. Um, I'm upset with myself about it and it like weighs on me. I have the exact same experience. So I, um, I, right before I left IDG, I actually got a, uh, guy who's an award-winning novelist who offers, he's a creative writing teacher and he was, occasionally he'll take people to critique their novel manuscripts. And I sent him my novel manuscript and paid him to critique it and give it, you know, your friends are going to tell you your novel's great, but an actual novelist is going to be able, who you're paying will tell you what's wrong with it because there's always something wrong with it and you need good feedback so you can fix it.

Great. I got it. I got his notes. They're encouraging, but there are a lot of things I need to work on. And a novel, unlike the incomparable, where I can sort of say, it's kind of like the other stuff that I do and it brings in some money, right? The novel is just a vacuum. Like maybe I'll publish a novel someday, and maybe that'll make money, or maybe it won't. But it is unhooked enough from the rest of what I do. And what I found is since I left, I've rewritten like four chapters, five chapters of that novel. And that's the one that I can point to and say the same thing that you're saying about your videos, which is, I love doing it. I'm really excited about it. I've gotten all this work to do this. And yet,

it has become incredibly hard for me to set aside time to work on my novel, because I've got this voice yelling in the back of my head about how there's no direct connection between this and anything, at least with The In incomparable. I can say I have members I have, you know, who are supporting the shows that I do. So that, that is, that is all to the good. Um, and with relay and six colors, of course, I've got some very clear connections to my job, but this thing that I now perceive as kind of not being my job at all, it's a little bit on the outskirts. It has gotten no love in two and a half,

three years. And there's something wrong with that. I need to figure out how to, how to put that into my mental model because that is a passion project. So pure and free of direct return in terms of you know career monetary return but it's something i want to do and i have to figure out how to do that the thing is even more mad in my case where the books actually make money they make money i know well i know it's even that's but it but i'll tell you the way you described it is the same as mine so whether even though my my personal

calculus might be a little bit different than yours, I feel like those are coming from the same place, which is, you got all this stuff over here, and then you've got this project, and you're like, yeah, I can't do that right now. And then it ends up just kind of languishing. The thing I, because I've done a lot of, I didn't realize we'd really get into this today, but I can tell you, I've done a lot of introspection about this. Like, why is this so hard? And I'm starting to realize maybe the thing is, because when I don't take, when I say no to somebody else, I'm disappointing them. When I finish work for somebody else, I'm satisfying them. The only person that suffers with this really is me, is like, this is the thing I want to do. And I always put everybody else, I think, ahead of me

when I'm trying to, you know, make my list of things that need to get done in the day. So, else I think ahead of me when I'm trying to, you know, make my list of things that need to get done in the day. So, um, I'm, I'm struggling with it right now, but I'm, I'm, I'm trying to, to solve the problem. I'm trying to set time aside, dedicated time. And, and I think once you start putting a little bit of time into it, it'll be easier to put more time into it. But, um, you know, this is this passion project thing is a, is a real deal because it's one of the promises of becoming a free agent is like, yay, I'm going to have time to do more of this stuff. And then you find out you don't. Yeah. And there's no, I mean, there's no one to blame but yourself, honestly, at that point. And I don't mean that in a self-punishing way. I mean that in a, if you're your own boss,

this is the joke that I think I've made on the show and that my wife makes all the time, which is, you know, like on a holiday and she's got my wife makes all the time, which is, um, you know, like on a holiday and she's got the day off on a Monday because it's a state or federal holiday. And, and she'll say, your boss is mean. He makes you work on Mondays on holidays. And it's like, yeah, cause I'm my boss and I, I am mean. And I need to figure out how to, how to, how to work with that and how to deal with it because nobody else is going to give you permission, right? You have to do those calculations and get to some place where you can give yourself permission. And for a while there, I was blocking out time on my calendar,

literally on my calendar of like, you will work on your novel now. And that kind of fell by the wayside because again, I've got that voice shouting in the back of my head saying, no, no, no, you got to do some other project. You got to, you know, and, and some of those were, I mean, arguably some of those are passion projects that maybe I need to deprioritize. Also, arguably it's just doing more than I actually need to do and that I need to be, except that I don't need to be going full out on that stuff all the time because I'm at a pretty good level as it is. And now I'm just making just making you know i'm putting more in and not getting any more out and i ought to do something else instead yeah it's tough it is tough it is we don't you know we don't always have all the answers here

in fact we frequently don't but it's good for the listeners you know it's it's it's therapeutic for us to to talk through this stuff so now can we talk about warning signs because i feel like that yeah the blinking light is like uh you're you're overloaded with passion projects you how do you look for warning signs that you're doing too much of this and you're out of balance well i think it you know on the side of too many passion projects would be um the balance statement would be one thing to look at. Having your wife run the numbers for you once a month, I think it's very important as a free agent, this is kind of separate, that you know how much money you make every month and you see where the money is coming from. And keep an eye on that and look at trends. If suddenly over a course of six

months, you see your income is going down by thousands every month because you're not putting enough time into that thing that pays the bills, you should have red lights going off because you may be headed back to working for the man if you can't figure that out. I think that's a fundamental one. I also would say, and this is a little touchy feely, but I, I take gauge where your stress is coming from, where you feel your, um, Oh man, I gotta do that thing. I gotta do that. You know, right. Like that, that sort of more stressed out, um, uh, task management stuff. And if your stress is coming from your passion projects, something is really wrong. And I've, I've noted this in myself a few times where it's like, okay, you this because you at least in part because you want to do it because you like it and now it's become the stress point in your life like that's probably a sign that they're that that

the balance is out of whack i i've definitely on several occasions thought wait wait a second, why is it that I feel okay about all my tech stuff and my incomparable stuff is like overwhelming? And that you may be out of balance if that's the case. And that out of balance can lead to a couple of different places. It can lead to you sucking into your personal time or other time that you want to spend, it can also eat into your main time. And the last thing you want to do is half-ass your bread and butter project because you had to spend time indulging the passion project. And that's the most extreme example that I'm giving there. But if you're not careful, that can happen. And like being aware that like, you've got two things to do today, and one of them pays the bills, and the other one doesn't,

and you're a very responsible person, and you've agreed to do both, right? And this happens to me all the time. When I agree to do something, when I want to meet a deadline, like I'm not going to blow it. I'm going to be responsible, and I'm going to do it. But when you get in that situation where you've got these two things coming down on you, it is really important that you have the perspective of which one pays the bills. Because if one of them pays the bills and the other one doesn't, you need to do the thing that pays the bills and you need to do it well. And the other thing, you know, ideally you should do it if you said you would do it that day but if it's the passion project and if you can you know it needs to be a lower priority basically and that can be very

easy to fall into that trap of these things are both things i need to do and they're equal and remembering that they're not can be um that that's that's a sign that you may be overloaded if you if you have to make decisions like that Because now you've taken on so much passion work that you don't have enough time to do the work that you need to do. Yeah, another trap there is when you're doing the passion work with other people. Because then you feel like you're letting them down too. Right, right. It just amps up the responsibility stress. Yeah, it gets harder.

What about warning signs that you're not doing enough passion projects? Well, like I said earlier, I'm a real believer in the fact that this is a mental recharge thing, that if you feel like you're just doing drudgery for me, like that is the, like, it's the same old thing. That is the sign that I, if I'm just doing same old, same old, I'm not doing enough of that other stuff. And, and sometimes you can have your passion projects and your work things being very similar. I mean, I have that where I have podcasts that I do for one and podcasts I do for another, right? But they're different enough that I don't usually feel that way. But even there, you know, you need to be aware, like, change it up. If you're in a rut, if everything's the same, I feel like that's a great sign. If there's something that you see somebody doing or that you've read about and you're like,

that's really interesting, make a note of it because maybe that's the kind of thing where you need to try something else. I feel like if your working life is filling up with one thing, and again, if that one thing is the only thing paying the bills and you can't turn away from it, then you've got to do what you've got to do. But if you've got some space and you're in this kind of humdrum drudgery kind of feel that for me, that's always been the sign of a passion project, something outside of what you're doing that excites you, something that might lead somewhere podcasting led somewhere for me right like that was you and i were not like i'm going to be

podcasters that was a thing that kind of led to something that's more than just a passion project for me i've always had a side project and those have always been passion projects i had a magazine that i did on the internet in the in the in the 90s i had a um i had a magazine that I did on the internet in the 90s. I had a blog that we did in the mid to late 90s. And now I've got the podcast stuff. And that all came out of a, I want an outlet that lets me do something that I just can't do with my regular old job. So I feel like those are great warning signs. If it's like, I dream of doing something that is not this thing that I'm doing every day, that's a pretty good sign that maybe you should do that.

And I do think that it has payoff. I really believe it in terms of getting your payoff in your real work by shifting modes, by getting out of that way of thinking, by giving your brain some chance to recharge by doing something that's appreciably different and thinking in a different way than you normally do. And yes, I also do believe that those passion projects often will give you insight into ways that you can change your business and change your standard job to do things differently because you are trying new things and sort of stepping out of your shoes. I know this is really simplistic, but it's sincerely true for me. I, I judge my life

about the way I jump out of bed. I think it's a lot of ways. I mean, I really mean that when you wake, when you wake up in the morning, like today I woke up, I'm like, Hey, I get to talk to Jason today about free agents. I'm always excited to record a show. I've got a client that's got a really unique problem. I'm going to help them solve. And it's like, I get out of bed ready to conquer the world most days. And I really enjoy that. And when I find myself waking up and not wanting to get out of bed, that's usually a sign for me that I'm not, I don't have that passion project going, you know, whatever I've done in my life, it needs, it needs to be juiced up somehow. And, and, And I go through phases where I feel that way. And quite often, that is the solution for me, is to find one of those passion projects and put some energy into it.

And not only does that make the passion project fun, it energizes me for everything else, too. That is a great way to think of it. That what is the thing that's energizing you and giving you some fuel? And that does, I do believe, just just like you do that it carries over like again sometimes you got to do what you got to do to pay the bills but i am a real believer in finding some things that give you variety that make you think in different ways that allow you to when you're stymied on something to switch modes for a little bit and do something else and then come back to it because sometimes that can make all the difference. And to motivate you when you get up in the morning or make you excited about the day or excited about when you're

going to bed, excited about what you're going to do the next day and have something there. And that could be, you know, we're talking about this in terms of work. I want to say, like, the phrase that everybody needs a hobby, you know, it's not necessarily true, but your passion does not necessarily have to be work. It could be some other kind of project. It could be making a model train. It could be, you know, playing Frisbee. It doesn't have to be work, but it still can be something that gives you some extra motivation and excitement because you know more broadly we all are fueled by the things the passion is the thing that fuels us and if you are living a life devoid of passion then you need to work on that because you need to you need to give yourself some of some fuel it goes back to our episode about self-care right which is in the end you know you can't just say i got to be responsible and just do this like not taking care of yourself you're not going to be an effective

worker either and then that that is i think at the core of of doing things that you're excited about because they give you fuel to be a better worker amen brother well um we are going to do a feedback show i think pretty soon right are we Are we not? Yeah, coming up. So we would like your questions and topics that you'd like us to discuss, or if you have comments about the stuff we've been talking about on this show, ways to get in touch with us. So the best way, relay.fm slash freeagents, and then on the side below our little pictures, there is a contact link.

Click on that, and you can send us an email. You can also tweet at us at freeagentsfm, or you can visit the Free Agents Facebook page, which is full of people just like you who listen to this podcast and are either thinking about or are already out on their own. And that is facebook.com slash groups slash free agents group. All right. We'll see you in two weeks. Yep. We'll be back in a fortnight.

Bye, David. Bye, Jason.