Money muddies things.

Money muddies things.

At least it does for me. When I think about what I want to create and then figure out how that project is going to make money, my projects become convoluted.

When I focus my creative energy on projects and force them to make money, I end up with a mess. The following 3 exhibits provide a simple timeline of proof.

The Evidence of Brand Confusion

Exhibit A: Young Finances (circa 2011)

Young Finances was essentially how I started my online content creation journey. I blogged about finance and concepts I had learned from my finance degree. I grew the Young Finances brand by teaching investing, budgeting, and increasing income with a job. The only problem is that I wasn’t getting enough attention fast enough. At the time I didn’t have a job and I needed to make money.

This was before Tiktok, Periscope, or Blab. If you go to the Wayback Machine. You’ll see that I had almost all of the possible social media channels except for Tumblr.

I started researching “how to make money online” which led me to affiliate marketing. Over the next few months, I did get a job, but I also started bringing in about $1500 a month from affiliate marketing. 

I should have been satisfied with that, but instead, I kept seeing other people do more and I wanted more. I asked a friend what I could do and he suggested that I offer personal finance coaching. There was just one problem, the people who needed it the most weren’t willing to spend the money on it. For that reason, I decided to focus on coaching people who wanted to make more money. 

This led to brand confusion.

Instead of starting a new project, I decided to just start writing about entrepreneurship, even though the Young Finances tagline and topics were clear. It was designed to help college students budget, invest, and achieve success. The abandoned website still shows some aspects of the confused branding.

Exhibit B: Creating Coins (circa 2014)

Next, I built Creating Coins, my favorite project. I even filed and received the USPTO trademark. I created this project because I realized there’s only so much one can budget before they have to learn how to make money. The idea was to teach people how to make money—“creating coins”—and address the mindset holding them back from taking action. I called my community ‘Actionistas’.

Unfortunately, for reasons that are super clear to me now. I did not make enough money with the Creating Coins brand to qualify as full-time income. At this point I was earning about $1,000 to 3,000 a month before taxes. It was my only income. My husband told me I better “stop creating coins and create some […] dollars.” 

That led me to my next and most successful project.

Exhibit C: You’ve Got Clients (circa 2017)

Until this point I was enjoying each project. I loved creating content, my audience was filled with cool people who were interested to follow my journey and learn along the way. 

It didn’t feel like work.

Once I decided to ‘get serious’ I took on a social media client and I started building my freelance income by booking private clients for my copywriting services. It wasn’t as much fun, but I was finally making good money.

Within a few months, I was up to about $8 – $10K per month on average. From there the coaching, consulting and course business grew to an average of $25K – $30K per month with my highest month being $80K.

On the surface, it was my biggest success yet, but my creative side began to burn out.

I fought back by creating tiny projects here and there based on my interests like this one, but once again, because I felt like everything had to ‘make money’ I would just introduce them into my existing brand.

The Result of Brand Confusion

Some of you might remember the whiplash. I would teach about personal finances, then building a marketing agency, then growing an audience, then making extra income, then fitness, then personal branding. The evidence is clear if you just look at my YouTube channel. I recently made all of my videos public. 

It’s all there.

When I asked for advice from coaches and people I trust, I was told to focus. So I doubled down on what was making me the most money–teaching marketing strategies to coaches. But it was not what I enjoyed the most.

Is focus profitable for the multi-passionate creator?

Recovering from entrepreneurial burnout made me realize my burnout had been building up for years. Suppressing my desire to create for the sake of business focus led to this.

All because I felt like I had to focus on only one topic to be serious about business.

I remember a live stream I hosted where in tears I said, “I just want to be free.” A few years later, on another live stream, in tears again I said essentially the same thing.

I even felt confused myself. “What do you mean LaTisha? You work for yourself. You make good money…

…You travel. You are free!”

I didn’t know it then, but I get it now.

The need I have to create and bring ideas to life wasn’t truly free.

My brain is an idea factory. I’m constantly considering new ideas, ways to make improvements, and things I want to create.

I don’t do well when I have little to no creative freedom.

Meanwhile, I thrive when I’m able to create.

More epiphanies from 2 years of burnout 

As I stated in my last letter, my burnout timeline went a little like this.

• April 2019: Burnout begins
• July 2021: Burnout increases
• June 2023: Fully burned out, wind down business
• July 2024: Mostly recovered from burnout

I believe I am recovering from burnout because my desire to create is greater than my desire to lay on the couch and binge watch Game of Thrones.

But I don’t want to fall into the same trap.

I won’t stifle my creativity again.

• If I want to talk about how our thoughts create our reality, it doesn’t have to be packaged into a coaching program.

• If I want to share ways to make extra money, it doesn’t have to be turned into a YouTube video optimized for ad revenue and affiliate income. It can just be.

• If I want to show foods that I enjoy eating or ways I decorate my house, I can do that. I don’t have to force it to be revenue-generating because everything is not a business.

Some things are just fun.

I still believe if I would have had the ability to grow my ideas without worrying about money, the money would have come.

I just didn’t have the privilege of waiting.

I had student loans.

I no longer do.

More importantly, I see the detriment of chasing the money.

Regardless, I’m here now with multiple brands, websites, projects, and social media channels in various stages of development. What happens next?

First I have to untangle the mish mash of brands.

My secret weapon?

Coggle.

It’s my favorite mind mapping tool and I use it to organize my thoughts.

The long answer is that I’m still in the process of working through it so I’m not quite ready to share a plan this week. And since I’m not done with this topic, we won’t have a vote this week.

But until then, I do have a question for you.

Can you relate to being a multi-passionate individual? Do you have projects in varying stages of completion? Text me at 404-410-0779 or DM me on IG to chat.

If so, you’re going to enjoy the upcoming note where I share my rebrand and how I plan to roll it out in phases.

Hint: It started with me deleting 5,000 email subscribers.

See you next week!