Doing What You Love vs. Doing What Makes Money

Let me give you my take on this eternal question based on what I've done.

We have to first define what are things we do because we love doing them.

Things we love are things we do because we're internally motivated to do them spontaneously.

We don't need productivity hacks to get started. Instead, the idea pops into our minds and we're eager to do it without hesitation.

This is what I've done out of intrinsic motivatio in the past 30 days:

• Organize cool events with friends (photoshoots, picnics, nights out, house parties) with the goal of having a more fulfilling social and sexual life (where you just naturally meet women) without needing online dating or cold approaching
• Introspection and figuring out my long-term goals around making money, dating, and enjoying life, while also fretting about turbulent world events (Inflation, World War 3, wars, pandemics, AI)
• Read a book on politics (The Dictator’s Playbook, if you're interested)
• Do a cut / fat loss
• Buy a comfortable pillow and mattress topper (the old ones were too hard, so my body hurt every morning)
• Buy Kratom (it may be a game changer if I react to it well – supposedly different strains help with productivity, mood, or relaxation)
• Go on idyllic walks in the nearby park (basically the Central Park of Sofia, Bulgaria)
• Booked a personal style service with a fashion designer friend, who’ll help me upgrade my style, including a style guide PDF and a shopping session

For work:

• Took a trip to Dubai to test 5-star hotels. That was the easy part – now I have to write a massive 10k-word article about it, which I’m procrastinating on as I write this.
• Went to Paris to get away from Sofia and "do no work" – except negotiate higher rates with my best affiliate partners. The partner I make the most money for was extremely rude and hard to reach (hence why I tried to get a personal meeting) and told me at the gate to fuck off (even though I drive them 30-35k worth of sales a month). But my second-best affiliate (where I had no expectations) gave me an offer that made the whole trip worth it
• Bought a 1-year-long 23k coaching program I haven’t used much yet, focused on selling high-ticket offers. It’s about helping ecommerce store owners make money from Google and reduce dependence on Amazon / ads

As you can see, these two camps don't really intersect.
A hippy might say, “Yo, why don’t you (do X thing from the first list) more and make money?”

Well, my dear hippy friend, lemme explain.

Imagine a masterful dancer – the best at bachata. They’re good at it and they enjoy it. The problem is, what they actually enjoy is dancing at a high level, plus the social status and sexual options it brings (for men). The market (money) however is in teaching beginners via group classes or private lessons, maybe doing workshops on weekends or at congresses. This is generally boring and understimulating for them.

At best, they make a modest living teaching dance. The chances of making significant money are slim. Maybe the top 0.1% have that opportunity – same as in music, acting, or arts.

Same goes for photography, painting, music, film, poetry, arts, acting.

Now, for me – I'm super interested in how human society works (society, politics, economy, sociology, psychology, philosophy). But these aren't things people “buy.” There's no real market for them. People are curious, but at best they buy books or maybe subscribe to a Substack – maybe attend a workshop or conference.

There are some ways to make money, but even if I do, I’ll probably end up like my dancer friends – meaning, what I enjoy (reading and talking about these topics) vs. how I’d make money with them would still be unfulfilling.

And if by some miracle it is fulfilling, the money won’t be that good compared to something where big money flows (like tourism).

In economic terms, there’s an overabundance of supply and not enough demand.

Another issue is that doing something you’re intrinsically motivated to do, or enjoy, can be ruined by doing it too often. Back to the dancer example – even if she could dance all day with expert dancers, she'd still get tired of it if she has to do it more frequently than she likes.

Same with food. If you have none, it’s all you think about. But once you get some (say, one pizza), the value of more quickly diminishes. I don’t know about you, but one pizza is usually enough for me. Maybe I’ll wolf down another slice or two if I’m starving – but it’s rare. Eat pizza every day and you’ll get bored real fast.

So the whole “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” is a fallacy. Not impossible, just not likely.

I happen to be pragmatic, so here's my solution. Sentimental-hippy people might not like it, but how many of them actually live that ideal “do what you love” lifestyle anyway?

My strategy is two-pronged:

1. Monetarily, do what makes you the most money, and create assets that make money long-term – ideally sellable ones
2. With the money, do whatever interests you without turning it into a business or a chore, while preserving your love for the thing itself

My dream is to build generational wealth in the next few years, then scale back how much I think about making money.

With that money, I can afford to just do whatever I feel like doing. A lot of the cool stuff in life also takes money. Yeah, I enjoy free stuff like walking on a beautiful spring day with 20°C weather in a green park – but if that’s all I do, it gets monotonous.

For example, I'd like to be socially top dog at least once in my life, and that takes a lot of money (like organizing villa parties).

This strategy already led me to great heights. I broke my first 10k month this month. By the end of the year, I might be at 20k or even 30k a month – all passive income from my digital assets (mostly articles and videos).

And I live in Eastern Europe, where 2-3k a month gets you an upper-middle-class lifestyle.

So now I’ve got all the time and money to chillax, if I wanted to. The only reason I’m not is because I have high ambitions and want to lock in at a higher income, ideally at 5-10M/year.

Now, all this money doesn’t fix every problem. Relationships and emotional stuff, for example. But now that I’ve got the time and means, I can focus on improving that.

So ask yourself (using money as a universal example): in 2 years (or whatever timeframe), do you want to be where you are now? Or do you want to be where I am?

This is what I did when I was 30. I had a modest webstore that was bound to be shut down in 1-2 years. Plus I felt like I’d wasted my 20s, so I had to pick up the slack in my 30s. I made plans – where do I want to be in 2 years, in 5 years?

So far, I’m achieving what I set out to do at the 2.5-year mark. At the 5-year mark, I hope to hit even higher highs.

Funny enough, I was intrinsically motivated to write this article. I was already thinking about it out loud. Why write it down just for fun? But I wouldn't expect to make any money from it.

See what I’m doing?