Question: "You could make so much more money using your incredible skills in a different industry. Why do you choose books?"
Being the book guy is perhaps what I am currently best known for professionally, but I do a little more than that with my work day.
Here is what I spend my work days doing and how I currently make a living:
1. I run OnlineBookClub.
2. I help promote and advertise books, namely by up-and-coming writers including indie authors and many books by small publishers.
3. I write books.
4. I write and publish poetry.
5. I help artists namely by promoting and advertising art of all kinds, including poetry, paintings, music, photography, and so much more.
6. I run a free mentoring program in which I help anyone at all achieve any goal, be it a fitness goal or a goal related to business or money, or a any other goal.
None of the above 6 things are good ways to make money.
If your #1 goal is to make money, then I recommend you absolutely do not do any of the above 6 things.
If you want to make as much money as you possibly can, then I recommend you absolutely do not do any of the above 6 things.
Needless to say, with my marketing skills, computer skills, and work ethic, I've known for many years I could make way more money promoting something other than books and a website about books. I could promote penis pills, dangerous weight loss drugs, addictive porn, and predatory payday loans and all sorts of stuff like that, and I'd be great at it, and I'd make more than 100x more money than I make now. I could vastly increase the amount of people that use payday loans or dangerous meds, and I'd get paid quite well for it. I'm very good at marketing and advertising. I've gotten the offers to sell out. But those who know me know I'm not a slave to money like that. I'd rather do what I'm doing now for even less than do that kind of stuff for way more money. No amount of money would be worth it. Money doesn't excite me.
I love working with indie authors who pour their souls into their book. I love helping those passionate writers bring their soul-filled piece of art to the world and get it into the hands, eyes, and ears of as many eager readers as possible. I am passionate about that. That excites me.
No amount of money is worth my time if my heart isn't in what I am doing.
Philosophy, books, art, helping writers, helping artists of all kinds, and helping people achieve big goals and find their true happiness are things that I am passionate about. Those are things that I do with my whole heart.
I happen to be great with money, business, and marketing. It's a skill I have. I get to use that skill as a means (one of many) to achieve my real goals such as helping writers and artists promote their books, writing, and other art.
If I wasn't great at business and marketing, OnlineBookClub would have gone out of business many years ago--like most start-ups do. At the very least, it wouldn't have grown to have over 5 million members. I could spend 100 hours per week advertising a great book by a new indie author to an audience of 0. That wouldn't help anyone. Not them, not me.
If you hate money and business, or are just bad at it, you likely won't be able to achieve any kind of real goal, such as helping great indie authors and artists.
If you love money and business, or otherwise make it a top priority, you also won't typically be able to achieve any other kind of big goal, let alone help people. You'll be a sell out. You''ll choose money over that would-be other goal.
Ironically, the sellouts (i.e. money lovers) don't usually do that well in business and don't make that much money. That's because sellouts are a dime a dozen, and so they don't have much value in the market.
When you stop chasing money, and instead chase your real passion, money has a way of chasing you.
If J.K. Rowling had been in it for the money, she probably would never have become one of the richest and most bestselling authors of all time.
Ask yourself: On average, if you could only buy one of the two, which of the following two paintings do you think you would likely end up buying: (1) the one painted by a painter who is just in it for the money, or (2) a painting by a loving happy artist who passionately loves painting and is doing it out of passion?
As I wrote in my other post, The sellouts sell out and thereby become possessed, "You determine the price of your own soul."
Likewise, as I wrote in this Instagram post, "Buyers typically don't choose to overpay. Thus, the lowest price for which you would be willing to sell yourself typically becomes the price at which you do in fact end up selling yourself."
You choose your own value.
Me and my time are worth something far more valuable than money.
My soul, my freedom, and my spirit are worth something far more valuable than money.
I wouldn't trade it for a billion dollars.
I wouldn't trade it for all the material wealth in the whole world.
Being good at business and money and goal-achievement in general allows me to do what I do much better than I could or would do it if I was bad at business or money or such.
As a result, I make a good amount of money and achieve incredible results in business doing what I do.
But don't get it backwards.
The money chases me, and it does so mainly because I don't chase it.
My goals are not to make money or do well in business. It's not to have the most popular website or the most bestselling book. It's not to have the most fame or attention for my website, business, book, or human self. Rather, I have other goals and passions. I would do what I do and go after those same goals just as passionately even if I made a lot less money doing so.
And I certainly would never give it up for mere money. Mere money is effectively totally worthless in comparison to real goals and in comparison to real passion and love.
And that's the real issue with loving money: It's the opportunity cost. It's the answer to the question, when you love and obsess over money, what are you choosing to take your love, limited attention, and passion away from to do that? What are you choosing to love less, to be less passionate about, and to pay attention to in order to love, chase, or obsess over mere money, mere worthless money?
For more on my thoughts and teachings about comfort addiction, spiritual slavery, and money, please see these other advice article and posts of mine:
- Typically, the best way to destroy a man is to give him what he thinks he wants. | "More money, more problems."
- Money doesn't buy happiness, but...
- (Instagram Post) Money doesn't change it magnifies. Many people falsely claim to have an income problem when they really have a spending problem.
- (Q&A) "Do you believe one can be successful without being rich?"
- Q&A about Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: "You can make huge amounts of money, become absurdly famous, and achieve incredible professional success in your career. None of that will give you inner peace and confidence."
- (Tweet) "If money bought happiness, people today would be thousands of times happier than people just 100 years ago."
- (Tweet) "If money is where you find happiness, you'll always be poor and unhappy..."
- (Tweet) Don't trade real success for mere money.
- (Tweet) "Health and wealth are means, not ends."
- (Tweet) I'd rather you read my book and pay me $0 than pay me $500 and not read my book.
- (Tweet) Time is our most valuable resource. Money has absolutely no inherent value.
- (Tweet) Success doesn't mean being rich, and being rich doesn't mean one is successful. Money comes at a price.
- (Tweet) I don't like that part of our culture is..."
- (Tweet) If you're in something (e.g. music, writing, sports, etc.)for the money and fame, you probably won't get very far. Passion is more powerful than greed.
- (Tweet) I find the folks who chase riches tend to be the worst at catching it.
- (Tweet) Follow your true passion and get paid insanely will for it, rather than give up and sell out cheap along the way.
- (Tweet) "Would you commit to working 50 hours per week every week over the next 10 years if it meant you'd be given $1 billion dollars (USD) upfront right now? I absolutely 100% would not."
- (Tweet) Money can't buy true happiness because true happiness is free.
- (Tweet) "Money doesn't buy happiness, but gratitude does."
- (Tweet) "Money runs away from those who chase money. Money runs towards those who chase their true dreams..."
- (Tweet) "Money is the slave of a wise man, and the master of a fool." (Quote of Seneca)
- (Tweet) "What you think you own ends up owning you."
- (Tweet) "We are prone to sell our soul for the false promise of that which one can never truly have."
- (Tweet) "For what has a man profited if he gains the world for the price of his soul." (Quote of Jesus)
With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott
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In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.
