What is your why?

In my early year’s music was my primary driver for existence. I loved creating and sharing it with others. The adrenaline rush of each performance constantly reminded me of the “why” behind it all.

Nearly a decade later the “why” with music seemed to diminish. I still love to create music and play but it’s no longer a daily ambition to do so.

I have found that when doing something you love is also tied to a business, it starts to lose its appeal. If you’re in a similar state I suggest trying to find things you love doing and omit the monetary portion from the equation.

At first, it might seem easy to earn from the things you love but consider if you’re up for doing it repeatedly for a decade or more. Over time “love” becomes tarnished so you’re ultimately forced to keep going if bound by financial matters. This is no fun.

So what is my “why” right now?

That’s a tough question. My life is a mix of family and professional work. I’m a designer by trade and love solving complex problems using design. I also love finance and investing.

Those sides of me aren’t the sole focus like music used to be.

The music path was a very selfish one. I didn’t care about going to school, having a good job, a healthy relationship with my girlfriend at the time, or being around for family events.

Gigs took precedence before it all. It was the most fun I had in my life and I don’t regret it but it just wasn’t scalable in the end.

It has been a learning experience trying to put others before myself. I think humans are selfish creatures so when you have a family and you’re the sole provider, life starts to get more complex.

The new “why” for me is grounded in the family I now have. I work hard to build a nest egg for my kids and wife so they can have the proper footing to excel on their own someday. Earning from my job, freelancing, and creating projects on the side helped me obtain this vision.

My “why” also includes focusing on investing. I put most of my earnings back into income-producing assets. This includes the stock market, cryptocurrency, and real estate. Over time these should accrue more value and can liquidity for future investments.

Real estate

When it comes to real estate, I have a vision of owning some remote land to build a future home as well as short-term rental accommodations. The goal is to use the land as a means of income and also survival. Omitting as many dependencies from that land plus my life sounds like a thrilling but satisfying challenge. This might include:

Stocks

Investing in the stock market seems to make your money just break even over time. Inflation is a big issue so your dollar today is going to be worth a lot less when at the age of retirement. I believe in this form of investing but I’m not sold on it as a means to get ahead. If you have cash sitting around in a bank then the stock market is a better place to put it to keep up with the economic issues we can’t seem to fix.

Crypto

Crypto is new and exciting. I’m bullish on it being a new form of realized asset that works alongside our existing economic means of “money”. Whether the top token like Bitcoin is the leader of that world doesn’t matter. I think its technology is what will change the way we think about money and transact for goods and services.

Our current monetary policy is based on 100-year-old analog means. Banks are falling behind and are highly regulated. We keep trying to hold the economy up by printing money. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer and this artificial stimulus doesn’t last for long before it affects all markets.

Crypto solves a lot of these problems by introducing new assets that are not 100-year-old tech, non-fungible, scarce, inflation-resistant, extremely secure, not owned by a centralized entity, and more.

Adoption is the hardest piece of the puzzle but I invite you to at least become familiar with the technologies and why they exist. Ask yourself the question “What is money?” as a good starting point. Read more on that topic and how crypto changes things for the greater good.

To wrap up my “why” suddenly went from a singular focus to a more diverse one. In summary, it becomes:

  1. Family and health
  2. Investing and building
  3. Passing the torch forward to my future generation of kin