Why turning your talent to money is the most important skill you’ll ever learn
As more of us struggle with feeling stuck or unfulfilled and with workplace burnout at an all time high, is it time to reevaluate trading our hours for money, and instead focus on monetising our talents?
It’s official, the 9-5 is over. Well... not really, but almost.
What was previously the norm, is now not-so-slowly dissipating in the Post-Covid era; remote work has become favourable and The Great Resignation has seen millions of people choosing to leave their employment and turn their attention to their own projects or side hustles.
We are living in fluid times, where it’s not just discussions around gender and sexuality that are opening up new ways of thinking, but also a shifting dialogue around what we come to understand as ‘work’ and equally, as ‘life’.
Worrying but shamefully believable statistics from 2021 show that 79% of UK staff have experienced burnout, according to new research. What’s clear is that the way we’re working isn’t working, but what does this make space for? An alternative that’s all the more exciting and what’s more, actually realistic…
The work fallacy
Perhaps a good place to start is by considering the dictionary definition of ‘work’: “to exert oneself physically or mentally especially in sustained effort for a purpose or under compulsion or necessity”.
With its synonyms ranging from ‘drudgery’ to ‘mission’, and there being only a fine line between the aforementioned ‘compulsion’ and ‘necessity’, it seems like a broad spectrum to navigate with historically limited options. However, today more than ever, we are able to manoeuvre through the world of work, with more autonomy and more choice than ever before.
Finding your talent and monetising it
Workplace misery is something I am all too familiar with. I started a career in nursing in my early twenties, only to find myself burnt out, exhausted and very unhappy as I approached 30.
Image by Luke Jones @unsplash
Working for the NHS in a Mental Health Crisis Team in Central London was, overall, a very rewarding and fulfilling job. It felt like a privilege to serve the community I lived in for all those years and support people and their loved ones when they were most in need.
However, like many other healthcare professionals, I found myself at breaking point - the long shifts, unpaid overtime and increasingly pressured working conditions took their toll.
What had felt like a ‘calling’ at first, led to a whole reevaluation of what I wanted to do with my life. I had to stop and seriously rethink whether I wanted to spend 60+ hours a week doing something that, ultimately, I no longer found fulfilling.
Fast forward a year, I am now a ‘digital nomad’, living on the road - currently in Mexico - whilst freelancing and getting paid to write, on my own terms.
Making the choice to hand my notice in and leave my ‘job for life’, with no specific plan lined up was, to say the least, daunting.
I knew the onus was now on me to turn my talent — a talent not yet fully discovered — into an income stream. It took some time, but I knew I’d always loved writing (having worked as an editor for small publications alongside nursing), but the NHS-shaped gap in my life made space for me to dig deep and think about where my actual talent lies and how I might then pursue it.
I’m so glad I unlocked this hidden skill set and am excited to see what else I can develop in the process.
I now know I am not the only one going through this process.
Last November saw a record 4.53 million people leave their jobs in the US alone. I can’t help but feel that those of us going through this shift are living a real time evolution process. Our grandparents and parents did not have the luxury of choice when it came to their career paths, yet a generation or two later and we are now living in a time of seemingly infinite possibilities.
The privilege of doing something you love, which was once only afforded to the, well, privileged, now seems to be rapidly shifting, as the playing field opens up and more and more people require meaning as well as money.
It’s services such as The Ask, which exist to help people identify their unique talent and turn it into money, that propel purpose driven individuals such as myself, into action. It begs the question, if more of us can now do what we love for a living, what becomes possible for our global working community?
Is entrepreneurship a panacea?
Traditional working roles (where the aim was less about enjoyment or talent, and more about necessity - aka having a job for life and working in order to retire) are no more. More people are now choosing to create their own projects, start their own brands and take the leap into the world of entrepreneurship. Like a bridge that connects two sides, entrepreneurship offers the opportunity to marry the desire for meaning in their work and the desire to live a life on their own terms.
psst. If you’re keen to try your hand at earning an income from your talents, join us this summer, for our brand new Talent To Money Summit - 7th - 8th June
The Creator Economy is here to stay and information is sold as a valuable commodity. We only have to look to platforms such a Teachable or Skillshare to witness the success that sharing your knowledge can have. Becoming your own boss is more commonplace, as we break free of the traditional working models.
Alongside this, remote work is becoming the norm - research by Ladders confirms that 25% of all professional jobs in North America will be remote by 2023. Perhaps a reassuring statistic when we think about the alarming rate of burnout suffered by so many.
Now more than ever, engaging in and cultivating one’s talent is the secret to more freely navigating the spectrum of work, from ‘drudgery’ to ‘mission’ whilst providing the opportunity to create an insurance policy in increasingly turbulent economic times.
Miriam King, co-founder and director at youth consultancy LIVING PROOF, quit a job in fashion tech in 2020 and took a course in social entrepreneurship in the hopes that she would discover her purpose. Fast forward a year and she had co-founded a purpose lead, mission driven company amplifying the voices of the next generation. Speaking about the impact this change in career had, King told The Stack World
“I gained autonomy, freedom and confidence. The freedom and autonomy that becoming my own boss has given me has far outweighed the financial insecurity and stress it has brought.”
Miriam isn’t alone, new research on the meaning of work shows that 9 out of 10 people are willing to trade a percentage of their lifetime earnings for greater meaning at work.
So perhaps this shows us that stability is a trade off we are willing to make, in exchange for greater meaning. It makes sense, when you can’t rely on the system to support you, offering up your skills and time is like placing a bet on a horse whose odds are no longer in favour. Why not bet on your own horse instead?
By no longer selling your hours for questionable returns, but cultivating and creating value for others from your unique talent, there’s an opportunity to rewrite the Work-to-Live formula. Applying your gifts to your work, means getting paid to do what you enjoy and are good at. It involves finding your best self and taking the opportunity to discover how to live your purpose.
So is the skill of turning your Talent To Money important the most important skill you’ll ever learn? We think yes.
What do you think?
If you want to learn how to do just that, why not come along to our brand new Talent To Money Summit this summer?
Learn from experienced entrepreneurs and turn your ideas to income in 2022
