Zach and Jeff get into the contradictions, pressures, and dysfunctional dynamics around work and money.
Zach and Jeff get into the contradictions, pressures, and dysfunctional dynamics around work and money.
The conversation explores the challenges and complexities of work, unemployment, freelancing, and the creator economy. It delves into the pressure of being a provider, the impact of childhood experiences on work and parenting, and the love-hate relationship with work. Jeff and Zach touch on struggles with mindset and self-worth, the elitism of the creative industry, and experiences of being ghosted. The conversation explores the dislike for marketing, contradictions with money, the value of friendships, the challenges of corporate America and marketing, the ethics of marketing vulnerable services, charging for useful services, access to helpful resources, pricing and value perception, a music collection project, and an exploration of pessimist philosophy. Thrash On!
00:00 Introduction and Motivation
03:05 The Challenges of Unemployment and Freelancing
06:24 The Pressure of Being a Good Provider
09:19 The Impact of Childhood Experiences on Work and Parenting
13:02 The Rise of the Creator Economy
20:43 Struggles with Mindset and Self-Worth
24:49 The Challenges of Freelancing and Pricing
27:13 Balancing Honesty and Self-Sabotage
31:33 The Elitism of the Creative Industry
34:53 Experiences of Being Ghosted
38:11 Navigating Endorsements and Compensation
43:20 Contradictions with Money
46:16 The Value of Friendships
55:17 Charging for Useful Services
01:03:05 Music Collection Project
01:09:06 Exploring Pessimist Philosophy
Welcome to We Should Be Working week five. I'm Zach Hendricks with me as always is Jeff Finley. Hey, Jeff. How are you doing this week? Oh, pretty good. It's another Monday. Happy to record the show with you. Yeah. Another, another Monday. These Mondays I always come up after the weekends and I like doing these show records on Monday because it really is getting my week started off. It's making me not slack off. It's making me work.
Which should I actually be working? I don't know. Um, instead I'm doing this podcast. I should be working on other things, but at least it gets me motivated to get working, uh, throughout the week. So, uh, well for me, yeah. I mean, for me, this podcast is what I want to be doing. It is what does feel like work because, you know, you got to show up on time and you got to do the, do the thing. Um, but it is something that I also enjoy. So it feels like anti -work, but it's also technically it's work because.
The other thing I would be doing would just be sleeping in and watching YouTube and listening to podcasts, which is what I do every day. Um, as I avoid work, man, we would be the perfect roommates. That's a, that's my life as well. Can I get lost in a YouTube rabbit hole? And when I can't, then I'm throwing a podcast on, and then I'm going to stay up as late as I can and sleep in and be a lazy bum. Um, and, uh,
I feel like I'm just fighting the, uh, the laziness week after week. So yeah. Yeah. You know, and I want to say that, you know, maybe that laziness is like, um, catching up with you after spending your entire adult life working nonstop, like, and like, and now you don't have to, and it's kind of like your body's craving to just follow something else, do something else that's motivating you other than the need to go back to the grind, you know, I was talking to my wife about that this week.
that she was kind of saying that because I was, we had the discussion again and I brought it up on the show that one thing that I struggle with a little bit is these times of unemployment when I'm freaking out, don't have a full -time job. And for a lot of people that are watching us, I'm sure we have a lot of artists, freelancers, graphic designers, whatever creative content people or people that are working for themselves. And so a lot of people might be looking at me like,
What do you mean you lost your job? I thought you were a freelancer. I freelance as well. But for me, I've found a lot of my stay in having a full -time job, trying to get to what I want to do full -time because that gives me the advantage of benefits, gives me a regular paycheck. I can get bonuses. And actually, I find that I get paid a little bit more a lot of the times. I'm working less and I'm getting paid more money. So...
For me and my family to have, once I had kids, I was like, man, these benefits are getting very, very expensive. I just, I found that I'm pretty comfortable and confident and good at carving out my own job inside of say corporate America or inside of some place where I can make that more creative. And it's not the soul sucking place that everybody expects it to be in it. Kind of is. I found ways to make that work for me that I can enjoy it. But anyway,
We were chatting about, I'm going through this time period right now where I, I'm having a hard time having fun at times. And when I am off having fun, or I'm doing something that I should be enjoying, I'm worrying and stressing about not being a provider, not being a good dad, not having any money, not having any work to do. And the hard thing about that is that looking for a job turns into a job that doesn't pay you.
Like I'm working full time trying to find new work and I'm not getting paid anything for it. And that's really a frustrating part of that experience is that I know I need to take breaks. I know I need to stay positive. And, you know, she kind of sat me down and said, look, you, you, you, if you start going down this path of just like depression, abysmal, everything is wrong. Everything's going wrong. She goes, that's not helpful. And that's not helpful for me. It makes my job harder than as well.
Like I want to stay positive. I'm going to be here for you. We're going to get through this and you know, you've got to be able to take breaks and still stay positive throughout all of this. And I think it has a lot to do with just how I was raised is that not having this job right now and not bringing any income in and we lose our benefits this week and everything like that. It makes me feel like a bad dad. And for me, number one, that's.
You know, probably my number one priority in my life is being a good father. And, you know, then you bring up questions of, oh, so a good dad works, a good dad has a good job and all of this. And I remember when I was a kid, I didn't, my dad actually didn't have a job a lot of the time. My mom was working full time and he was kind of a stay at home dad for when I was very, very young, like probably from when I was ages one to four.
So I don't have a lot of memories like that, but I remember him going back to work was kind of a big deal and I never needed my parents to have a job and so that's not something as kids that were like, oh, my dad's a real bum, you know, wouldn't work. And I'm sure that there are dads out there that, yeah, dude, can you get off the couch and try to help out your family? But they're probably also not good dads then as well. And so it's been a really weird week of
I'm starting to get into for the radio head fans out there off of a moon shaped pool. I'm entering a low stage panic attack of, or is it low stage or low level? I can't remember what he says. He goes, we're entering a low. I think it's low level, low level panic attack of I'm starting to freak out a lot. That reality is starting to hit. Things are going to start running out here soon. Money is going to start running out here.
soon and then how we handle that. My wife does work full time. So while it is a big, big change for our family, there is still some income coming in, but it's not enough to support us all. 100 % changes are going to have to be made unless something happens here soon. So that's kind of my rambling as far as the freak out that's beginning to happen. So.
Yeah, well, I totally feel you on the freak outs. I've had a number of those as my income declines over the years. And as I feel drastically more conscious and uncomfortable with the realities of the predicament, the working world, the predicament that we're in. It's not like humans need more work in their life in order to be happier. We need our basic needs met. We need connection. We need food, water, shelter. And then...
Any of that is like aspirational or luxury or like accoutrements to, you know, to what we think we really need. Like your kids probably don't need more money or more stuff. They probably need more dad, more presence, more attunement, more time with you. You know, that's, that's always what I feel like kids need or what I, what, what we, what we say we miss when we don't have it. It's more just the quality time with that person. Like I watched this movie a few, a few weeks ago called, um, the Florida project.
And that was a story of a woman who lived in a motel. She was like a drug addict and she was like selling drugs and prostituting herself. But like this told from the story of her children, uh, of her, of a little girl. And she like, did not care that they were in poverty because she didn't know, she didn't have perspective. That was her whole world. She just was making adventures and playing with all the other kids and like basically living her own world and like finding magic in the most unlikely places. And so it really kind of told me a little bit like you don't need a lot of wealth.
You can even be in a pretty bad situation, but, um, it's almost like what you're comparing it to. Like she didn't have the consciousness yet that her mom was doing all of this. So, I mean, she was shielded from that, but. You know, I'm like, here I am panicking with a much more comfortable lifestyle, you know, and I'm like suffering and this little girl is like making magic and playing and having fun. And I may have reminded me when I was a kid, I, we, we, we didn't, we were, we grew up poor. I didn't realize I was poor until other kids told me, but.
It's like, I was still playing with my friends and having a good time and making the world my oyster, you know, like just doing whatever I felt like doing, you know, with the resources that I had, you know, you just, you just have fun. But of course my dad worked all the time and, um, was angry and depressed and an alcoholic. So it's like, yeah, he put it on his shoulders to work and to, to sort of provide. And my mom had to start working part -time and everything like that too. But it was struggle, you know, they, they, because of, because of that, they were.
not as available as they could have been. So like you said, you can work, but you might not be a good dad. What is it to be a good dad? Is it the providing and the protecting or is it other stuff? I guess it's relative. It's what you make of it. Well, I think for any parents as well, or even any human being, like you said, food, shelter, water, and it's a really...
It's really difficult to face when you realize that you put all of that power, your own ability to provide food, shelter, water, you put that in somebody else's hands and they can just take it away with a snap of their fingers. Kind of like what happened with me. I was working for a very successful company, Fortune 150 company. They're making money hand over fist. They're not in loss. They're in profit. And they decided.
Yeah, we don't need this group anymore. And my job is just gone. It's not because I was doing bad. It's not because anything like that. I wasn't let go. I was doing fine. People liked me. I was fine with the job and all that, but they decided to make departmental changes. And all of a sudden now your job is just gone. And giving that power to an organization or an individual or something where it's like my ability to provide food shelter and water.
water is not in my hands anymore. It's in somebody else's hands. And I've let them, I've kind of like trusted them with that and they don't have any responsibility. They don't give a crap. They don't care. It's a company. There is no personality when you talk about a company. And that's in a lot of ways, the problem with a company in a lot of ways or how corporations are run and why people would say, oh, you know, heartless corporate America. I, I a hundred percent agree with that.
Now there are individuals that make those choices as well, but how do we get to a place where I think it's actually great as much as I think that there's becoming an over saturation of content creation. I don't think we've hit the over saturation yet. I think we are still going up this hill of content creation, but in some ways I'm actually kind of happy that we're getting more and more content creators as much as there's bad ones out there.
I think that it's a good thing because you're putting the power in your own hands. Hence, like this podcast, if we put the work into it that we enjoy doing, people like it, if it's successful, then we're able to support ourselves. It's great. I mean, I have a friend recently that's a, he's a copywriter out in Chicago and he's always wanted to do comedy. He's great. We went to film school together.
He's a great writer in that regard and the more that he does it, the better and better he gets. Well, he came across a pretty good concept of this little series that he's been making, which I'll urge everybody to go check it out. It's called God and Angel. You can find it on YouTube. And it's just these fun little comedy bits that he does from the perspective of God and one of his angels. And they just do dumb things of like how bears were created and things like this and what was going, maybe what was going through God's mind when he made a bear. And it's just funny, these really sarcastic, funny little bits and stuff that they go through. Well, he's reached up to 15 ,000 subscribers on YouTube. He's got 1 .6 million on TikTok and on Instagram. He's pretty high up there as well. And it's great. I'm really happy for him that he can go out there, do something that he loves. People like it. And he's slowly beginning getting to a spot where,
He can kind of support himself. And I asked him, I said, Hey, you making, you making any money on this lately? He goes, we are, but not enough that I can quit my job. But he goes, we're reinvesting in it and we're going to go shoot our own pilot. He goes, we're going to try to go the always sunny route. We're going to shoot our own pilot, try to shop it around and see if that gets us anywhere. And I'm like, dude, that is unbelievable. And talk about putting your own life in your hands as far as.
I love that mentality of I'm going to put something out there that's mine. And if it works great, but that's what I'm going to work at as opposed to I'm going to show up to your job, do this thing for you. And if you just change your mind, then my life is upended. And how do I get away from that mentality and that type of a lifestyle? Cause it's difficult. You know, you don't get benefits for shooting your own pilot. You know, it's going to take. Right. You know, and.
Touching back to what you said before about doing this like free work to in order to get the work, like this, uh, all the, all the work that you have to do. It's like a full -time job trying to get a job. Um, you know, and then even in the creator economy, uh, they call it aspirational labor. It's like all of this spec work that you do hoping that something will land and then you're going to finally get paid. Now in the working world, that doesn't exist. You get the job and then you.
You work and you're getting paid, whether you're like succeeding really, or you're like, because in the creator economy, you have to like hit the mark. You have to go viral or like, and this is like, it's, it's offers a different level of precarity than corporate world does. Whereas like now you're on your own. There's nobody that's got your back. You don't even have coworkers. You just, you, you basically have it all on you to go take the thing that you love and turn it into a business, which by and large almost always will kind of kill the bit, kill your love for it. It's like.
Especially if you do hit it big. I mean, there's a great journalist named Brooke Erin Duffy, who researches the creator economy and platform labor and talks to creators about like, what is their life after going viral, after having success? And it's like, like this one girl, she went viral on TikTok and then she started becoming really successful, but now she's like burned out and depressed and she can't keep going on. She's like, feels there's so much pressure to continue to be a creator and continue to put out content. And we talk about Bo Burnham last week. It's like, He has this song about like, I'm giving you content. Like here you go, eat it up. Like it's just, that's what, that's what happens. And I think while the creator economy was an escape from the nine to five, it's become sort of the 24 seven where you're like, and you're also kind of like churning out your real life to try to make content out of it. And that's like, cool. When you, like, I think any creator would love to be able to just create and do something cool, but then when they have to continue to do it and, and, and.
meet those metrics and then they're being motivated by the likes and subscribers and the followers. And then also another risk of putting themselves out there is all the criticism and all the trolling and all the hatred that some of these people risk that you don't get when you are working at your nine to five. Like I just watched this video. Why aren't there more female music producers? And it was brilliant. They were interviewing a bunch of women and they were talking about like, Oh yeah, when I posted me video, me producing, I get all these comments about my looks, about my appearance.
about like how I'm producing wrong, how I actually suck at guitar. Let me teach you, let me show you how to really, how it's really done. And the guy that was interviewing or was like, I've never received any of those kinds of comments, like as a man. And it's like, Oh, interesting. You know, it's like, you know, it's just, there's something to it. But, and they were so bold to keep putting themselves out there like that. So yes, by us, you and me putting ourselves out there, we're doing what we love. And I think we're still motivated by that core intrinsic desire to put something out there and create intrinsically for us as we see it. Um,
And I would love to be able to make a living doing this, you know, staying in touch with that thread. That's what's real, you know, and then, and avoiding the sort of trappings of platform labor and, and likes and comments and subscriptions and all the free labor that we do for the platforms. Like we're creating the content. So then Facebook and Instagram or Google can all monetize it and sell the attention that we bring. We're not getting paid for any of that, technically. I mean, you can get the monetization.
But, um, it's just a drop in the bucket. So, yeah. Well, you bring up a really interesting point in a creator economy as well as that. Um, in a lot of ways you are kind of a freelancer again, where for me, my favorite part of the project, shame to admit it at times, but I think a lot of people have been there. My favorite part is that, that moment when you've got an idea, you've got a thing.
And it sounds really, really cool. And some, and you have somebody else on board that is going to be paying you for that, that wants to bring this idea to life. That is like, Oh yeah, it's kind of not really out there yet. You've talked it over and you have this project. It could go up and you're like, Oh, we could do it this way. We could take it this way. You know, get a little excited and stuff like that. And you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Up until the point when they go, okay, great. Let's do it. And you go, crap. No, I actually have to do that thing. Um,
Can we just talk about other things that we want to do instead? I have to actually go and work this and you know, then you start getting some of that imposter syndrome. Do I actually know how to do this? Am I going to do a good job? Oh my God, they're going to be disappointed in this. I don't know what the hell I'm doing out here. I'm doing, or I'm it's too much production and all of this. You're like, Oh man, I've got to schedule everybody. I've got to get to set, get this production notes out for everybody. Oh, here's day one production notes. Here's our, we got to have our pre pro meetings and all of this stuff.
We're going down this huge checklist and then it becomes work again. Don't get me wrong. I do still enjoy parts of that. It's not that I hate my job. It's great. It's fine. I love it. At the same time, that's when it becomes like, you know, I love it when it's still a thing that hasn't really taken form yet. Um, you know, cause at the end there's always something that you want to fix or change. Um, and working through it is fun. And when you have good clients, it's great to work through all of those, but.
really when you're planning it out and it's still this idea. But, and so in this economy, in the creator, making creator content, you're right, is that we go off and we make this now and now we're subjecting ourselves to the criticisms of everyone else. And maybe that is one of the pluses of having like a regular job per se is that you don't walk in and have like the whole company isn't coming by and be like, you look stupid today. Why are you wearing that dumb shirt? And you're like, what the heck?
And, or like you said, the sexualizing of women and stuff like that, where, you know, they're like, they don't care. You know, they're going to be over critical of my skill and all this. I'm getting criticized on my looks where no guy is like, nobody's coming up to Zach. Like, I can't believe you wore that dumb blue shirt. I'm like, it's not blue. It's, you know, it's bluish green and, um, and all of that, like, that's not really happening. Um, in a regular job, you just go in and get your paycheck and, uh, and you walk out, uh,
for lack of a better term. So I'm kind of curious then. So a little bit more for you. How has these last couple of weeks been for you? Any ups, any downs, anything, or is it kind of a little bit of a plateau where still trying to figure out what this is, where this means and what right turns do I need to make or not make or do I want to make? Yeah. Well, okay. So how do I?
Where do I start with this? Because I think a few months ago, well, maybe right around the time when, uh, my girlfriend and I moved in together, you know, we barely got this apartment because I wasn't really making enough money to prove that we can afford it. And we had to rely on her income, you know, and that caused a lot of fights and a lot of tension between us, which she regrets. She doesn't like, it's not proud of it because if it was gender reversed, it would be a different story.
And we start to wonder like, is it because I'm a man that this is why it's a problem? That I'm not making as much. And then we're like analyzing and really getting into why I'm not making very much. What is it? Is it my motivation? Is it that I'm lazy? Is it that I don't want to work hard? Is it that I've got X, Y, Z, whatever? And so then I'm like, okay, I think it's my mindset. Why is it that I don't want to go get a job? Why isn't that I don't want to...
come up with more creative stuff to try to sell online, to try to like, okay, drum up more vector packs, more texture packs, how to figure out what else I can sell of myself to make money. That doesn't feel like I'm prostituting myself or, I mean, I'm not saying anything, you know, sexual here, but this idea of selling myself, like mining myself for the thing that I can sell to get coins. And then I can now pay my rent. It's, it's weird. And it's alienating now.
Because I'm such a sensitive guy that I feel all this stuff and that my highest priority is not money, but it's more like truth. And it's more like freedom and love that there's, I see all these problems with the system that it feels like it's so wrong to me. I just can't do it. I feel like I'm being exploited, which now puts me in touch with all the people that have been talking about this for such a long time. They've been talking about the capitalism. They've been talking about it, but.
The thing is having issues with capitalism, having this conscious awareness makes it really hard to go out there and participate and then do the thing without having to feel like, well, I wish I never knew any of this stuff. I made a lot more money when I was more ignorant, when I was more willing to lie, to market, to use persuasion, to use manipulation, to try to convince people to buy from me, to unabashedly promote myself without any shame. Now I'm like self -conscious. I'm aware of all of this stuff.
I am aware of manipulation because of the healing I've done on my own, like through, through narcissistic abuse and recovery from CPTSD and all of that, I start to be in touch with how people use language and words and pressure and guilt and, and scarcity to manipulate others. And I see it happening everywhere in, in the economy. That's like what it's run on. And it just feels so wrong to me. So that's one reason why I feel like I'm not succeeding in the system is because of that. So I'm trying to.
Do it this other way. Like, okay, wait, maybe it's my mindset. So if I can just change my mindset, maybe I've just got these flawed beliefs about the system that maybe it's not as bad as I think it is. Maybe that it's only bad because my beliefs about it are like projecting out there and I'm seeing what I already believe. Maybe I just need to be open to something better coming along. You know, when Kara and I talk about this, it's always becomes like, well, Jeff, maybe you're just looking at it in this black and white way that maybe there's an opportunity out there. That's really good for you. That's.
Can be good. And I'm like, yes, I'm totally open for that. Like let that arrive in my reality. So I start doing like affirmations and start doing like kind of new agey spiritual stuff to try to convince myself that this is possible and sort of be open for it. Now. The funny thing is I'll get stuff manifesting in my reality opportunities, money making opportunities, but almost every single time there's like a hint of shadiness into it. It's like, I'll be, I'll do a manifestation ritual and then like not even 24 hours later, I'll get an opportunity in my inbox.
That's actually a scam. Like it's a graphic design job, but when I Google it, people on Reddit are talking about, they also got this email. It's like, it's a scam. And it's like, I keep getting these opportunities that's testing my integrity. How much am I willing to get? What am I going to put up with? How greedy am I? Do I need and crave money so badly that I will do this or that or this? It's just, it's ridiculous. Um, yeah, I've been rambling, but I mean, I can tell you a little bit more details about like some stuff that's happened recently.
Um, yeah, yeah, for sure. I feel like I got some legit opportunities, some freelance work, you know, being a freelancer, it's kind of funny. I'm at the whims of are people going to email me for work or not? Yeah. You know, like I'm not on social media promoting myself and hustling myself because I took myself offline because of the toxic, um, nature of social media that everybody talks about. There's been books about it. There's been documentaries about it, like the social dilemma, yet everyone's forced to do it. But I'm like, if I can.
get away with not having to do it. I'm going to take that step for a healthier mind, mental space. So anyway, I'm not doing that, but I do occasionally get work requests and I am so stoked with it because the people that find me and they request work for me are usually really good clients and it's super easy and they really love what I do. They've sought me out in some way. Um, so anyway, I got a couple of requests this past month and I've responded to all of them and none of them have gotten back to me. I'm like, okay, that's so strange. It's like.
I don't even know how I'm supposed to, I don't know how much to charge anymore. Cause I feel like maybe I'm overcharging and that people can't afford it. I mean, like inflation is going up. Nobody can afford anything. Who wants to pay $500 for me to illustrate a tattoo for them when it's like a luxury purchase. Nobody needs that. But sure. And, and so some say somebody needs a logo or a website design. Who wants to pay several thousand dollars for that? I mean, and I even, I talked with a client last week and we had a good phone call and I honestly.
I mean, I couldn't be fake with her. I had to tell her how I really feel about this. And I'm sitting there sabotaging myself in this, in this interview or this call with her. Like she's wanting me to do work, but I'm here. I am telling her my really real feelings about this. And she's probably like, well, I don't know. I think she really appreciated it. It was that kind of a conversation, but I'm not doing a good job at selling myself. So here I am thinking that I'm sabotaging myself by telling the truth when I'm like, why do I have to be fake? And in order to get work.
It's like that again, I'm sacrificing something integrity again. So this is why I keep finding myself. Do you think in that situation, um, that cause I've been in, I'm trying to see if it's a similar situation or are you happy with the way that you did that? Or do you think that there was a little bit of self sabotage in it as well? Cause I know that there's been situations for me when I talked to a client, I'm like, I could have said, I could have taken that job, but.
This wasn't right. This wasn't there. And now I just talked them out of even coming to do this in the first place. And they were going to come to me and they were going to pay me all this money to make this video that they didn't need. And then there's other times when I'm like, you know what? That's not really my thing. I'm not very good at that. I'm not good at this. And then I look back and I'm like, you just sabotage yourself. You could do that. You could figure this out. This is kind of how you grow as an artist is to push your own limits.
And you just talked yourself out of a job that you could do. Why did you do that? And then there's other times when I'm like, no, I probably did the right thing in doing all that. Which one was it for you? Do you think are a little bit bold? I think it was, um, a little bit of both maybe, but there's part of me that wants to know from my client that they can afford it and they want to pay me and they are in it. And like, and it's not due to my persuasion.
Or their sense of scarcity and fear and lack is why they're hiring me. I just don't like doing that work or feeling like I'm taking advantage of anybody. So I said to her, I don't even know what to charge anymore because, you know, I'm thinking the last few times I've quoted somebody, I never get anything back. And I'm like, I think I'm overcharging, but I'm also kind of think I'm underselling myself too. Like other people are making more money than I am. I don't want to, I've got 20 years experience. I don't want to charge $50 for a t -shirt design. This isn't 2006 where I'm doing my space work, you know, like.
I need to be making more money, but there's probably not that much of a demand for the stuff that I do. I mean, maybe unless I was a name, uh, uh, like a prestigious named illustrator out there currently doing work, you know, with a big social presence where I have this, um, this cache or this mystique of like working with me that I can charge this much, but then what are they paying for? They're paying for all of this, like hot air of like my personal brand rather than the actual thing that they're doing. And so because I have conflict with that, I think it makes it hard for me to just.
sell. So I'm like, I just want a fair wage for what I do. Like, so I'm kind of tink toying with this idea of just like pay what you can afford. Honestly, like I will do it for whatever it is that you feel like is an affordable fee for that work that you're hiring me for. Like if I have to sit there and inflate my worth to you, I'm doing this like fake thing. I'm inflating my value for somebody else to pay for. And how many times do you get pissed off when you bought something that has inflated value? I mean, it's, it's.
I mean, is this just my mindset? Am I crazy? I don't think that I'm actually crazy. I think I'm inventing a world for myself that has involved more honesty and integrity and transparency and less illusion and distortion and manipulation. So I'm, I'm confidently pushing that, going in that direction and sacrificing basically along the way, like things that are not in alignment with that, hoping that I'm going to get to a point where I'm going to say, prove to the universe in some way that it's going to reflect back to me that I have.
that I deserve to have work that is supports my integrity and supports like the values that I agree with. It's kind of like being in relationships. It's like if you've been in abusive relationships, you kind of expect abusive relationships, you know, like, oh, all relationships, they just involve people manipulating each other and not being honest. And there's deceit and there's this, you know, then you go through like a long period of healing and you realize, oh my gosh, what I've put up with. Like, it's like you have awakening moments after awakening moments and you heal.
You're no longer willing to tolerate that. And then they go back into the, and then now you're going back on the dating apps and you're trying to, to find somebody. You're like, this is terrible. Like everybody's a narcissist or everyone's like, it's like, it's, it's dehumanizing. It's so weird. But then you're like, well, I got to force myself to do it. And maybe if I didn't do any of this healing work, I would be, I would, it's like, so because of my healing work and my consciousness, I feel like I've vibrated out of this.
realm. Now I feel like I'm supposed to force myself to go back into it. But I'm like, no, I believe that there's a better way. But I've been seeing my income go down, down, down, down. I've had all these panic attacks about like, how am I going to pay rent this month? I'm pulling from my savings. My savings is almost gone. I'm ready. I'm ready to be like hightailing it back to DoorDash or hightailing it back to Amazon flex delivery. It's like, Hey, McDonald's, you had a long career there. I had a long career at McDonald's, but they probably wouldn't even hire me. That's the funny thing. I try to get jobs. I just applied.
I applied at Starbucks in 2016 with this mentality. Like I had, and then they gave me the job, but they stopped putting me on the schedule. They were fast tracking me to the supervisor position and then they stopped putting me on the schedule. It's like, what, what? And then they, and then I texted them and said, I don't know why you're not on the schedule. I just don't think I'm going to come in. And then he never responded. It's like they ghosted me. The employer ghosted me and I was excellent. I was doing my job. I just like, what are they, what are they, why am I losing this? And then.
I tried interviewing at agencies in Austin and they're like, you're too entrepreneurial. Like we want somebody that's basically committed to our company. That's just going to do the work and not like, you know, not half like you're, you're almost too good at this. Like, Hey, don't you think you could maybe parlay this entrepreneurial spirit into your business a little bit? Like maybe ask me some questions. How do we do this? What are you doing over there? And you could bring that mindset or a different mindset. That's the other thing that I find really fascinating about.
the creative industry and graphic design and all this is, you know, pretty much everybody, it's the agency model, but the agency model wants people that work at agencies. You know, it's really weird. I think it's slowly starting to get away from this, but it's such a weird, almost cult in a way where they go, you look at these jobs and they go, hey, you need five years agency experience. And I'm like, this is an entry level job.
Where did you want me to get these five levels of agency experience? If not from this job, like I can't come in like every single job needs needs agency experience needs. And like, well, where are you all getting it from? Like you're not hiring me because I didn't ever work in an agency. I'm like, I worked for myself, myself as an agency. I have clients, I bring them in, I work them through this process. Like, is that not an agency? Oh, it's not your agency. It's not your model. It's not this work 80 hours a week. We're not going to pay you as much.
But it's weird that they want to surround themselves with very like -minded individuals. And to the clients, they're saying, we're new, we're unique, and their job is to think differently for clients. And say, what is the new best thing? What are the new trends? How can we tackle this differently? But when they hire people, they want you to have a specific mindset. They don't like being challenged as far as like, oh, there might be a different way to do this. Or sure, he doesn't come from an agency background. Let's welcome that. Now it's a diverse.
perspective of thought, they can think about things differently than we do. Instead, I feel like they come across as very elitist of, well, you've never worked in an agency. You don't know how it goes. You know, this is the real way to do it. We're the real artists here. We're the real company because we work in an agency. I'm like, I don't give a crap. Like, you're hiring me to do work as a freelancer to do your work because you guys don't do it yourselves. You come up with the idea and you go, we'll have Zach go do it.
But that's not good enough for you. It's the weirdest thing for me. It's such a, it's an odd quality. Um, and speaking of which just to circle back a little bit, you and I had similar weeks this week in which we both got ghosted a little bit. Just for everybody listening, I had a interview, had one of my first interviews come out, interview went well, said it was great. Said that they loved me and it's just such a weird experience.
They told me on the call, yeah, we want to move you to the next round. We feel comfortable with all of this. I'm going to send you a bunch of emails. You find a date that works for you to come down and meet with some of the other people and all this. And then I hear nothing. And then I get ghosted. Email them back, hey, I just want to double check, make sure I didn't miss that stuff. Nothing, nothing, nothing. And I'm like, that's really, really weird. And it's unnecessary. Normally, most people just say,
Hey, uh, you know, we'll give you a call back, uh, if everything works out and, uh, you know, you should be hearing from us soon. And then you don't hear anything. And that's kind of how that game is played as opposed to, why did you lie to me? Why did you be like, Hey, we're going to set up all this stuff. You're so great. You're so perfect. Everything's awesome. And then nothing. I've never had that experience before. So that sucked a lot because I was feeling pretty good that I was like, Oh, I had a really good interview. I'm feeling good about it. And I get off.
And I went over to my wife and I was like, I already have a second interview. She goes, wow, that quick. And I was like, yeah, they really liked me. They're going to send me all the info and then nothing. And I was like, that's really kind of shady and dirty. Like what was that all about? Why you stroking my ego for no good reason. Um, so it was, it was a very odd week of then, uh, getting ghosted. I had another experience this week. This was funny. Um, so there's an AI journaling app.
Um, that I've used, um, and it's been, it's pretty nice, you know, and they've got a premium version of it. And I was on that for like three months and I ended up canceling it, um, because I wasn't using it as much. I was like, uh, I need to save money. I'm going to cut this out. Um, then they email me and they're like, the founders of the company would like to do a call with you for your feedback. And I was like, all right, cool. Like I've been kind of actually already wanting to talk to the founders because I had some sort of my own interests in like just talking with them and.
Because I read some, I listened to some interviews with it with them before I even signed up for the app. And I like, the guy went on a sabbatical. He had, he had burnout in the industry, you know, relate to him. And I was like, I would love to talk to him about that. So I was like, cool. This is, this is, I mean, they're, they're asking me for a call. So like, I know it's just customer feedback, but I'll sure I'll share my thoughts and I will give them the Jeff honest feedback as much as I can. And so we had a call and, um, we talked for like over an hour and he was like, this is the longest call we've ever done. Um, this is.
You've been great. This has been wonderful. You know, I was such a good conversation. We ended up, and we ended up, you know, ending the call and there's, there's me, I'm kind of hoping part of me hopes that they would see somehow value in me and then bring, and then offer me a position somewhere. I don't know. I'm not a coder. I don't do that, but I do have this perspective and maybe something about it that I'm talking about could be valuable. I don't know. Clearly they find some value in it. So I don't know.
Didn't didn't think anything of it. Then they email me the next week, basically saying like, Oh, Jeff, you know, do you mind if we use some clips from your call to post in our social media as like, you know, to use in our marketing materials? And I was like, Oh, so they want to use like the positive things I said about their app in their marketing materials. I was like, I kind of think that sounds like something I should get paid for. Right. Like we had this candid call and now they're wanting to snip it and make content out of me.
And I was like, well, to make money to, to, to reinforce the positive image of their app with their audience makes so much sense. Like, but if you're going to do that, I think I should get paid. So I'm like, well, do I want, what would I do that for? What is how much, how much should I even ask for? What's fair? Should I, do I just go with credit? I'll do it for free. Just give me credit to my website.
Do I want that? I'm like, well, I don't know. That's like saying Jeff Finley is on the record for endorsing this app. And I just canceled my subscription. I don't even use it very much. Like I'm probably not even going to be using it unless something changes. But so I'm like, okay, well, I don't want that. But if I'm not willing to go on the record as like Jeff endorses this because it's not a hundred percent true. Um, then I should get paid, but I'm like, well, how much did I get paid in order for me to do that? A hundred dollars, $200. You know, a hundred dollars is not going to pay my rent at all.
Um, so that seems like a drop in the bucket might as well be nothing. Um, if it was a recurring fee of a hundred dollars. Okay. I can get on board with that. But I was like, so then I just had this thought process of like, what's my line where I'm willing to take enough money to basically endorse this product, but I'm not even using it. Like, and then if they paid me that, that much money where I was willing to sell out, how valuable is that endorsement anyway, that they had to buy it from me.
Well, none of this makes, none of this makes sense. Does anybody else see the contradictions here? Did you get any of the thought processes? Well, it's like, Oh, if you liked that, imagine if you actually paid me to make an ad for you. Um, that would be even better or paid me to help you out with your marketing or paid you paid me to do these things. Like I could really help you guys out quite a bit. Did any of those thoughts ever come up? Well, not for me particularly because I don't want to be paid to do their marketing.
I don't want to do their marketing. I don't like doing marketing. I just don't like doing marketing because to me it's, it's, it feels fake. It's, it's, um, I don't know. It just feels weird to me. I used to love marketing. I mean, I used to love doing it. That's what one of the reasons I got hired to go media was because they loved how I did that. And I had no shame about it. Now I'm all like, this feels wrong. I can't do it. So it's like the skill to contents that I have knowing that what I'm doing is fake and is I'm influencing people.
But now if it was honest, see, which is what they were trying to do. Let's get Jeff's honest, candid feedback and just post it. This wasn't paid for it. This wasn't, this wasn't something we hired him to say. So then it's real. And that is what is important. But then if, so if I asked for money, then it just makes it not real anymore. And it's just, and this whole thing about like, why doesn't, why does asking for money make it not real? What is it about money that does this to our human interaction? Okay.
And so I have, I have, I feel like I've got this blog post coming. I don't know what it is, but I'm like, I have all these contradictions with money that are just like roaming about in my head. If I can get them down. And I thought like, okay, imagine the last time you had sex. It was great. You loved it. Imagine if you said to show your thanks, you offered your partner a hundred dollars afterwards because it was that awesome. How do you think that would change things? No one wants to be paid for that, but everyone needs money, right?
But when you do that, doesn't it tell that person that they're like a prostitute that they just that you only value that person at a hundred dollars. And what if it was a thousand dollars? Do they feel like, Ooh, I'm like high class. Like that's how much I'm worth. But like, no, you don't want to be paid even a dollar for that. Well, or does the greed start kicking in and you go, Oh, I can make $10 ,000 off of this. Oh, interesting. Or then you always have the reverse of that, which it's like, Hey, Jeff, um, I've got this project going on. Um,
in my garage, would you mind helping me out? All I really need is somebody there while I screw these panels in so I can get the shelving put up on my garage and you go, sure. I'll do it for 200 bucks. How much that changes that dynamic now of like us being friends or something like that. You're like, yeah, I'll do that, but it's going to cost you $200. I'm like, what the hell you're going to make me pay for this. And I'm like, I thought we were friends and now I expect you to be able to do that for free.
that because we're friends, now I can exploit this relationship, exploit it. Obviously, that's the thing is that sometimes I'd love to help out a friend. Tell me anytime. I'll go over there, no worries or anything. But if a friend asks for money, all of a sudden you're either a jerk or what the hell, you're exploiting me now that I need to pay you to just come in and help me out with this little DIY project or something that I'm going to get value out of and you have no value out of.
I guess, you know, it's the whole thing of when you ask your buddies to help you move, you're like, I've got pizza and beer. All right. Got to be right. And that's a fair, that's a fair exchange to me. Okay. Pizza and beer. People will do it. But if you just totally up the money and say it was like $35 and that's what they all get. It's like, then they, then they don't want to do it. It's, it's, it's evil now. And there's something to that. And I was writing this, it's like, money is so funny because when we have it, we can now have access to people who would.
do who wouldn't normally do things for us, but now we have the money, we can make them do it. We can incentivize people to do things that they would say no to, but now they'll say yes, because you've got money on the table and everybody's got a line for the thing that they don't want to do, but they would do if offered enough money for it. And this is what I have. This is the problem. Like I wouldn't be going to work at that corporate company unless they were offering me money and paying me benefits and all of that kind of stuff and helping me live this elevated lifestyle or something like that.
But because there's so many weird contradictions with money, you see it, you start to just see it everywhere. Now, now when I go up to the register and I get a Starbucks coffee and I give them $4 and they give it back to me, that feels like a fair exchange. Like, I don't know if I wouldn't want them to make that coffee. And then I give them like a hug or something. I mean, but you kind of knew the deal when you opened up the door, like you're a deal and it's, and it's a totally a consumer thing. It's like, I I'm just.
You made this cup of coffee. I know you're overcharging it by a ton, but like, Hey, I'm coming here for to use your wifi. I'm having this experience. It's like, thank you for that. And as much as it's still, it's expensive and overpriced. It's, it's understandable. And like, for example, like when I'm selling my star seat supply patches on my Etsy shop, it's a very, it's, I don't have any issues making that money because it's a patch. It's an item. It costs this much. You bought it. I ship it to you. Customers are happy when they get the thing that they ordered.
There's none of this, like, is this, does this customer, can they afford this patch? Cause it's simple. It's not like I'm someone's paying me for human connection or paying me for something that they drastically need. So it's a bit more straightforward there. Well, and then, because then I think where things start getting a little bit slimy or weird or gray area with the product is a lot of times then say the marketing of that product. How am I trying to sell this product? Like.
You know, if if we put, you know, 50 million dollars in venture capital money into star seed and all that to sell patches and all that, could we sell more? Probably. Absolutely. We still could. But how are we going about that? And is it now work? Like, I think that's a lot in the creator economy and even freelancing. It's that to get your product out there to people, that's the part that I don't like or I don't feel great about.
is that, okay, am I just doing SEO optimization or am I buying advertising or am I cold calling to try to get clients back and go, hey, remember me? I do really good work. And maybe now am I even overselling myself? Like you said, I'm kind of doing slimy practices where I'm like, well, I could definitely do that. Or am I undercutting my own value because they go, oh, we could do that. You know, would you be willing to take 500? And I'm like, well, I just said a thousand.
But you know that I'm desperate and so now I have to say yes to 500 and I don't feel good about it. Now I'm hating this work every single second of the day just to get it out there. That I think that's the part. Starbucks is, our big coffee companies are a little bit, they've had this huge marketing effort just to get me into that store to go there, which again, I'm with you. I'm willing to accept that.
Hey, we go in, we have an exchange. I've accepted that by walking in the front door that that's what I need to do to get a cup of coffee from you. Now, maybe my other option is I walk over to Jeff's house and he's always a super nice guy and is like, dude, I'd love to have a cup of coffee with you any day. And that's where I'm getting my coffee from. It's totally fine. I didn't pay for it now. You know, there's a difference of experience there that's happening. I'm willing to accept that, but.
the way that we get there to do this, like you said, this exchange of money. Cause I do think that that's fascinating. I never thought about it this way as well, but the moving thing, like I do think it would be weird if you came up to me, it was like, I'll give you 35 bucks to help me move. I'm like, 35 bucks, what are you talking about? And I'm like, no, man, like just keep your dumb money, like $35. That's way more than the value of the pizza and beer that I'm going to consume later on.
But it feels weird. It feels shady and I don't want it in any way. Now I'm feeling odd the whole move anyway, only because money got brought into it. But then on the other side, if you came up and go, I'll give you $10 ,000 by $10 ,000 to help you move. Like people be coming out of the woodwork for all of this. Um, it's crazy. Yeah. And imagine as soon as it's money. Yeah, you're right. It's weird. Yeah. And now imagine if somebody who's moving and, or that moving company was like, Hey,
Will you come work for us and we're going to pay you pizza and beer? Yeah. To, to move our customers. It's like, no, I want to be paid a fucking hourly wage. Give me, give me the $20 an hour. I need to be, I'm doing all this labor for you. But like, you don't say that to your friend, but these companies want you to act like they're your friend and do that free work. That's why the whole do what you love movement is great for, for awhile. But the companies that promote it want you to do what you love because you're so much more willing to take less for it. And it's.
you know, do you ever see that out there? Or or you get let go for it. For example, you know, for me, especially for, you know, the the freelance individuals or the people that have never been to corporate America, I've actually I've worked at a lot of big corporations and a lot of Fortune 500 companies and all that. Like I said, there's actually a lot that I have to say about the positives of that that I think a lot of times artists.
feel like they're selling their soul if they go that route or something along those lines. And I've actually encouraged a lot of my artist friends to go that route if it fits for you, of course, but it's really not quite what you think. And if you can make it work for you, it can be a good place to be. But a lot of these companies, it does, it turns into this marketing message where, you know, it's almost like that's how you know that they've sold out or that phrase doesn't really mean much anymore is because.
When it's getting adopted by the big corporations, you've got a head CEO that was like, look, we want you to do what you love. And if you don't, you know, let us know, come and talk to us. They say this type of stuff. They don't mean that. You don't get to go to your boss and go, Hey, I hate my job. They go, what the hell are you talking about? Shut up and get back to work. Like that's the mentality in almost every company and they'll tell you otherwise. And they'll win awards that says, Oh, you know, most, uh, you know, valuable.
most diverse place to work or, you know, most happy employees at this company. It's not 100 % true. These metrics don't really mean anything. And they even kind of hold you accountable to these metrics a lot of the time, where if your numbers are down, that puts your group in threat of being eliminated because maybe they're like, I don't know, this group is saying that they aren't happy at work. What's wrong? Go fix it.
And then they don't have really any interest in fixing it. They have an interest in that number going up. They don't care about what the actual problem is a lot of the times. Now that's not a hundred percent true, but you're, you're putting that in, in, in individual's hands that knows that the only reason that they're bothering me is because the number is low. So how do I get that number high? And the majority of the time, as bad as this sounds, it's not because I think that they're bad people.
I'm not saying these are horrible individuals. I mean, maybe some of them are, but they're not bad people. Most of the people I've worked with are not bad, but they do realize that, guys, this is putting a big target on our back. I don't like it. You don't like it. What do you want to do about it? Do we have time to go and fix this? No, the company is not going to allow us to fix this because here's the problem is either resources or we need more company trips and they're never going to approve any of that. I don't have the ability to do that.
I can't get that from those guys. So what do you say we just lie here and make our numbers higher? Sure. Sounds good. Perfect. Now they're going to love us. And all we have to do is I'm so happy at work and this is so great. And then they go, Oh, you really turned it around. You started down here and you moved up. What an upward trend. And next thing you know, your boss is getting promoted. You go, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What happened? I'm still not happy at work here. Um, they,
Now they're getting promoted. I thought that we were buddies. Hey, sorry, bro. You know, I got to look out for myself. And so you see this weird dichotomy of human nature in corporate America where I'm your buddy and I'm not your buddy. I'm tell you it means a big deal and now your job's gone. And it's, it's just, that's the, I think that's a big issue. And again, it comes down to money. You're going to offer me a promotion being done. We're there.
Am I going to offer you the opportunity to do what you love? Are you going to pay me for it? You're going to pay me because who are you company A to just be like, hey, would you rather go be doing this thing and we're going to pay you less? Wait, all of a sudden you value me less because I get to do what I want to do. Oh, but if you want to do this job that you hate, we'll pay you more money. I guess I want to do the thing I hate. Like, it's weird. And some people that does happen, they go, no, I'll take less money.
Every day to do what I love, but you still need the money. How do you get to do what you love and make money at it? Um, because honestly, what I love is being a dad. There's not a lot of income there. You know, don't have a lot. You could live stream it. You could like be a dad streamer. You can make some money. Streamer. There you go. How your kids will like that when they're, when they grew up and on the problems that they're talking to their therapist about my dad was a true show of, uh, of their life and, and do that.
So earlier you talked about having the product and then, and then now you have to market it and get it out to people. Like basically you've got the thing. Now you're going to go put it in front of the audience. And that's totally acceptable when you're talking about like, okay, monster energy, liquid death water. Let's get this out there. Okay. Everyone's totally comfortable with the idea that these companies can market products, like even like cigarettes, beer, all of these things, fast food, stuff that we kind of think are not really good for you. Right. But then say you've got a service that's actually good for you.
for like humanity, like, like therapy or coaching or, um, something that's going to really help somebody. But so then, okay, I'm going to, I've got this, I'm a coach now. I have this idea that can actually help people. Now I'm going to market myself in front of people that I think will need my coaching, which is like a vulnerable population. Now doesn't now it seems sort of sketchy that I'm promoting my services in front of a vulnerable population of people that actually could use some help. Teal Swan got in trouble for this because she was using.
SEO tactics and keyword optimization on YouTube to target people who are, who are suicidal idea in suicide ideation. So then her videos would show up talking about suicide. So people gave her shit for that saying that she was like taking advantage of vulnerable people to promote her business. But no one says that when people are, you're selling something like, um, cigarettes or beer or something. It's like, why is it okay to do it that way? But then when you've got something that's actually useful, people give you so much shit for selling it.
for making money off it. Like if I want to help somebody do spiritual work or help them find the truth or awaken to their true self or something like that to charge somebody for that. It's like often it's off, it's off putting it's like kind of gross, kind of sleazy, but like, I don't want to do it for free because I feel like I'm being taken advantage of. Now my like time and my listening is no, it's not valued. Someone's totally just, I don't know. It's weird. Do you see any problems with that? Well, yeah. Well, and are you saying too, that you,
I think it's because I think a lot of the times, is it the assumption that you're taking advantage of people? As soon as you have somebody in a vulnerable situation, the word taking advantage of, like those words come into it. Is that taking advantage of it? Because that actually happens all the time. And don't get me wrong, people criticize these companies, but you've got like, you know, the old school check cashing places.
or the dollar general and all of this that's taking people taking advantage of people in an economically can I don't know a word I'm trying to say but just they don't have a lot of money will say that you're taking advantage of these people that don't have the means to do that like that happens but to your point as well is that it's like oh I have a I have a I'm a therapist
And I do this and my specialty is in, let's just say for lack of a better term, rich couples divorce. You're not taking advantage of that situation. You're going to take all these rich couples and you're going to try to counsel them. You're going to try to get through it and you're going to work each other out maybe so that they can all keep their money and things like this and everybody can come to an agreement or get the relationship back together. But if you're a therapist for
a low income people and then you still charge for that, all of a sudden now you're taking advantage of the situation. But it's like, well, how else would you like me to help them? Oh, well, now you need to do it for free. And now I'm not saying that it might be tough for those people that are a little bit maybe underserved or are poor. But do you think that that has to do with it? That it's as soon as you deal with an underserved community, it's taking advantage of them.
because they probably historically are being taken advantage of. There's plenty of examples of them being taken advantage of or took an advantage of. Now I'm trying to think. But, um, but do you think that that's some of it as well? Yeah, I think it's an issue that some of the people that need some of the stuff the most don't have access to it. A lot of the self -help coaching therapy helps a lot, help can be very helpful to people, but.
People in low income communities don't have access to it. And they're the ones who are struggling most with their mental health and addiction and stuff like that and crime, things that could really benefit them. But now they might not even be in the headspace to receive that kind of help, maybe because they haven't been marketed to. I don't know. It's strange. Even though I do think that the internet provides a lot of people access to a lot of this stuff for free, there's so much that I've received.
That's been very, very, very beneficial to me that I never paid for because it was really given on YouTube and whatnot. And this is another question that I'd like to bring up. It's you hear oftentimes that like in the coaching world or in the design world to charge, to know your worth and to charge accordingly. So that means if I'm a good coach, I should charge more for it. If I'm a good designer, I should charge more for it. But that means that I'm putting that value on that service. And oftentimes so.
These coaches will market that. Basically like take my coaching course and if you, they'll tell you that their course costs $3 ,000 because that is an investment that you, the customer, are making in yourself to become what you need to become. So it's like, it's not $3 ,000. That's not the price. That's the investment that you are spending on yourself. That means that's how much you care about yourself. So they've twisted it to make it their high dollar, high ticket item is reflective of how much you care about yourself.
So that's how they market, which is scummy in my perspective. But then I'm thinking, how many times have I paid for something and then been kind of like, man, that was fine. Well, I've gotten way better things for free on YouTube. So there's like so many people out there have, I'm just received so much good stuff from people that have not charged for it. I've not paid a dime to some of these, some of my favorite YouTubers who've inspired me so much. You know, they have not asked for my money and, and I often find them more credible because they're not.
It's worked. Well, it kind of comes back to as well, what you were saying as far as, you know, how do we find a way to say, pay me what you think that this is worth, um, without being taken advantage of. Cause I think that that's the difference is that I've found a lot of places where there have been things where maybe there's even like a little computer plugin and I go, yeah, you can pay whatever you want. Just pay what you think is, uh, what it's worth. And I was like,
The interesting thing, at least for me, I know that this is not everybody is that me personally, when I see that I was planning on getting it for free and I was like, Oh, I was going to take this for free. And then when they say pay what you think it's worth, I almost feel guilty in a positive way that I'm like, that's right. This is somebody's work. Somebody put in for that. Maybe I should just give them a couple, couple box and go, Hey, there you go. Like, did that really affect my life that much? No, it had.
pretty much zero impact on my life going forward by giving him those couple dollars. But then when you see the number of downloads and I'm like, Oh, it's been downloaded this much. If everybody gave that guy $2, this dude would be well off. Maybe this product would be even better. And then I get excited for them where I'm like, Oh, I do want to at least give them something. I don't know what the value is either, but I almost feel guilty. Like I said, in a positive way that I'm like, I am taking somebody's saying, because now it does feel like,
I walked over to Jeff's house and I'm expecting him to give me coffee every single day because and he makes really good coffee and he knows that I know he makes really good coffee and that's why I'm going over there. I'm going over there to get the good coffee every day and I'm not going to Starbucks and he's getting nothing out of this except for he's a good guy and now I'm the one taking advantage of him because I'm not giving him what he deserves and so trying to find that thing of pay what you think that it's worth like I found.
There's an app out there waking up that Sam Harris does. And it helped me out at times as well where, you know, he goes, I don't want anybody to not have access to this. This is something that I think can help society, can help an individual in a hard time. And if money is an issue, that should not get in the way of you being able to use my product. So if you don't have it, that's okay. Shoot us an email. Let us know.
And then I hope when it comes along that you do have the money that then you'll pay for it And that you'll see the value and all that well, I found myself in that situation and I did I sent an email and said hey I'm on a hard economic time right now Because of that it's really messing with my mental health. I don't know anything about this I'd like to learn more and they go here's your subscription
And it did. It helped me out a lot. Got back up, started making some more money, started doing this. And then I did start paying for it. I'm like, I'm using this all the time. And I was like, it made me almost proud to pay the money where I was like, you guys really, really helped me out. I want to give you the money now. You deserve it. And I even kept it longer than I was even using it anymore, just so that I could pay a little bit more and get back because it meant a lot to me. So how do you get to that mentality of.
paying for something for its actual value without this dirty exchange of money. I think it's a really fascinating concept. That is fascinating. And, you know, speaking of like plugins and stuff, like, okay, if there's one thing that I spend money on that's like,
That I've spent more more sort of disposable money on it's like music equipment and music plugins And I wouldn't say that I'm have benefited greatly from that those purchases almost always they I will be excited for a few weeks and then I will just kind of forget about it until the next plug -in excites me and Oftentimes the exciting thing about the plug -in is not the plug -in But it's the marketing behind the plug -in tune track is a great example of an excellent marketing company
They do make a really good product, of course, but they charge an arm and a leg for, for their plugins. Now they're the one of the still, one of the few plugin companies out there that are still in the buy it once, have it forever model rather than you need to pay $56 a year to have access to our synth. You know, everyone's going to the subscription model, right? And it's horrible. Nobody, nobody likes it. Um, some of these plugins are doing a rent to own, which is kind of neat. So instead of charging $200 for serum,
They'll charge like $9 a month. And as long as you're paying for it in the rent model, then you get access to it. And then you can pause your subscription and stop paying when you're not using it anymore, which I think is cool. Now somebody like the Adobe creative suite doesn't have anything like that. You can't pay month to month. You have to pay. Well, if you do, they have a month to month. I don't even know if they do state. They might now, but they might now, but the last time I had to make, but you're really playing for a year or something like that. Yeah.
Yeah, like when I paid, oh yeah, yeah, you pay month to month, but if you cancel within the first year, you have to pay out your debt and a fee. So it's like, you don't even get the option. So that's the subscription plan I'm on. So I have like, now I have to keep paying for the rest of the year, even if I'm not using it. Yeah. And then you have these subscription cancellation fees. Like I had one of that for, I think it was either a software stock footage.
where they're like, oh, you've, you're ending your subscription early. So now we're going to charge you. I'm like, you're charging me another $80 because I'm not going to use your service. Like this is the most unfair practices in the world. I'm like, I don't even know how this is legal. Like there's no exchange here where, you know, Hey, we're entering this stupid contract that I don't even have any other option, but to enter your stupid contract. And now if I leave early, you make even more money off of me.
And you can just say, oh, just if they leave us, we'll make them pay to leave. It's like, whose horrible idea was that? And these companies that do that, it's insane to me. And it kind of reminds me of like gym fees and all that. Totally. Find some of these gyms where they're like, oh, you've got to get, like, I found a gym that was like, you have to give us 60 days notice. And I'm like, why? Why do I have to give you 60 days notice? And so it's like, if you leave, you've got to pay for another two months.
Of that subscription just to leave the gym. And it's like, it's so unfair and it's so slimy and horrible. And I'm like, Oh, you guys must be making no money. And so your only way is to take advantage. Um, and that's where I think, yeah, then you get into this, like, Oh, you're taking advantage of people you're taking it because they are, they do. Yeah. And with something like Adobe, they've got such a monopoly on the creative industry that.
that you almost have to use their products. I know that there's free options or less expensive options. There's affinity designer, affinity photo. I've bought those too. Gimp is around, but who uses Gimp in the professional industry? Like nobody does. So if you're, when I say professional industry, okay, we're fortunate enough to be using these software to make money. So yes, I would say, yes, you should be paying for the software that's allowing you to use it to make money. But nowadays it's like with,
with content creation being such a thing, it's not just Adobe that you have to pay for, but now it's all these other apps that are helping you create content to post to social media because the demand for us to churn out content is so high that we have to use these subscription services and stuff like that. So again, we're doing aspirational spec work on these platforms using and paying for software so we can make good enough content and hopefully get our stuff seen. And then we can start making money off of it. And then.
Who knows, maybe we won't even be profitable at all. But because we've invested so much, we almost feel like we need to be paid again in order to recoup our losses on that. I've torrented the Adobe Suite for a long time to learn on it and get started. Have you ever heard the phrase, it's morally correct to pirate Adobe products? Oh, yeah.
So that's out there. It's like you're supposed to pirate them and then you learn them and then you'll be forced, once you get a career, you'll be paying for it for the rest of your life. Exactly. Yeah. They should be encouraging you to do that. Kind of reminds me of there was a, they're back in, I forget when this came out, but System of a Down put an album out.
And it was one of the only albums out and it was as torrenting and all of that stuff was getting big and probably the MP3 days and the limewire days. But they put out the CD and it had no cover in the whatever you say, the CD case. Yeah, there was no cover in the case, no booklet in there. There was only a CD and on the CD, it looked like a burned CD and then had handwritten on there, steal this album. And, uh,
And I was like, that's such a cool idea of all of this. It's like, they're even putting it in there. It's like, we know everybody's just ripping this off anyway. And we're just going to play up to that fact. And yeah, it was such a weird time going on. Speaking of artists, music, or inspiration, as we wind things down here, I am curious if there's anything inspiring you this week. I think for me, I'm kind of inspired by this conversation I did.
I did like that reminder of that company of the waking up app because I did. That got me through a really difficult time and just thinking about how do you find a fair trade for money? I really like this moving analogy too of paying actual movers with pizza and beer at your company. That'd be a great name for a moving company too, pizza and beer movers. Yeah, if it's not a...
Yeah, that's a great name. But what's, uh, anything inspiring or anything great that you saw this week or that you did? Um, well, two, two things. One thing that I've been working on this week is, is trying to get all of my old music collection under the box of milk alias up uploaded to all the distro, all the platforms. So I've been making music since 2000 and I've got a whole collection of music from 2000 to 2015 roughly that is not online anywhere really. Um, and.
I think, I think it was online at some point, some of it was, but then I stopped paying for tune core, which was the distributor to get it out there, you know, but now I'm on distro kid and I put my star bound renegade music up there through that. And I think it's like eight, $7 a month or something like that. And I think if I go up to $10, it gives me access to another artist. So I'll have to be able to manage two artists. So then I was like, all right, I want to put it up there and also just get all of my music consolidated into albums with.
Like to finish it basically, because some of the stuff is just not released. So I've been spending all week consolidating and curating what goes on, what album from what year, what era does it all mix and, and all these songs are different volume levels and they're all 128 K MP3s. So it's like, I don't even have the source files for this. So I'm going to have to try to figure out a remaster them. I don't know. So it's just been a whole ordeal, but I'm creating new album artwork for all of it. And to me, it's like a historic archive project. At least I'll have a.
a place on my website where someone can download all of my old albums. I've got some people in mind who would be very interested in that. Some people who helped me out in the past on this stuff that they're going to be pretty stoked about it. But so that's what I've been working on and that's inspiring. But as far as other content and other media, this is it's almost like anti -inspiring, but so I don't know if you're familiar with pessimist philosophy. You familiar with any of that? Um, maybe a little bit. I'm not quite sure. So let me know because.
Is pessimists philosophy, is that something along the lines of a pessimist is never disappointed? Um, well, maybe, but where that phrase is coming from, it's usually, uh, it talks about particular philosophers who've, who basically have a bleak outlook of the universe, like in our existence that whereas in typical philosophy, there's often some sort of like in Buddhism or whatever, there's like an enlightenment or something like that. But this one's basically like,
There is no point to living. So we might as well just voluntarily extinct ourselves. And so that gets pretty extreme. But have you seen True Detective? Oh yeah. First season with Russ Cole or whatever? Totally. Best performances ever in TV. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So his philosophy, where he gets his ideas from was, was accused of plagiarizing a book by Thomas Ligati called Conspiracy Against the Human Race. Um, and so if you want a Russ Cole, I think that's how you say his name, right?
Yeah, it's either rust or rust. Rust, yes. If you want his philosophy, well, you go read Conspiracy Against the Human Race, which, you know, I listened to that this week and I really liked it, except I really wasn't into the writing style too much. It was a bit more, he's a fiction author of horror, supernatural horror films. So his writing kind of was like that. And so there's another author in that same vein named David Benatar. I'm reading his book called The Human Predicament, just musings and questions about life's biggest questions.
And, uh, he's got another one called, uh, to better to never have been basically saying that like, um, life is a crime. Basically life is morally wrong. Life is suffering. We shouldn't bring people into this world. It's anti -natalist thought. I mean, I'm not an anti -natalist, but sometimes I appreciate hearing, hearing this, um, point of view because not a lot of people appreciate it or talk about it. It's like listening to metal, you know, it sounds scary and satanic when you're, but.
but it's also really comforting in some ways. No, I, well, and I think it's, you know, it's a yin and a yang. You can't have the dark without the light. So even a lot of times, if I don't agree with something, I can still be fascinated by it and know how that works because that might inform me the other way. So I a hundred percent agree. Like, yeah, it's, it's a fascinating rabbit hole to kind of go down or.
I'm gonna have to look that up because I've always thought about that. Like I'm blown away sometimes by people that are hardcore, hardcore atheists or nihilists. Like I believe in nothing type of a thing. And then they see that as the reason to live. And I'm always very confused by that, that they go, well, you know, if I've got nothing else and this is all I have, so I better make the most of it. And I was like, if this is meaningless, then why are you even doing it? Like you're, you're admitting it means nothing. Like I don't say I share that mindset, but I'm
I'm always surprised by people that see that as a reason. Like this is why I have to make it count because it means nothing. And I'm like, that makes zero sense to me. Um, but now I love that mindset. I think for me, I also, I saw Dune too, uh, this week, which was a cinematic Marvel. Um, it's a movie makers movie. Um, it was so much fun to watch. Uh, it's, it's one of those movies that you could watch it on mute and it would still be.
unbelievable. You'd still love it. It would still be epic. It would, I mean, he, Dene is just, that guy is really coming into his own and is going to be one of a generational director that kind of changes the industry in the way that, you know, kind of a matrix did as well. His look, his style is evolving in such a good way that I think everybody's just going to be ripping it off and trying to get that look, that feel.
That he has he's unbelievable. The acting was great in it Some of the casting I'd probably change around a little bit. But that being said still everybody did great I loved it. I can't wait to go see it again If anybody has never read the book Dune I was against Dune my entire life because I was a Star Wars fan and I always grew up with people saying oh if you like Star Wars you'd like dude and I'm like shut up nothing's better than Star Wars and like I was I was that kid that I
I almost like I hated Dune because people thought it could be better in Star Wars and all of that. But then I finally read the book when these movies came out. I saw the first movie. I was like, Oh my God, that is good. Cause I had seen the old movies before and I was like, this is a joke. And I couldn't even get through the movies. Um, and then these ones came out. I'm like, maybe I should read this book. And then I read it and I was like, Oh, I get it. Now. This book is unbelievably good. It probably is one of the, you know,
top five sci -fi books ever written out there. And you do see where Star Wars just ripped off Dune left and right to go, Oh, I'm a little sad now cause very clear that George Lucas ripped off this book in a lot of different ways. Um, and so that was, uh, but that was fun for me. Um, so if you're going to the movies, go see, uh, go see Dune too. Um, yeah, that's high praise. It sounds like you really loved it. Yeah, it was great. It was.
It was, it'll probably be one of the best movies of this year. Finally, movies are starting to get good again. And, you know, we're seeing some content out there that we're like, this is good content, not just cranking stuff out because we think people are going to go watch it and we don't care if it's good or not. It still blows me away how sometimes bad movies get made because it's so hard to make a movie. It's so hard. And then you see a bad movie and you're like, how did, there was like, you know, how many steps it had to go through to get this done? And then.
You, you agreed to make this horrible movie. Um, unfortunately, you know, I hate putting down, uh, people that make stuff, but Madam Webb, one of the worst movies ever made, like, God, the movie is terrible. Um, and yeah, how did that movie get made? But anyway, there's good content coming back out there. Um, that being said, um, as we wrap things up, uh, everybody out there, thank you again for listening. We'd love it if you would.
like and subscribe and honestly we did cover a lot of great content on the meaning of money and all of that and I'd love to hear if you all have any other comparisons such as you know sex for money and when that changes you know what changes that dynamic or for moving I love those two examples that's pretty hilarious but until next week I hope you all have a great week and this is we should be working bye everybody
That's stupid, I'm not doing that.