the safety net is fraying
I look around and i see the most brilliant people i know sitting at home with skills they haven’t used and dreams they’re protecting to death.
I’m 100% sure you see it too. I’m sure you reading this first line, reminded you of someone you know.
you know they’re amazing. they probably even did better than you in school or at your old job. But they still can’t seem to find work and earn a decent living.
jobs are diminishing. the old safety net is fraying. and the thing that used to pass for stability is slowly being pulled out from under people who were told to colour inside the lines and wait their turn.
but here’s the harder part.
even if you’re someone whose 9-to-5 is still intact, life is closing in on you anyway.
you come home drained. the energy you had for your own craft gets swallowed by the thing that pays the bills. you tell yourself you’ll work on it this weekend, but the weekend fills up. then it’s next weekend. then it’s six months later and you haven’t touched it.
the drive to pursue your own thing is real. but keeping it alive when life is pressing down on you? that’s the part nobody talks about. and it can go on for YEARS
community update for the curious (you can skip this part if you’re just here for the content);
hey guys, thanks to all of you that reached out when i stopped sending these over the last two months. it was always part of my plan this year to have half the year to work on other things and my content in general just went into maintenance mode. so the newsletter suffered. but, just letting you know that I’m doing okay. expect to see me more on the interwebs in the coming weeks and days. I’m bursting with energy and a lot of new things I can’t wait to teach.
now back to today’s letter...
how we cope with it wrong
i think a lot of brilliant people cope with this the wrong way.
they protect their dreams by asking everyone what they think. they poll ten friends. they adjust. they ask again. they adjust again. by the time they’re done, the thing that made their chest tight with excitement is safe. boring. dead.
the initial sauce? gone.
i know this is true because I have done this! years ago my studio was working on a rebrand launch for a youth stem program. their mascot was a golden retriever. i had this idea to bring the actual dog to the event. custom brand apparel. a designated area. the whole thing.
instead of trusting it, i asked everyone i knew.
every friend had notes. i watered it down until it became a couple of backdrops with pictures of the dog.
and then years later the very same client told me casually in conversation: “we would have loved that idea even more if you’d pitched bringing the actual dog.”
protect your dreams by feeding them fiction. not opinions.
when you’re building something that doesn’t exist yet, the last thing you need is someone else’s take on whether it’ll work. nobody knows. including them.
what you actually need is fuel for your imagination. read a novel. watch a story that moves you. consume something that expands what you think is possible instead of shrinking it with committee feedback. i recently made a video on tiktok about my current animated show rotation, you can check it out here.
the people who built legendary things in their 20s and 30s weren’t polling group chats. they were feeding their minds with better inputs and then shipping before they felt ready.
steve jobs was 21 when he started apple. sara blakely was 27 with five thousand dollars and a prototype she cut with scissors. you might argue that these people had a lot of backing and went on to become billionaires and hey, I can agree with you.
but I know so many people I grew up with who have achieved incredible things before they even touched 30 with no angel backing or investment of some sort. and what they all have in common is that they didn’t wait for permission.
they didn’t ask ten people if the thing would work.
they just built it.
most brilliant minds never do. it’s not because they aren’t good enough. but because they spend their best years in the waiting room.
protect your skills by using them.
skills dull in storage. you can’t save them for the right moment because the right moment doesn’t arrive on its own. you have to create it.
and i know the objection. i know you’re tired after work. i know life is closing in. one hour in the morning before the day takes it from you. one hour where the skill gets used before the job gets its cut.
the doing sharpens what the dreaming can’t.
if we were grabbing coffee:
swap opinions for fiction. the next time you’re about to ask someone “what do you think of this idea?”, watch a movie instead. feed the dream, don’t poll it.
use the skill before the day takes it. one hour in the morning. before the world gets a vote. protect that time with everything you have.
look at the proof. the people who built legendary things in their 20s and 30s weren’t more talented than you. they just shipped before the window closed. the window is still open for you. but it won’t stay that way forever.
plan for 10 months, not 12. build slack into your year. i have a guide on why i plan with 10 months instead of 12, you can check it out here.
the 9-to-5 was never going to save you. and with what is happening in the world today, the jobs are only going to keep diminishing.
but you are sitting on something that most people never act on: real skills and a real dream.
protect the dream by feeding it stories. protect the skills by using them.
and stop waiting for someone to tell you it’s safe.
reply and tell me what you’ve been sitting on. i actually read these.
-mike