Sometimes wisdom comes to us in unexpected places.

A few years ago, while living in New York City, I was waiting in line behind a man at a corner bodega who was buying over $20 worth of lotto tickets. As the man finished his purchase, he turned around, looked me right in the eyes, smiled and said,

“It takes money to make money.”

I chuckled and gave him a smile back.

Years later, this interaction has stuck with me and I realize there was actually a lot of truth to this stranger's comment.

I don’t mean that buying lotto tickets is the best way to get money, but after running my own business for the last four years, I’d agree that it does take doing something - making an investment - taking a gamble, to make your creative dream profitable.

In an ideal world, we could simply be rewarded for having a creative idea and that alone allow us to earn money. Yet, the reality for the majority of us makers is that in order to have a profitable creative life, we have to take the risk and invest our resources, be it our time, emotion, sweat equity, or capital.

“It takes “something” to make money.”

Working toward profitability comes with trade-offs. We don’t live in a world of unlimited resources of any kind. If you put investment into your business (again this could be time, energy, or money), you won’t have that resource to put somewhere else. Investing in your creative dream is a choice.

This week we enter the second month of the year. Which means, it’s time for rubber to hit the road. It’s time to decide if you are ready to do the work needed to make your goals for the year happen. For this weeks Monday Motivation Challenge, I’ve compiled a few questions to help you reflect on where you are ready to invest, in order to grow your creative business.

Consider the following:

What resources (time, money, emotion, space) are you willing to allocate to make your goals and dreams happen this year?

Can you identify what area of your business would benefit the most from additional investment and really allow you to grow?

Is there something you’ve known you should invest in to take your business to the next level but you’ve been putting it off, or are to scared to take the jump?
- If you still aren’t ready, can you make a plan and start taking smaller steps to get there?

Finish this sentence for yourself, “It will take ___________ to make money.”

Just like saving for retirement, even if you are not ready to make a major investment in your creative business today, the best thing you can do is to simply start putting the resources you can toward it. Overtime this investment will build on itself and start giving you returns.

If you don’t know where would be the best area for you to invest, or if you feel like you’ve invested and not yet seen results, let’s talk. Schedule a free 30 min intro coaching phone-session and see how investing in one-on-one coaching can help make your business profitable.

If you live in the Kansas City area and are able to invest 2 hours of your time this week, I’m hosting a FREE workshop, "Make Your Creative Biz Goals a Reality in 2018", on Wednesday, January 31 and I'd love to see you there. For more info and to RSVP visit here.

We’re in this together!

Ashley