We Weren't Prepared For Uncertainty... We Were Prepared For a False Sense of Safety

You knew your path long before anyone had an opinion

Matt Gottesman

Sep 24, 2024

1×

0:00

-11:30

*Everyone asks… the hat can be purchased HERE

New here? Click HERE for why I write weekly letters & essays…
Need to catch up?

New Format 🚨: I’m experimenting with a new format… Fridays will be dedicated to “The Rundown” - a weekly list of inspiration, resources, thoughts & ideas worth sharing. Tuesdays (like today) dedicated to longer letters on the intersection of creativity, spirituality and entrepreneurship. Bonus (for paid subscribers) — there will be letters on building a portfolio of businesses, developing your income streams and more launchings soon!

“That won’t work…”

“That won’t pay the bills…”

“Not everyone makes it going that route…”

“What if it doesn’t work out?”

Do any of these sound familiar to you?

This is decades of responses from people who simply gave the wrong advice, mostly unintentional, when it came to us sharing a different path than what was deemed “safe.”

I’m currently running a 12-Week Masterclass in the Artist Way inside our Creator Community (← It’s never too late to join if you want) and today was the start of Week 1… Recovering a Sense of Safety.

Not safety as defined by society, but the safety of trusting your instincts, intuition, curiosities, talents, and calling

To trust what you intuitively respond to, often without reason, whether it’s your career, art, creativity, or life as a whole.

In fact, one of our members in our group recalled her youth and wanting to be a teacher… to which the advice she received from a family friend was… “Don’t be a teacher… there’s no money in it… be a {fill in here} instead.”

Was this advice intentional? No. Was it helpful? No.

Was he trying to advise her because he wanted her to have a financially stable future (a “safe” future”) and high quality of life? Yes.

And for that, she was grateful… even though her desire to teach has followed her for her whole life… and felt something was missing when she wasn’t doing that “thing.”

Here’s the catch.

Ignoring those intuitive 'knowings' cuts you off from a uniquely designed path that could provide abundance in ways you can’t imagine.

I’d even argue that when you operate in your gifts, you’re even “safer” from market & economic changes, as well as life changes…

Why?

Because your gifts and path are going to add unique value to industries, disciplines, technology and humanity…

they can actually transform the space in which you operate in… and the return on that is massive… whether that be financially or emotionally.

Here’s a simple framework to start:

Identify one area of your life where you’ve been following external expectations. Ask yourself: What does my intuition really say to do here? What steps can I take this week to lean into that voice?

Then, simply practice and document in real time the outcomes from taking those steps instead.

This brings me to another example of someone who followed her instincts and, in doing so, redefined education as we know it… Ana Lorena Fabrega

I found her online some years back… she’s a former teacher turned author & “EDUpreneur.”

She loved teaching but found the education system lacking in its ability to prepare children for the future—teaching them critical thinking, sustainability, and more.

In her words…

How can we transform the game of school into the game of learning?
How do we make learning sustainable through childhood and into adulthood?
How can we go back to the root of what makes kids excited to learn?
How can we arm kids with the tools they need to succeed in the game of learning—and the game of life?

She went from being a teacher, to co-founding Synthesis.is and working with a co-founder who created Ad Astra with Elon Musk.

Do you see the dots connecting here?

She’s not just a teacher, but an innovator… a leader in the education community…

so yeah, society should be careful not to tell someone what they shouldn’t be because of the money when what they’re here to do may just be an enormous change for everyone’s future.

There are 2 key points I want to make here:

Uncertainty exists no matter what direction you take so you might as well take the one that’s calling you the most.
The “safe” path is not necessarily the “right” path, but the “right” path for you is always safe.

Let’s digest both of these…

Uncertainty is a gift, not a curse.

Don’t let society tell you that there’s a path that’s safe and certain… I have found that to be profoundly false.

Industries once seen as impenetrable by economic, societal, and technological factors are shaking up daily… we’re now seeing this across the legal, medical and financial worlds.

In a recent article by Bowtied Bulls, Second Passport and Sovereign Individual Strategies, the author notes

Generally speaking, corporate income doesn’t “cut it” anymore. After watching Wall Street total compensation decline (or at best stay flat) for a decade, it’s hard to maintain pace with assets that are now up some 30-50% from pre-COVID levels…
The world has changed tremendously over the past 25 years. High paying careers/jobs don’t really offer the stability or *quality of life* that it did years ago.

I’m not saying don’t go corporate or working for others.

What I’m saying is that decades-old advice about 'safe' routes has drastically changed with the Internet and new ways to create wealth through our talents and gifts.

Think back to a time when you were discouraged from following your instinct. How did that advice impact your choices? What might have happened if you’d trusted yourself instead?

It’s always interesting to look at the contrast between these two.

Additionally, what we should have been taught as kids is that uncertainty exists no matter what you do so we might as well have been taught to practice using our intuition, make critical decisions in unlikely situations and adapt to an ever changing landscape we call life…

not rely on some pre-formed path of the previous industrial age that ONLY looks “safe” from the outside.

The “safest” thing you can do is trust your own path.

Here’s how that looked for me…

At 19 I was asked by school guidance counselors what I wanted to do for work… I said the Internet and they said they don’t see it going anywhere.

At 22 I worked on my first startup that would give ownership and leverage back to artists and creatives for their work using the Internet… I was told you still need big companies to manage them and industries are too big to let that happen.

At 32, I asked my MBA professor how digital would affect branding and marketing in the future. He told me it would only play a small role… companies now use a majority of their resources and budget for digital marketing and branding… additionally, I now use my digital skill stack to run multiple businesses in half the time and more reach than most Fortune 500 companies can reach.

At 35, a global organization spanning more than 300 locations (including thousands of employees and hundreds of thousands of clients) told me that building an online presence doesn’t have as much impact... so I did it myself and reach more than 10M+ people per month.

At 36 I was told you can’t make a living from your writing or podcasting… that they are not real jobs… I now earn more than most traditional routes, as do countless of other artists, creatives and entrepreneurs living out their dreams, passions and paths online.

Now, I’m not saying that your own path is an “easy” one.

What I am saying is that it feels like the safest bet you can make because you’re always able to advance your talents, make quick changes, refine how you earn a living and create a life you want to live on your terms.

And for me, that’s the “safest” thing you can do.

Maybe that’s what we should be teaching our youth… to prepare them for uncertainty by trusting their intuition instead of promise them a world that leaves it out.

Always trust your gut…

it doesn’t have to make sense right away, but it will if you give it time.

The biggest obstacles are the distractions that come from people not trusting their intuition, not taking creative risks, and promising a different path based on money.

The money you’re looking for will be there if you master the gifts and talents you have.

I believe in quality of life, not quantity… and the irony… a quality of life has plenty of abundance in it anyways.

Just remember, when someone gives you advice that seems counterintuitive to your gut, don’t take it personally.

They don’t mean it maliciously (usually). They’re usually meaning it from a place of genuine concern for your well being.

It’s your job to be grateful, trust your own intuition and remind them of what that looks like from your own independent actions which will breed the kind of results they’ll come to understand later on.

Go create!

Have a great week!

Matt

🧠 Whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:

1. → Reverse Engineer Your Life - (Join 6,800+) - Free Workshops (including downloadable templates & frameworks) to bring more clarity, streamline your vision, audit your time and create more predictable outcomes/results.

2. → Write, Design, Build - Content Creator Studio & Operating System to scale your creativity & reach without the burnout… this is not only how I organize my creativity, ideas & writing, but how I launch over 120+ pieces of “shareable” content per week in under 2 hours & grow my audience to reach 10M+ per month.

📚 Not a reader? Follow along below:

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign Up
New Podcast Episode ➠ In Choosing Your Own Path, What Would Happen If You Were Just You (Apple, Spotify)

Connect With Me…
☼ Podcast
☼ Apparel
☼ Text Me
☼ Instagram
☼ Twitter

In the meantime, tell your friends!