Church Misfit Podcast

Join us as Joe Elliott and Zac Tinney interview long time Catalyst friend and new Author, Tyler Schuetze, and review of his book The Awkward List. Filled with laughs, amazing stories, and deep conversations, you wont want to miss this!

Joe, Zac and Rayna talk about creative ways to find the money you need to move into your area of passion.

Show Notes:

Special thanks to Stephen Carlock for adding some awesome detail to our notes and discussion.

Know your number. At what point can you transition from your career to your passion?

If pursuing your passion involves going to work for another entity (whether professional, non-profit, etc.) it makes sense to wait until you’ve found a position where you can at least cover all of your bills, preferably with some extra money to continue to further that passion. Pretty simple!

If pursuing your passion involves starting up your own business, it gets a bit trickier. Self-employment requires you to create your own income (there is no employer cutting you a check every 2 weeks) on an ongoing basis. Some passions will create more revenue at certain times of the year, for instance. And sometimes, for seemingly no reason at all, business will be a bit thinner and revenue will be lower.

To account for this, I suggest two things before transitioning:

• Have at least 3-6 months worth of living expenses set aside somewhere, in case momentum builds slowly or you hit a rough patch and you have to live on savings for a while.
• Generate at least your basic income goal for at least 3 consecutive months. It’s one thing to earn enough to cover your bills for a single month. But, can you repeat that? If you jump ship the first month you meet your living expenses, you may find yourself drowning on month 2.

Know your plan. If you had all the money you needed today to start, what would your plan be? How do you know it would work?

Build a path from now until day 1 of launch. Pursuing your passion is a noble, but challenging goal. You won’t be able to wing it. There are a few things to do -

Research Your Industry: Like I mentioned above, certain industries are more seasonal than others. Some industries are continually changing, or undergoing a huge change right now. Some industries require more training than others to succeed. Your plan needs to include contingencies to accommodate all of this. For example, non-profits tend to bring in a lot of year-end donations. You may see a huge spike in revenue around the end of the year/new year, but you may also need to operate largely on those donations for several months afterward.

Create smaller goals leading to your final launch: Morale is hugely important to your success. It takes a lot of effort to get from “concept” to “reality.” If your official launch is the only goal you have in mind, you run the risk of burning out during the lengthy grind to get there. Creating several smaller checkpoints along the way to your ultimate goal gives you a chance to experience success more often, which can keep the fire burning. For example, becoming a successful voice actor is greatly helped by receiving acting training, creating a professional demo, and building a strong website. I set each of these as individual goals for myself, and whenever I met a goal it reminded me that the ultimate goal really is achievable.

Recruit partners: Going it alone introduces an unnecessary challenge, and can really work against your success. Now matter how motivated you are, a burden is more easily overcome when shared. These could be financial partners, to help share the cost of starting. They could be brainstorming partners to help you further develop your plan over time. They could be accountability partners that you meet with weekly to keep yourself on track toward the goal. The point is - don’t go it alone. There is no point in wasting valuable resources.

Develop “side gigs” related to your main goal. Ever heard the phrase “don’t put all your eggs in one basket?” Successful entrepreneurship relies heavily on developing a variety of income streams. That way, if one aspect of your venture isn’t doing as well you have other ways of keeping afloat while you continue to push the entire operation forward. For example , as a Voice Actor my primary focus is recording audio for clients. This works well, unless the number of clients I have is thin. As a related side gig I might offer to professionally edit the audio that other voice actors have recorded. Or I might offer to write scripts for other actors or businesses. In addition to creating more opportunities for income, these related practices can also prove very useful in helping to strengthen my core pursuit.

Know your timeframe. Wrap your mind around the realistic amount of time to gain the finances and plan you need to launch.

To succeed, you need to maintain a long-term mindset. Sometimes you will already have several pieces in place when you initially develop your goal. Other times you’ll have to work completely from scratch...

Join a heated roundtable discussion on the impact Covid-19 is having on churches and what this implies for the changing landscape of church in America. Church Misfits welcome back Pastor Eric Mejia, Author Gunnar Rogers, and Creator/Musician Aaron Alba. Are we ready for all digital churches? What should we be paying attention to and learning during this time? Leave us your thoughts!

Join host Joe Elliott and his two guests, author Kenneth Camp and Austin area youth pastor, Aaron Alba, as they give a recap and commentary on each GLS summit session. In Session 3, we hear from Author and Hall of Fame Keynote Speaker, Rory Vaden, as he shared his resent studies in the realm of time management, and Vanessa Van Edwards, Lead Behavioral Investigator with Science of People, who shared her communication secrets using The Charisma Scale.