Hi friend,

For the most recent episode of Weird Finance, I interviewed Joshua Evan Greenberg. I wanted to speak with him because he’s been working as a creative professional for decades, which means he’s seen the industry change over the years and has had to adapt. He got his first big break with music videos, but he got in just as the budgets for music videos were shrinking. In other words, he was finally making it, but in a niche that was beginning to contract.

This is a common tune that a lot of creative professionals know well. But I’m beginning to recognize that it’s the nature of life, too. We can’t stop the world from changing or technology from developing. And so, to make it, not just as a creative professional, but any professional part of the job is going with the changing current and not against it.

No one person has all the answers for how to have a successful, meaningful, enjoyable career. But hearing someone’s story, how they’ve navigated over decades, and how that experience informs where they think things are going is a little bit of data to help you on your journey.

I know the world is changing rapidly, and I, too, have some low-grade fears that technology will impact my work and, in turn, my income. I don’t know where things are going, but I do know that we have to march on. How are you coping with uncertainty and the future of work? Don’t be shy; hit reply!

Your friend,

Paco

P.S. I have been kicking around the idea of creating a monthly money accountability program. Would this be something you’d be interested in joining? I’d love for you to share your thoughts on this here.

1.🎨How to Achieve Creative Euphoria with Joshua Evan Greenberg (Weird Finance) In this episode of Weird Finance, Paco talks to Joshua Evan Greenberg about his experience as a creative professional and his experience making music videos, creating commercials and building a brand incubator. This episode also features The Price Report, a short segment with Michael "Frosti" Snow (@FrostiFresh), where he takes us on a journey, examining the cost of one thing in the hopes that it helps us better understand everything.
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​2. 💼 True Leisure and the Tyranny of Total Work (Every) How people use work to avoid facing mortality, society reinforces that avoidance, and the structure of modern-day work creates a bind that can be difficult to escape.
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​3. 💔 How America Got Mean (The Atlantic) In a culture devoid of moral education, generations are growing up in a morally inarticulate, self-referential world.
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​4. 🤓 A bookkeeping thing - Why Outsourcing Your Bookkeeping Will Save You Money (HYG Original)
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​5. 👀 Never Look Down the Road Not Taken (Of Dollars and Data) “It’s easy to imagine how our financial lives would’ve turned out had we sold this or bought that. But, when you go through the motions of living it, you will see that things wouldn’t necessarily turn out as planned.”
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​6. 🏊 The Great Zelle Pool Scam (Business Insider) All I wanted was a status symbol. What I got was a $31,000 lesson in the downside of payment apps. “A pool could be evidence that my life hadn't amounted to nothing. When I found myself at a party with intimidating people, I would sometimes say to myself, I am a person with a swimming pool, so I could believe I had the same right to exist as anyone else. And people would have to be friends with me, right?”
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​7. 👔 Capitalism Rules Everything Around Me (Hate the Game) Why capitalism isn’t the root of all evil, but maybe greed is “Market failures are situations where the free market fails to allocate resources efficiently or equitably, harming society or the economy. The unaffordability of childcare is a market failure. The high cost of healthcare is a market failure. The pollution from oil and gas companies is a market failure. To solve these market failures, we must first identify them and then set policy to address each specific failure. It takes much more work and research than saying, 'Blame capitalism.'"
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​8. 🌎 Social media is making you angry. You simply have to ignore it. (Vox) “The people in charge of [social media platforms] want us to stay angry at each other’s bad ideas instead of them, the ones who make money from every second we remain cringing and tense on our phones. ‘Divisiveness drives engagement, which in turn drives advertising revenues,’ reads a review of Max Fisher’s The Chaos Machine, a book about the ways in which algorithmic social media has stoked hyperpartisanship and anger and made a few men very rich.”
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​@thehellyeahgroup​

I'd love to hear your thoughts on a possible monthly money accountability program - let me know what you think!

If you have a question you’d like me to answer on the Weird Finance podcast, you can leave me a voicemail at 1-833-ASK-PACO. You can also email me your question by replying to this email or emailing us at weirdfinancepod@gmail.com.

The Nerdletter is put together by my Editorial Assistant, Cole Yaverbaum, of Ladies Talking About Money. Please consider several ways you can contribute to this important mission – an inclusive conversation about money, finances, and capitalism for Creatives. 🌟 Leave a review for the Weird Finance Podcast​ 👯‍♀️ Share this issue with friends​ 🤓 Tell us what you think of The Nerdletter​

📚Purchase FINANCE FOR THE PEOPLE​ 👛 Check out our agency, Hell Yeah Bookkeeping 🙂🧳 Sponsor The Nerdletter - The Hell Yeah Group​ 💸 1:1 Financial Coaching with Paco​ We can't do this work without you. Thanks for being part of the crew and reading this far. Peace.