I became what I once hated and it was the best thing that ever happened to me

I fell out of love with journalism, became what I once hated, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Growing up, I thought success and happiness came from staying true to yourself. I never considered that your truth when you’re 19 isn’t the same truth when you’re 29.?

My truth used to be journalism. I saw it as the highest calling in the universe. The ultimate tool for social change.?

But like many journalists, I hated money. Next to social change, money was a weak and evil aspiration.

I wasn’t the only writer who felt that way.

Hating money—and distrusting those with a lot of it—is almost a requirement for journalists. Money is the linchpin of the world’s greatest conflicts. Money is power. And the job of a good journalist is to keep power in check.

A rich journalist can’t be trusted. Once a journalist has a financial stake in the subject they write about, their credibility goes out the window along with their career.

This is why at the New York Times, the greatest journalistic institution in the world, writers are restricted from investing in the industry they write about.

“A book editor, for example, may not invest in a publishing house, a health writer in a pharmaceutical company…” reads the NYT writer’s code.

In other words, a journalist cannot make money from the industries they know the most about.?

To be honest, I’m glad this practice exists. It produces honest journalism. But financially, it’s like telling LeBron James he can only make money from hockey.?

Then there’s the other reason why so many journalists hate money: they’ll never have it.?

Career journalists are mandated to a life of poverty by virtue of how little they are paid.?

As Glassdoor reports, even journalists that write for the New York Times—the most prestigious and widely read newspaper in the world—earn an average annual salary of $67,158.

Think about it: making it to the New York Times newsroom is the journalistic equivalent of getting drafted into the NBA. It’s a monumental achievement that all journalists dream of but few end up succeeding in. And the ones that do?

Well, they make $67,158.

So why do journalists and writers hate money??

If you knew in the back of your mind that even after a lifetime of punishing dedication to your craft—even if you made it into the top 1% of journalists—the most you were ever likely to earn was $67,158…

You’d hate money, too.

(Why torture yourself by liking something you will never have?)

That’s why if you want to be successful in journalism, you need to be, above all else, persistent.

As long as you write consistently (and fight the urge to switch to a higher-paying career long enough), you will eventually earn a seat at the table. The competition thins out.

Most journalists eventually come to terms with their options: On one hand, they could pursue one of the highest callings in the universe. On the other hand, they could make a livable wage.

So most journalists do what any reasonable person would do: sell out.

They quit the field and go into advertising.?

And guess what, LinkedIn? I’m one of them.

Yeah, I quit journalism and went into advertising.

I sold out.?

And I have no doubt that I could have been a successful journalist had I stuck to it, either.

By the age of 20, my friends and I had started a successful online magazine and employed a full office full of writers.

By 22, I’d been published by Politico, ThinkProgress, Fusion, and more.

But it soon became clear that success in the field I had always believed in, and happiness, may lay at the end of two wildly diverging roads in the yellow wood.?

I believed in journalism… theoretically. But in practice? Journalism is a miserable career. The funny thing is, journalists know this. They’re proud of it.?

I will never forget the scene in the New York Times documentary when Mark Mazzetti, a famous American journalist, is shown returning to his apartment after a hard day of work.

His apartment is dark and barren. You can tell his cupboards contain but a single fork, a single knife, and one plate to eat from. The camera follows him around his dimly lit apartment until he mutters something along the lines of? “I don’t have many friends. I don’t see my family much. I don’t have hobbies. This job requires 100% dedication. The New York Times is my life.”

Writing for the New York Times was my lifelong dream. Until I watched that scene, and it scared the living sh*t out of me.

Not long after, I was visited by a thought. “Wouldn’t life be more fun if you were an entrepreneur rather than a journalist?”

I quickly stamped the thought out of my mind. Being an entrepreneur would mean selling out. It would mean pursuing money!

But the thought wouldn’t leave me alone.

I thought about what it would be like to afford an apartment that I wasn’t embarrassed to bring a date home to. I fantasized about a lunch that didn’t come from a can. And what it would be like to stop stealing condiments from Mcdonald's.

The process of falling out of love with journalism was long and complicated. It took years before I let myself give in to these thoughts.?

But one day, I was hired by a media startup. I was hired as a writer, but couldn’t shake my curiosity around entrepreneurship. So I asked the CEO if I could help sell some articles to brands.

I sent out 100 cold emails. I got 1 response from a brand asking to get on a Zoom call.

Later that day, sitting on the hard couch of my 200-square-foot apartment, I made a $15,000 sale from a virtual meeting on my 13-inch MacBook. Then I made another. And another.

Soon, the CEO reached back out to me. He wanted to give me a promotion. I would now be making $70,000 a year. $2,842 more per year than the average New York Times journalist.?

It was the most money I’d made in my entire life. I thought I was a millionaire.

That year, I used a portion of the money I made to throw a skateboarding event in an underserved neighborhood in the city I live in, Medellin. The whole community came out. Kids competed for prizes and won new clothes, skateboards, and top-of-the-line equipment.

One young skater even cried when she received her 1st place prize.

We used the event to raise even more money and spent all night building up the skatepark. We put in new ramps. We installed new features like a “euro-gap” that young skateboarders from the neighborhood had fantasized about for years.

Maybe money wasn’t evil after all.

I learned 4 important lessons from these years of my life:

1. It’s important to pursue happiness and a higher good. Yes, you can do both. No, they are not mutually exclusive.
2. Choose your lifestyle before you choose your career. If your career does not allow you to live your desired lifestyle, you will never be happy.
3. The pursuit of money is not evil. Money, like journalism, is powerful. And power can be used for both good and evil.
4. Changing your mind doesn’t make you a sellout. Change that leaves you better off is called evolution.

Oh yeah… I almost forgot the 5th lesson I learned. This one I learned just a couple months ago:

Being a writer doesn’t mean you have to be broke. You can actually make quite a bit of money writing.

LinkedIn and Twitter taught me that.

I wish I had discovered these platforms years ago!

If you liked this story, let me know in the comments and I’ll continue posting more stories like this on my LinkedIn and Twitter.

Thanks for reading.