The 3 Ways to Balance Money and Meaning

We all make decisions in life that trade-off between what we do for money and how we’d spend our time if money was no object.

Even those who make a living doing something they delight in still have to contend with the money problem. For example, Lionel Messi gets paid to play the game he loves, and also spends time doing this:

Is Lionel Messi passionate about chicken? Or American chain restaurants? I’d guess not. But even while earning over $100 million per year in compensation playing for FC Barcelona, Messi decided it was worth his time to ink a five-year deal with Hard Rock Cafe.

This may be a solid financial decision—athletes have a limited time window in which they’re a hot commodity, after which their earning power drastically drops. However, with career earnings of over $1 billion, I wonder how Messi will look back on this from his deathbed.

How much is a year of Messi’s life worth?

How about a year of yours?

This has been the core question I’ve sat with for the last decade—how to balance money and meaning on the entrepreneurial path. And there are three archetypal ways that I’ve seen people approach the question:

• The deferred life plan
• Being bivocational
• Choosing to integrate

I’ve had a front row seat to success and failure on each of these paths: I’ve pursued each of these strategies at various times and have helped hundreds of founders grapple with these questions in the communities I’ve built and in my individual coaching practice. 

So how does one choose which approach to take?

In this piece, we’ll explore what each of these strategies look like when done well versus done poorly, and how you can approach the question with more intention to decide how you truly want to spend your days.