Never chase the bread, chase the vision
— T.I.
The author of DJ Khaled’s memoir, Mary H. K. Choi, was having a difficult time getting to know the artist. He seemed to always be busy.
“Something had to give,” she thought.
She then insisted that she needed a raise, different from the initial contract. Her reasons were rational. Accessing DJ Khalid, even though he was always near, was difficult. All the while, the deadline was getting closer. To achieve the goals intended, she needed more. More access, time, and, yes, money.
Finally, when he got Khalid and explained herself, he told her something I took personally, even though I was never anywhere near any of them:
Are you an artist? He asked me. I was startled by this sudden pop-quiz and hesitated. Of course you’re an artist, he said. I wouldn’t have hired you if you weren’t an artist. But if you’re an artist don’t talk about money before you make the art, he advised. Make the art, then secure the bag. He went on to tell me to allow the agents, managers, lawyers to handle the details. And that even bringing business affairs into the room was compromising the potential magic of the art.
It sounds absurd.
Many icons who have altered the game in their respective fields have consistently given the same message, and yet, for all their wisdom and money, it seems to get reversed. Presently, nearly everyone is chasing the bread.
Forgive the doctor in me, but at this point, I can make a tentative diagnosis: flipping the phrases is a symptom of “Vision Anaemia”. Vision anaemia is the condition I have just made that points at individuals who have little vision, and thus, replace it with what is more readily available, like the money they saw get into their account last week, and the money they continue to see haemorrhage from the same account every day.
It then makes sense. Chase more bread. It’s the natural knee-jerk reaction to a progressively drying bank account.
To make a panoramic or in-depth view of a system’s function, one needs to observe the intangibles, the loops, the goal driving the system, and apply the leverage where it is most needed. At any given time, the point that needs the highest leverage is the one area that is most limiting. And for most individuals who wish to become like their ultra-wealthy idols, the most limiting part is a misunderstanding of systems.
Then is not now
My grandfather from my mother’s side had huge tracts of land. Women would parade at strategic points hoping he might consider picking them as a second wife because of his wealth and reputation as a fighter. My mother recalls that he was known as the one whose back never touched the ground. Of course, many families wished their daughters could have such a man as a partner.
Wealth was not as difficult to acquire then as it is now. From one’s land, they could time the rainy and dry seasons, weed, sow, and harvest enough to last one comfortably throughout the year. No CVs. No formal education. Heck, no taxes. Tithe and offerings, maybe.
But our world is not growing any larger. The population is. The little that is available dwindles. Getting what was easier back then becomes difficult now. And there’s where we fail to notice that the very tools we use today to gauge whether we deserve employment were invented.
There were no CVs until CVs were developed. Schools didn’t exist until they did. Before then, it was apprenticeship. Engineers were taught by master builders. Now it’s a full-blown course, where an undergraduate degree will not elevate you to the financial status of Elon Musk, especially if you’re working to get better pay. That is, to continue being employed, but with a higher pay grade.
This space, too, gets congested, the same way we have occupied almost every corner of our planet. Jose Ortega already predicted the inevitable — once full occupancy is achieved, decadence follows. I have witnessed this in my profession.
Medical doctors were always being absorbed into hospitals after clearing internship. But as more students enrolled in medical schools, the hospitals did not increase in equal measure. Nevertheless, it did not mean there were fewer patients, because population growth is higher than the graduation rate of doctors. How you get a job as a doctor is a matter of luck, connections, or money to lather people’s pockets. And even when you find this spot, you don’t grace the face of Time Magazine by being the employee of the year.
Furthermore, it makes one extremely fragile. Your bosses can flip your world in a single email. There are others who can occupy your position as soon as yesterday. These positions, if I may remind you, were invented.
John Graeber has written a book on Bullshit Jobs. These are jobs that, once again, have been invented because of the capitalistic drive of companies. Some of them ought not to exist. And yet, they persist because of the multi-layered bureaucracy.
According to Peter’s Principle, everyone will rise to their level of incompetence. But they will not be demoted because of how they initially rose to their present level. These steps cement the layers of different cadres, whose removal would incite fear in a large organization. Better to keep them, goes the gospel.
But by chasing a promotion, more often than not, one chases the bread. One doesn’t stop to consider that the position one aims for was first invented. There was a time in human history when it didn’t exist. Someone envisioned such a position, and actuated it. They chased the vision, and then justified why they needed the bread.
Does it now make sense why flipping this order is a symptom of vision anaemia?
I would also argue that chasing the bread makes one focus on the wrong leverage point. If every month one thinks about how they can make more, rather than spend less, that is someone who may have a severe case of vision anaemia. A simple system, with inputs and outputs, dictates that reducing the output, regardless of the input, will increase the stock. Simple math.
And yet, the unconscious reaction to a drying bank account is that one needs to make more money. The biggest limit in systems is misunderstanding systems.
Making the art
Came from the dirt, grew gardens
— T.I.
The art has to come first.
And to be honest, at first, it will be extremely inefficient. Why? Because it is new. Here’s one powerful example.
Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, believed that computers belonged in every home. HP rejected his vision 5 times. He then began acting on it with Steve Jobs. The art has made Apple a major global company. I would even add that computers are now no longer in everyone’s homes but in their pockets and palms, as mobile phones. It would have followed the same script. I mean, why should I carry a computer with me everywhere if I already have it at home?
Uncle Herc never knew he was on the verge of creating a completely new genre of music. And yet, hidden from the world, he laid the foundation for hip-hop’s pillars. Today, Dr. Dre is a billionaire spring-boarding from DJ Kool Herc’s vision.
I use these two examples to show how widely different and versatile visions can be. Tech and hip-hop. All of them are rooted in the rule that reappears multiple times. Make the art first. Chase the vision. Never the bread.
By comparing this vision to how it was back then, it makes sense. Once everyone occupies what was there before, decay soon sets in. It’s sensible then to make something new. If you cannot occupy land, you can occupy one’s time. So why not develop a virtual space and have people share their videos, photos, or interviews?
Let me give a strange example, but it’s hardly any different. Health has always continued to advance every day. And the point where it changes is when we have completely occupied and applied the protocols, but where does one go from there? You have to develop something new. Diabetes was once a disease we associated with sugar. Now it is a metabolic condition. Metformin is no longer the first-choice drug for all newly diagnosed patients. A new space has been developed for us to explore the influence of other medications.
This is only possible by chasing the vision first, not the bag. If it were the bag, then there would be extremely high competition for the market share. How one ensures they are not a commodity becomes a stubborn pebble in one’s shoe.
LLMs are going to be commodity businesses. Everyone is chasing the same thing. How will they get a huge moat to deter others from catching up? Sam Altman’s introduction of ChatGPT to the world was from someone who had a vision. The money then followed him. And sure enough, if the vision is great enough, other mimics will try to replicate the same process. You only continue competing in such a high-stakes field if there is vision. If it was just about chasing the bread, the frustration would have you admitted into our HDU unit.
And it will be inefficient. Jane Austen did not become famous until she died. She sold more in death than when alive. So it may be discouraging to chase the vision if the money is not guaranteed. The sense of immediacy can be blinding. Peers begin to compete, chasing ever-shifting posts while atop a treadmill.
So when DJ Khalid got time to talk to his biographer, he told her: Make the art first.
If only it were that easy.
Having a vision is easy. Executing it is difficult. If it weren’t, everyone would be living their dream. But that is exactly why few people achieve the DJ Khalid-like status.
By chasing the bread, one tends to worry about their work-life balance. There is no life in your work, and so you want more of what is outside it. It soothes you to see that you have not stagnated, based on how you evaluate yourself among your peers. This should not be looked down upon because it is some form of progress, but if you ask most of them, it does not satisfy as much as one thought it would.
In due time, one begins to crave satisfaction. A family life. A place to rest. Peace. These are usually sought when that morning alarm reminds you every weekday that you need to wake up to do something that doesn’t spark anything in you.
In contrast, by chasing the vision, one is more engaged with their dream-reality balance. You want to actualize your dream, and the more you act on it, the more it becomes a reality.
Dreams are beautiful because, in abstract form, they give an image of concreteness that is far from reality. So the more you act on your dreams, the more you discover how big it can get. I speak not from a point of money, but from a place where I continue to act on the big vision I have for my festival, Funkie Fest.
Truth be told, if it were about the money, it wouldn’t make sense for me to continue with the 6th edition (now the 7th edition, as the 6th edition went down last Saturday, at Carnivore Simba Saloon). But it isn’t about the bread. I have to make the art first.
I am also not moneyed enough to say it’s not always about the money. Bills have to be paid. But I had never imagined I could be one of the happiest human beings when my pockets are empty. This has been my situation after every edition of Funkie Fest. I am extremely happy, and at the same time, extremely broke. But I don’t regret creating the experience my team did.
This is a feeling that chasing the money will never get you. Again, from experience. But that’s a story for another day.
What I’m trying to say is…
Vision pays more than the bread. Chasing it means you will be paid in ways that do not register on a chequebook. But as the vision begins to take shape, the cheques also start rolling in. The question you should be asking yourself is, why not have both?
Vision can get you there.
This song inspired some of the lines used in this article. Source — YouTube