I could tell you a story about how I hated my 9-to-5, finally had the guts to quit and then build my own online business. But that’s not what happened. My journey into the creator economy started after I had already won.
I never had a job. After studying I went straight into entrepreneurship. It felt like the path I was meant for but nobody told me about. After being utterly lost, I built an e-commerce business.
Long story short, several years ago, I sold my e-commerce business and turned my side-hustle branding studio into my full-time work. It felt like the best life I could have.
I usually woke up fully excited. After my morning routine (which took 2h), I dived into a state of flow, doing creative projects I loved. I was working between 2 and 4 hours and enjoyed my life. I had the freedom to work from anywhere, so I started to travel more.
The money was good and my life was comfortable. That’s the dream the creator economy is trying to sell. I was living the life people write glowing threads about.
But in those quiet moments of fulfillment I realized something that nobody is talking about: passion is crap. By that I don’t mean that you should do work that you hate, but passion alone is just not enough.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was so I summarized it under a feeling of unfulfilled potential.
I was making brands look good. I was helping businesses become more successful. It was good work, creative work, even fulfilling work. But was it the impact I was meant to make? Was I really fulfilling my potential?
The answer was a clear (and uncomfortable) no.
I had built a great life and business. I enjoyed the freedom that many creators would die for. But continuing to live this dream felt like I was living a story that has become too small for me. It led me straight into a search for a deeper meaning.
Being Lost is Part of the Process
My search started with brainstorming. Fueled by endless specialty coffee and dopamine, every new idea seemed brilliant. This was my own experience of what I call “Exploration Phase” (although "WTF-Am-I-Doing-With-My-Life" Phase would be more fitting).
First, I tried to play the logical game: scaling my studio. I drew up plans to go international. Working against my own advice, I told myself to “position horizontally.” The truth was that I didn’t have a clear target audience. My goal was to help founders build a purpose-driven brand and business.
I went to business meetups trying to pitch new clients… and felt like an imposter. Who am I to talk about purpose-driven branding? My background was e-commerce and my portfolio reflected that. I told myself it was a mindset issue.
But thinking about the idea made me realize another issue: scaling would mean a bigger team, more management and distracting me from the work I love to do.
That sounded like a new cage in the making.
So I pivoted to the next “great idea.” I became obsessed with the intersection of exponential technologies and purpose. I went to the meetups again. This time I got a lot of positive feedback. People were interested, they gathered around, they asked for my contact info. This was a clear sign of validation.
But the voice in my head knocked again. The idea was aligned with my passion and intellectual cause, but not my lived story. It felt like starting from zero, without my most valuable asset. I had no lived experience, no hard-won wisdom to share.
A passion is not the same as a calling. I realized I couldn’t build a sustainable body of work on intellectual curiosity alone.
I was trying to teach a transformation I never experienced myself.
This led me back to my area of expertise. I decided to create an online course for e-commerce sellers on how to build a brand rooted in strategy and purpose. It was the logical next step in the creator playbook. Productize your knowledge.
The creative part was a joy. I spent weeks designing the sales page, lost in flow state. Then it was time to optimize the copy. I knew the audience wanted tactics and fast money. I knew the “7-Figure” claims worked.
So, I wrote them.
An inner battle began. The voice in my head went nuts. I was going against my own values. But then my rational mind kicked in with a genius idea:
“I’ll sell them what they want (money), and deliver what they need (purpose).”
I told myself I would just do this now and slowly shift later. This is called self-deception (or lying to yourself if you want). The truth was I was becoming one of the gurus I despised.
That’s when something dawned on me: it feels like a battle because I’m serving the wrong people.
The right path doesn’t require you to convince anyone. It’s an invitation. And I had been trying to invite an audience that craved quick fixes to a deep, transformative journey.
I was going in circles because I was busy and productive, doing the wrong thing. I was playing it safe and hiding from the real work.
The Wakeup Call
If I wanted to tell a great story I would tell you that there was a sudden moment of breakthrough where I became enlightened and my whole life changed. But we all know that real life doesn’t work like this. There were a lot of small moments, but one stands out in particular. It was a confrontation with mortality.
I had a moment where I was forced to look at the finite nature of my own life. It’s hard to put the experience in words, because it was a very emotional experience. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened, but I was suddenly stripped of every psychological protection. I could see reality sober and clear: I was going to die.
In this very moment it wasn’t a distant reality. Everything felt like as if I were doing it for the last time.
It wasn’t particularly pleasurable, but extremely sobering. And in that raw, clarifying space, a new kind of urgency was born. The vague feeling that “something was missing” transformed into the answer I needed:
Do the work only you can do. Now.
That really changed something for me. Not all at once, but a slow unfolding. My first act was to stop searching for a “better” business model. I needed a new way of being. The exploration was over. The path was right in front of me. In fact, it was there all the time. It doesn’t help to see your path. You need the courage to walk it. I realized that I would run out of time in whatever direction I chose.
And almost immediately, the universe sent a test.
A new client came along. He wanted high-end product photography as many clients do. I was hesitant but he assured me he was interested in developing a strategy and brand later. So I took the project. My team and I poured our hearts into it, creating an A+ strategic and visual concept. Work a client usually pays 10x the price.
We were proud of the work. His reaction: “The colors don’t seem to fit.”
In creative work it’s not uncommon that the client is not (immediately) thrilled with your ideas. So I dug deeper, but he couldn’t articulate what he wanted. I was a philosopher trying to sell art to a day-trader. After two Zoom calls trying to understand his vague feedback, he delivered me the line I needed to hear:
“To be honest, I don’t care about the colors, as long as it increases my revenue.”
This hit me hard, because it stripped down the illusion I was still holding on to. In that moment I finally got the lesson. He was basically telling me: “I’m not the right audience for what you are trying to do.”
Following your path demands courage to make hard decisions. My path required me to be willing to let go of anyone who didn’t want to go deep. I realized that no amount of money was worth the psychic cost of trying to force my purpose into a container that couldn’t hold it. That unrewarding project brought me immense clarity. I was ready to make some radical changes.
How I Ended Up on Substack
During my exploration phase another project was born: Serapex. Back then it was lacking the clarity that I now gained. It was focused on my story but not my real calling.
My idea was to help people build an online business where your interests, passion and purpose overlap aka. what Dan Koe does but different. The articles are still online (please don’t read them).
First I tried to build my brand on Instagram, reviving an old Instagram account. I remember opening the app to post and thinking: “What the fuck are you doing here?”
A mentor told me that IG is now all about Reels. Just the thought of dancing for the algorithm, of creating 30-second videos about deep psychological concepts, felt absurd. I knew I wouldn’t have the energy to sustain such an inauthentic practice.
Next, I focused on X. The vibe seemed better, more intellectual. But my feed quickly pissed me off. It felt like a global convention of imposters. Eighteen-year-olds selling life advice, “gurus” with bios bragging about the millions they supposedly made for clients. Everyone was trying to sell a transformation they never experienced. It was a sea of superficial platitudes and trolls.
How could I build an authentic brand on platforms I didn’t even want to use?
It was at that point I found Substack. I heard about it before but never gave it a real thought. I took a closer look and it felt like a great match. The only problem was that I’m not a naturally gifted writer. I thought fuck it, it seems like a skill that’s worth acquiring.
I decided to fully embrace Substack. No other platforms. No bullshit. Just a commitment to exploring my own story. And it felt amazing.
Authenticity is less about what you do and more about what you refuse to do.
Authenticity sounds great in theory but is much harder in practice. And while authenticity is important it makes for a shitty standard. How do you determine if you are authentic or not?
Passion, authenticity, happiness… all these things are byproducts of building a body of work. The act of creation is the main event.
Beyond Authenticity
Instead of creating a separate work of art, many creators make their own life and internal conflicts the product. This leads to a tormenting, hyper-aware self-consciousness. As a result they drift into burnout.
The most recent trend in the creator economy is authenticity and so far it has resulted in anything but authenticity. Everyone is shouting the same empty platitude: “Just be yourself.” It’s well meant but completely useless. Who else would you be?
But the biggest problem is that it keeps you stuck.
"Be yourself" is not the destination.
I have been circling in this stage for years. I read more psychology than my therapist. I could name every pattern I was caught in. I refused social media, the gurus and the funnels. That a sneaky trap because I felt like I already figured out what I meant to do.
I started to call this state Sophisticated Procrastination. You are productive doing the wrong thing, because your work has no criterion. “Be yourself” gives you no way to know whether today’s work was right. Without a criterion there is nothing to finish against, so you prepare instead.
Be yourself cannot be wrong, and that is the problem with it. It asks nothing. You already are yourself. You were yourself the entire time you were stuck.
Refusal got me off Instagram and X. It also got me out of my comfortable niche. But refusal only tells you what you are not.
The answer is not more authenticity. It is self-construction against a self-made standard. Determination from oneself, not expression of oneself. You choose and build your own ideal that you then follow.
It takes a tremendous amount of self-awareness and honesty to build an ideal that actually fits your nature, rather than one you just think looks good on paper. That kind of honesty has nothing to do with posting your feelings online. It means admitting I wrote those 7-figure claims and meant to send them.
Yes, I built my Substack and business, but they are just a byproduct of creating my life’s work. I’m building a reality of my own that makes me independent, yet still allows me to live in the real world without constantly clashing with it. It's a working relationship between my creative force, my resistance, and my overarching goals.
That’s why I keep repeating that the business is not the point. What if everything works out according to the dream of the creator economy? Money doesn’t cut it. Passion doesn’t cut it. Authenticity neither. You end up stuck because you don’t know where to move. You supposedly arrived, but you feel empty.
There is nothing waiting under there to be uncovered. You make it.
Your business should be a vessel for your life’s work, not a prison of your own making. To do that, you have to know the difference between the performance you give for the algorithm and who you actually are.
I created The Archetype Navigator to give you the right vocabulary. It’s free and takes less than 5 minutes to uncover your natural pattern, so you can build a body of work that actually looks like you. It might save you years of climbing the wrong ladder.
The life that feels most like yours may not be the one that looks best from the outside.
Using your own lived experience for illustration/contrast, you've put your finger on something I've been seeing a lot lately, too: authenticity as just another desperate branding gimmick. Just as the common wisdom says, "Notice how someone treats you when you have nothing they can use; when you are useless to them," mutatis mutandis, "Notice what kind of authentic someone is when the authenticity mask slips."
Poetry writing is an interesting case study, an authenticity laboratory from one end to the other. There's no way around making your own life lived-in and accessible enough to offer space for others; making something of your own sense(s) of things well enough for others to feel them with you. This is subtly different than making your own life and internal conflicts the product.
I've gotten a lot out of Marvin Bell's "32 Statements About Writing Poetry" over the years. My favorites change from season to season, but I return again and again to 20: "At heart, poetic beauty is tautological: it defines its terms and exhausts them." And 21: "The penalty for education is self-consciousness. But it is too late for ignorance."