Are you struggling to handle the reality of being a creator or performer while holding down a full-time traditional job? You're not alone. In so many ways, it can feel like your traditional career is a step back or even a punishment from God for not having faith enough to step out and do creator work full-time. But there's another side to this common struggle. And we're talking about it on today's episode of the God and Gate Show. And by the end of this episode, you'll see that having a full-time nine-to-five job might not mean that you're only giving partial effort to your God-given creative goals. For the last two weeks or so, this has been showing up on my feed of people sharing how difficult it is to make that mental and emotional shift from everybody cheering with you, singing with you. Maybe if it's not performing, maybe it's uh speaking, maybe it's whatever in your creative element that you're just enjoying yourself. And then flip the page, it's back to Monday, it's back to a 9 to5 corporate, it's back to n those two people who are gifted singers and friends of mine are in corporate situations. They're filing, they're health insurance, they're doing office work. I've seen many where people are doing pool work, doing manufacturing in a warehouse, they're in a retail situation. That's just regular full-time 9-to-five work. And it's always feels weird even when I say regular, right? Because I don't want to and I you'll see this in my points in a second. This is not to demean those other forms of work cuz many of you are in those forms and you're saying that's what I do and I enjoy it. It's not lower, but this is where so many of us, the way that so many of us performers struggle is because of the disconnect between the artist and the responsibility of I got to pay the bills. I got to do this totally different job that I'm either good at or I have to do, but it does not fit what I feel God has called me to do in the creative realm. Now this literal platform God and gigs is written or created was written and a book was written because of this dichotomy between religious spiritual work in the church and doing secular/ mainstream work as a creative as a musician. So this entire platform has always been about how do you balance the two worlds of doing one thing and then doing another thing or how do you keep your values intact as you do both. Now this is not necessarily switching between music and you know music inside the church and music outside the church as my first book was but it is about trying to keep your mindset clear between doing what you do as a creator and what you most likely are doing to pay the bills or whatever either reason that you are lifestyle. So good to see Micah in the building and um he said my church is too good to be ashamed. I love it. Look, he's already talking real. We are already talking real. So Michael from Jacksonville uh has been on the podcast by the way. I want I can't remember which episode you were on, but you shared about your lifestyle about how you have managed to work in your creative lifestyle on your clothing brand even while also keeping your other full-time job which is also in the same industry. Go check that out. If you go look up Micah's um look up Micah's episode and you'll be able to see what we're talking about. So, I do have some points on this. So, I want to make sure you guys follow me here. I'm going to try to go both spiritually in terms of how creators and artist performing artists generally. We're talking mostly performing artists, but that's okay if we're not talking about specifically performing artists and you feel like, okay, this doesn't have anything to do with me because I don't sing. But most likely you have some creative gift that you have to set aside at times, right? You start with this is what I love to do. I love to sing, write, dance, play, whatever that is creatively. And then on the other side, I got to pay bills. I got to be in the office. I got to do this is the first PL point I want to make sure that we make clear. Um, so we're going to kind of make sure you have a a term for this. And what we're talking about is biocational life. When I say biocational, I simply mean doing two different jobs. So when you see this, I want you to make sure you all feel the understanding of a biocational life. You can be called to more than one thing. A vocation is literally that. It means to call vocal, right? So Latin means to be called. So your vocation is a calling. And here's where I want to make sure that you guys hear my heart on You are called to be a creator. But before you're called to be a creator, you're called to live a life of fulfillment, of productivity, and of giving honor to God. That's truly our calling first before you have the specific callings of a particular job or career. So God didn't call you to be just a creative. He called us to be sons and daughters of him and his his plan and purpose in the world and then we walk it out in certain ways. So first I want to make sure that you see that a bio vocational life is an asset not an indictment. Just because you have to do or find yourself in two different areas does not mean that your first calling whatever you want to call it which you feel is your highest calling what might be to creative life to creative work to singing to playing to dancing um to theater right just because you are called and you have a certain skill set and God gave it to you does not mean if you adopt another career and another vocation that you have suddenly alien alienated yourself from the first one. And I've got scripture to back me up on all of these because there are so many prophets and teachers and major characters of the Bible who were We could easily start right beside Genesis and Moses and Exodus, right? We can start right there and say right there that Moses was called. But of course, before he was called to be the leader of Israel, he was a shepherd, right? He was out there, what my preachers like to say, on the back side of the desert. before he was even a deliverer of people, he was also a prince and he was learning all the ways of Egypt, which is the only reason that God, not the only reason, but one of the key reasons that God was able to call him to be this one to speak to Pharaoh was because he knew how Pharaoh worked. He had been raised in the Egyptian courts. So his biocational nature was an asset, not a liability. So this is where I want to make sure that you guys are seeing already that in scriptural is and and the way of looking at scripture doing two different things does not mean you're alienated from your calling. It actually might be the thing that you should be leaning into understanding that God's called you to these two different areas, but you can still operate in both. So I can go to again, let's jump ahead to Jesus. If you look at what Jesus did, Jesus was a carpenter son, a artisticians, right? He was the carpenter in the Hebrew, the way that we looked at it in the Bible, wasn't really like just like making wood. It was more like a mason, more like someone who built and created things. So you think of someone who was a woodworker, a stone worker, a stone craftsman might be a better word for it. So even Jesus was biocational. It makes it clear even when they started his ministry that other people supported his needs which means other people had to stay in their business. Even though Paul I mean Peter and James all them left their fisherman nets other people had to do the work that a normal person would do to raise funds to be able to do the work of the ministry. And again we're not talking about only ministry. I'm just giving you where bioivocational life is the pattern. It's the pattern. Even the priests in the Old Testament that were when when when they aged out, I guess you could say, the Bible says they went back to their fields. So priests even even in the Bible had this understanding that hey if I'm not working in the temple I'll be working over here outside of these particular areas of ministry. So if biocational life is acceptable for the preachers for the prophets and even for Jesus why wouldn't it be acceptable for the creatives? Why wouldn't it be understood that creators aren't always going to be in a creative space? That it's actually the assumption that at some point each one of these faith leaders was also called and basically told I guess it's total were forced to work in other areas. So that's the first kind of like foundational thing I want to make sure that we say that you have to be clear with yourself inside yourself that being in two different areas and this is where we kind of talk about identity versus worrying about feeling like you are not called to be a creative if you've got a full-time job. This is about mindset. So that's the first thing that being a biocational person is an asset not an indictment. The second thing, doing work with a spirit of honor honors God. Why am I saying this? Because once again, we got to make sure that we don't have the wrong picture of the work we're doing outside of our creative work. Here's where I can tell you a little bit about about my story. So, as some of you know, I started uh after college straight into I gave up any idea of performing and my my band had kind of broken up and it was just like, okay, we're not going to make money doing this being a, you know, being trying to be like Prince and the Time and Earthwind and Fire like that's not going to work. We're going to go ahead and just break up the band. And I went straight into teaching as a full-time teacher. Now you might say, "Okay, that's close to being creative because I was a music teacher." But as you all the teachers know, there's very little music. Music that goes into the music profession is 99.9% just teaching and tests and lesson plans and maybe there's a tiny bit of creativity that you can do when it comes to working with the kids and writing music for them and sudden such. But that wasn't really my creative bent. Right now teaching was as all intents and purposes a traditional job. All this time, of course, I was performing uh well, not performing, I was ministering. I wasn't doing gigs yet. So, I was ministering in church. So, that was my creative outlet was in church. All that to say that as I started to realize that, wow, okay, I'm in these two areas, I need to make sure I give while I am in the area that I'm in. So, I could not give half of my attention to teaching while trying to think of, you know, um, oh, what are we going to sing tonight? What are we going to play tonight? I needed to be fully present in my classroom to give the students what they deserved. I had to be fully present. Now that I do um, church work, but I'm in the office is again might say, okay, well, you're a creative and you get to be inside the church. That's great. like doing receipts and all that kind of stuff is not the creative part. And so there's so much of this where you have to say to yourself, okay, I'm here. I have to do this. I am in a place where I'm paying the bills. I'm taking care of this. How do I show up and honor where I am and do what the Bible says, which is do everything as unto the Lord. So, I would love to hear some comments, by the way, whether you've ever struggled with showing up inside a noncreative space fully present. Because the reason I'm saying doing work with a spirit of honor honors God means whatever work you're doing if it's corporate if it's warehouse it's whatever if it's not your the why the the way to get out of that kind of feeling that you don't belong and that is so hard to put down your mic and pick up a uh a spreadsheet is whether or not you can show up fully in both areas not feeling like you're missing out on something. If you're doing the work with a spirit of honor and that you honor God, God gives you the understanding that you're not suddenly less loving, less loving, less loved. You're not less honored and you're not honoring God less when you are operating in a noncreator atmosphere. So, doing that work with a spirit of honor means you show up with your full self even when you're not doing the work you're passionate about. And this is where, like I said, it may be a kind of like a harsh reminder, but I hope Thank you so much. See you, Terry. Thank you for joining us from Columbus, Ohio. Um, this is where I want to make sure that again that I address not whether you should work a full-time job to survive or whether artists should make full-time incomes, but let's address where you are. Let's address that you are working a full-time job, that you are trying to balance all the things that are going on in your life. And if you see it through the right lens, God can use it as an asset to your creator lifestyle. And this is why I've used this term for like the last year now, maybe a year and a half. When I say my creator lifestyle, your creator lifestyle can include full-time work and not have anything to take away from what God called you to in that creative space as a musician, as an artist, as a singer. That does not take away from your calling. Your identity is not just in your creative work. Okay? So that's why I want to make sure that you have this mindset that doing work with a spirit of honor, you honor the work that you do. You honor the boss that you're performing for. You honor the person that you are doing the spreadsheets for. You honor the person that you show up to do the taxes or do the the warehousing. And you don't show up with kind of like this, oh god, you know, I can't wait till I get out of here so I can finally go out there and play and sing and do what I was called to do. Because I just mentioned, you're called to pretty much any area that you're working in for that moment. It may sound very, very, very presumptuous for me to say this, but I think I'm on good ground to say if that you are called at least to give it a spirit of honor and to show up 100% even if it's not going to be your full-time job for a long time. So, that is where God really can show up and show you how to build the character that will sustain you should you go into full-time creator work. Because trust me, full-time creator work is not all bells and whistles and fun and singing on stage either. It is a lot of drudgery, a lot of things that don't feel like a lot of fun. And so, God could be building your character to prepare for that, but you have to do it with a spirit of honor to honor God. So, that's the second step. Okay. Here's a third thing for those of you who are working full-time jobs to make sure you're not feeling this timer. It's driving me crazy. I apologize. I just don't know why this got set up for everything. Don't forgive me as I connect because I get, you know, all thrown off by just little things. All I want to make sure again that people who are working full-time jobs, you're hearing me as a creator. If you are trying to get on tours, if you're trying to work for bands, if you're trying to work as a solo artist, if you're working on your creative, you're a songwriter, you're a writer, and you're feeling like, okay, I'm not making enough income as a creative, so now I've got this full-time job to kind of pay the bills, and I feel like this is like a Let me be clear that working a full-time job is a key to creator success. I see you, Terry. I'm going to bring up this comment. I love this is literally on the point that I'm on right now. Now, if you feel that doing full-time work in terms of a 9 to5 is a distraction from your creator lifestyle or the work that you want to do, the passion you want to do, what you need to understand is unless you have that stability, you're going to be so so so so stressed in being able to focus on being a creator full-time. And again, it's kind of like a dichotomy, a weird kind of like, you know, irony that if you are more stable in terms of your full-time job, you will have more ability to kind of farm out and and and try things in your creator work because you're not depending on the creator work to finance itself while you are working on things. This is the benefit of those oils who have these full-time positions while we're working out our creator It let it it keeps Lese and I just had this discussion uh a little while ago about our different businesses. The fact that you have another income source gives you freedom to make mistakes, to try things out and your creator work so that it doesn't kill you if it doesn't work out. So being financially responsible and having those bills paid by other areas is actually a key to success because it gives you maybe not the time you want, but it gives you the the foundation and the safety net. And some people might call it a plan B, but I want you to get out of your head. Doesn't mean that you're just doing this because you have to. Means it's Strategically, you're saying, "I'm not going to give up this particular position until I figure out which way will be the best way to build income from my creator work." And while that's happening, I'm bringing 100% of my best work to my full-time position. And I'm seeing this not in the lens of either or versus, but I'm seeing this as a this is a doorstep, a stepping stone, continually developing my entire being and identity so I can do the work that I want to do and do the work that I'm called to do. but never feeling like it is like a step back when I have to step into these full-time positions to make sure that I'm financially responsible. So, that's kind of a message. I hope that I'm saying this in the right way to kind of give you a more nuance and a more a more balanced perspective on the full-time positions that you have to take. This does not mean that I'm trying to say that singing is is like the same as, you know, doing They are two different different profession. They do bring two different emotional connections that obviously many of us in the creative space we want to feel and connect with the creator work that we do because that what makes us feel more fulfilled. But I want to make sure that we never get so enamored of the creator work that we forget that it is technically just work. We get so f so much desire to be fulfilled by the work of being a creator that we realize we forget that it's still work and the work that you do for someone else is just as anointed just can be just as fulfilling maybe not in terms of creatively but in terms of serving others as the work that you do for your creator lifestyle. So I want to bring up this comment from Terry. working a regular job has actually opened up opportunities to use the musical gift as a musician to share in particular events in the workplace. That's so true. Isn't it interesting that like when people realize that you're a musician, you're a creator, that usually inside your workplace, you become a little bit of a mini celebrity because so many people love the fact that you are doing something else other than just the work and they love to see that, hey, you have this other part of your life. I saw this um mentioned by some of the other people on some of these memes uh in Instagram that their workers co-workers wouldn't even recognize them if they saw them in their performer personas. And I think that's kind of okay because sometimes you don't want to share with your your co-workers. But there are other times that you should be okay with them knowing, hey, when I'm not here, I'm doing poetry, I'm doing art, I'm filming, I'm doing this other stuff in my creative work that is not necessarily going to be something that actually benefits the the company. I maybe I won't be doing this inside the company, but it gives me more skills. It gives me more perspective. It gives me a wider view of the world that again can help you connect with people inside your business, outside your business and so on. So I want to make sure that you guys see this as an asset, not a liability. And we had a lot of great discussion on this. I want to finish it off with this. Remember, remember remember because I have felt this the same way when I left my full-time position in the school system to start homeschooling my kids, which was my full-time job back then. And then I left doing that to do part-time in our church and then full-time in our church. And then after that, I went part-time once again to being a musician and then full-time back to being in church. At every point, my identity did not determine my destiny. My identity, in other words, was not based on where I was right then. My identity was solid in I am a child of God. Now, what I do with my identity changes with the environment that I find myself in. So, as a creator, there are sometimes I found myself in a nineto-ive position. It didn't make me any less a creator. I was just a creator in that position doing something else where I was exercising other parts of my skill set. So, I think one of the biggest issues is our mindset. If I'm in an environment, my identity has shifted. That's not true. Your identity is the same. Your environment has shifted. You do different things, but you're the same person called by God, still called bivocational. You are multiaceted, and you are able to navigate these other areas of your life without feeling like you have lost something because you are financially taking care of your bills or just pursuing another skill inside a
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