The Number You're Too Scared to Calculate
Why financial fog keeps you playing it safe and how one number can set you free to make your best work
PART 1: The Number That Changed Everything For Me
How Not Knowing Your Financial Baseline Keeps You From Creative Mastery
Heya, friend,
I’m writing to you from somewhere over Oklahoma, on my way to Texas for work. Like the shower, I find that I do my best thinking on a plane, looking down at quilt patches of farmland below. This time around, I found myself thinking about money and cash-flow (something I think about a lot).
I also wondered: how do other creatives handle their cash-flow. Do most creatives know how much money they need to make to cover the cost of running their business? How familiar are they with their numbers?
By ‘numbers’, I don’t mean a vague sense of “I should probably charge more.” I mean, sitting down with a calculator and figuring out: What does my life cost? What do I need to sustain this life?
For the longest time, I didn’t know my number either. I was guessing. I would shut my eyes. Hoping. Saying yes to everything and wondering why I was so tired.
I reckon not knowing your numbers affects not only your bank account but also limits what you’re willing to create as an artist. Which is why I’m starting a multipart series on money.
First, let’s begin with a concept that changed how I think about financial struggle.
If talking about money gives you hives, check out this episode about money mindset.
Near Wins and Financial Fog
Sarah Lewis, the art historian and author of The Rise (have you read it?), writes about something she calls “the near win.”
It’s that moment when you almost succeed but don’t quite. For those who almost win a race, or almost make it, there’s a gap between where you are and where you want to be that drives mastery forward. A near win tells you what to adjust, what to try next, how to iterate to win the next race.
In the case of an artist, who is refining a technique or an inventor getting closer with each prototype, the near win generates information. It creates hunger. It pushes your practice forward.
However, Sarah Lewis reminds us that not all struggle is productive struggle. Which brings us back to talking about the Benjamins.
When you don’t know your financial number, when you have no baseline for what you need to make, you’re not experiencing a near win.
Rather, you’re likely experiencing constant financial freefall. And let me tell you, a freefall doesn’t generate mastery. It generates a whole lot of panic.
It’s harder to experiment when you don’t know if you can cover rent. It may be tougher to pitch weird ideas when every project needs to stick that landing. You can’t turn down soul-crushing work when you’re operating in fog.
Financial fog makes you play it safe. It forces you to say yes to everything because you don’t have enough information to say no strategically.
How Financial Clarity Changed My Creative Work
About fifteen years ago, when I decided to go full force with being an artist, I finally sat down to calculate my real number. Now these numbers took into consideration what my actual life cost.
These days, I find that I need to do the same year after year.
Knowing meant that I could suddenly evaluate opportunities strategically instead of desperately. That editorial assignment that paid poorly but looked prestigious? I could see it as not a stepping stone but as a distraction. That commercial project that felt creatively empty but paid well? I could take it without resentment because I knew exactly how it fit my annual plan.
Financial clarity didn’t make me more cautious. It made me braver.
Lewis talks about how artists need to understand the difference between “failure” (the end) and “the near win” (the generator). When you know your financial number, you can distinguish between projects that move you toward mastery and projects that just keep you treading water.
From there, it’s easier to create your own near wins and to take calculated risks because you’ve calculated what you can actually risk.
How I Learned to Talk About Money (Spoiler: It Took Years)
I love talking about money. Which is wild because I used to hate money.
Growing up without much money, I carried so much shame. Like, somehow not having it meant something about my worth as a person. Money felt like an unfair advantage. Having it meant you were smart and had your life together; not having it meant you’d somehow failed or were less than.
But I got really lucky. Growing up, I had access to financial literacy programs through Upward Bound. I lucked out on free classes where I learned about budgets, compound interest and the difference between needs and wants.
Years later, I worked for an organization where we met with economists from the National Institute of Aging. We discussed strategies on how to help more Americans save for retirement, and I’d just... listen. And take copious notes (as was my job). Through these meetings, I learned why people tend not to save, what psychological barriers got in their way, and how tiny changes shift financial behavior.
It was fascinating. And terrifying. Because I saw how universal these money struggles are. How we all make the same mistakes. How shame keeps us from even looking at our numbers. Essentially, I learned: you can’t price your work correctly if you don’t know your expenses.
Before I continue, please note that I am not a financial advisor. I’m simply sharing some mindset shifts and skills I learned that helped shape how I live as an artist.
The Question Most of Us Never Ask
What I see all the time:
A talented artist posts beautiful work. Someone reaches out about commissions. The artist panics, thinks “what sounds reasonable?” and throws out a number.
$200? $500? Whatever doesn’t sound too greedy.
But they never ask: “How many of these would I need to sell to pay my rent this month?”
Or the real question: “How many to cover rent AND groceries AND my student loan AND health insurance AND have enough left over to see a movie without feeling guilty?”
Most of us are pricing in a vacuum. We’re looking at what other artists charge (who are also guessing). Or we’re charging what “feels fair” without actually knowing what fair means for our specific life.
If the math doesn’t math. We may not have actually done the math.
Mastery Requires a Baseline
Here’s another concept from Lewis’s work, mastery does not require perfection. It does, however require constant and informed iteration.
You try something. You assess. You adjust. You try again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
But iteration requires information. You need to know what you’re iterating toward.
In creative work, that might mean understanding what “good” looks like in your medium. This means knowing what techniques to master and what your artistic voice sounds like.
In financial work (and running a creative business IS financial work) that means knowing your baseline. What does sustainability look like for you? What does thriving look like? How far are you from it?
Without that baseline, you’re not iterating. You’re just hoping. And let me tell you friend, hope is not a plan no matter what the vision boards say.
What’s Coming in This Series
Over the next three weeks, I’m breaking down everything I’ve learned about creative money management through the lens of what serves your creative practice:
Part 1 (this week): Why knowing your number matters for your creative work, and how financial clarity creates the conditions for creative risk-taking and mastery
Part 2 (next week): We’ll talk real numbers from three budget tiers (Survival, Sustainable, Thriving) and how to calculate yours. This is your baseline
Part 3 (week after): What to do when the math ain’t mathing! More importantly, how can you bridge the gap, to build multiple income streams, and make strategic choices that serve both your creative practice and your actual life
I hope through this series, you’ll get clear enough to distinguish between productive money struggle (the near win that drives mastery) and unproductive struggle (the financial fog that keeps you playing it safe).
Next week, we’ll talk budget tiers and I’ll walk walk you through calculating your own number. No judgment about where you are. I’m sharing just information you can use to start iterating strategically.
Quick question: Have you ever calculated your real annual revenue target? What’s stopped you? Do you have any money questions you’d like me to address in this essay?
Hit reply and tell me. I read everything.
Stay creative,
Martine