Wow, you’re NOT doing this as a full-time job!?

“Wow, you’re NOT doing this as a full-time job!?”

Someone said that to me recently, after discovering I lead a marketing team full time and Growth by Visuals is my side-passion. The shock is always genuine.

And I get it.

Because most social media advice sounds like you can only reach thousands of followers if you’re doing this full time:

• Post every day 3 times a day

• Shoot reels

• Use viral hooks

• Post at 8.37 pm exactly

• Create at least 4 stories a week

• Post to every platform

• Create 3 freebies as lead gens

To be honest, I never cared about any of this. I create because I like what I do.

My life is full. Young twins, a demanding job, a busy social life. I’m grateful for all of it, including the salary that lands on the first every month.

Because the paradox is that with my 9-5, I actually have more time, not less.

Here’s what I mean.

A full-time creator needs their content to work. Not eventually. Today. Their rent is due in thirty days. So they optimize for now. They chase what the algorithm rewards this week. They can’t afford to experiment on something that might not land, because six months from now the money runs out.

I have maybe forty-five minutes on a good evening. But those forty-five minutes are backed up by a salary that arrives every month, regardless of how my last post performed. So, I have time. I can post something that lands with twelve people, learn from it, and try again. I can spend months finding my voice. I can build something I actually care about instead of something I need to perform.

I see it like this:

Less time per day. More total runway. That’s the trade. And for most people just starting out, it’s the better one.

Lately I’ve been getting more questions about this than about the visuals themselves. Not “how do you make them” but “how do you actually do any of this alongside young kids and a full-time job.”

I’m thinking about writing all of it up properly. Not tips. The actual reasoning and systems behind how I make it work.

If that’s something you’d want to read, just hit reply or comment and let me know.

See you next time,

Hidde

P.S. Most people in my DMs also ask me when I’m quitting my 9-5. When I say that’s not really what I’m building toward, the surprise is usually even bigger.