Because it must be done

Make sure your plan is solid before you leap. (University of Washington Libraries)

I started teaching music lessons because it was a skill I had that matched what people were looking for.

Once I moved to my new city, it took a few months for people to find me, but after that, I had all the students I needed.

I didn't leave it there, though. I took a next step: What about all of the people whom I couldn't serve because I already had too many students? I needed to find a solution for them.

Or so I thought.

I could have done this in a way that created a win for me and a win for my clients. Or even a three-way win, by providing leads to other music teachers.

What happened, in expanding my music school to include additional teachers, was that I created wins for the clients and the music teachers — and spent many years working for free to serve these two groups.

I changed my business model in this way based only on the sort of arrogant idea that it needed to be done and I needed to be the one to do it. That kind of attitude works for a social movement or a cause, but it doesn't work for a business unless there is a profit to be made. Otherwise, the enterprise is not sustainable. In the long term, you'll actually cause problems for people with the thing you're trying to do.

These days, therefore, I'm wary of any business enterprise or even work of art created out of a sense of duty. It may serve the community for a time, but at a certain point, it will break because it's fundamentally flawed. A business with no profit isn't a business — it's a hobby in which multiple livelihoods may hang in the balance. It's unstable and precarious.

I am, of course, looking out through the lens of my own experience here. Maybe other people can make this kind of mission-driven, low-margin project work by their own definition. Maybe they're constructing their company this way intentionally. But I feel a responsibility to help the others learn from my mistakes. If you are doing a thing solely because it must be done, then do it altruistically, period. Don’t hope that there will be some kind of profit in it for you eventually. Most likely, there won't be.

I'm not going to say that I would do it differently if I were to do it again. My music school has been around for twenty years — I'm proud of it. And at this point, I've learned from my suffering. I wouldn't want to lose those lessons. But I didn't need to suffer that much, and I wouldn't do it again today. I would start a business that has a clear path to profit, or I would put my energy into charity work. I wouldn't try to mash those things together in one entity.

Even outside of the realm of business, there are conversations we might feel we need to step into, gifts of time and wisdom that we might feel we need to give, or obligations we believe we must satisfy. Certainly, like the ”divers” of Chernobyl, we might step forward and offer to risk our very lives for the greater good. But we ought to be clear that this is what we're doing if we're doing it, and we might as well make sure that there are no other options before we resort to martyrdom.

I must have thought, on some level, that my hard work would be rewarded in time. But that’s not how it goes. People just say, “Thanks,” and move on. They are fulfilling their side of the agreement, which does not require them to give more than they agreed to just because you’re giving more than you really can or want to.

Personal sacrifice can be a meaningful and noble act. But quietly giving up everything is not, in itself, praiseworthy. If it accomplishes nothing, it could just be foolish.

We may believe that something must be done. But there may be many ways to accomplish that thing, and it may not even be our job to accomplish it. In all but the most extreme circumstances*, we don't have to put aside our own best interests to do it. What we want and need matters, too.

* I don't count kids needing music lessons as "extreme circumstances." Not anymore.