Are You A Producer or Consumer?
By: August Birch
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Business, Self Improvement, Small Business, Startup

There are two types of people in this world, and only one will be successful

Photo by Markus Lompa on Unsplash

I love to watch YouTube content. I’ll never stop my passion for learning. The rest of my family loves on-demand content too. On any given night, you’ll see us piled in the bed, scrolling and tapping through our favorite shows, searching for the one, perfect piece of content to serve the evening.

There are too many choices — more content than we could ever watch in a lifetime.

But at night, they’ve got us. We’re nothing but consumers. We digest all the media we can handle, until we fall asleep. This is the consumption side. We are on the receiving end of the people who create the content — the ones who earn the money.

No one is either a one-hundred percent producer or consumer. We all produce and consume throughout the day. But work level isn’t fifty-fifty. We all gravitate towards one side or the other.

Entrepreneurs and business owners are producers.

No matter what we create, we’re putting new products into the world, that hopefully make life better for the people we serve. When you’re a creator, you’re also a producer.

It doesn’t matter if you make videos, books, paintings, jewelry, apps, or you own a service-based business — if you’re on the do-ing side, you’re a producer. Producers need consumers to be successful. We can’t do it without them. If there’s no one to buy our goods and services, the whole financial model crumbles.

It’s not like being either a producer or consumer is a bad thing.

This is a question of what you want from your life. How successful do you want to be? You have choices along the way. You either work for someone who uses your time/effort/expertise to make themselves successful, or you become the person to use the time/effort/expertise of others to grow your success.

If you want to sell stuff, you’ve got to make stuff.

If you want to make stuff, you’ve got to build a tribe around your work. And if you want to be worthy of a tribe, you better have good reason for people to flock to you. None of this stuff happens with magic.

The world is full of consumers.

Being a consumer is easy. You sit and wait. You take what you want. Being a producer is hard. There’s no linear path. The road to the top is fraught with failure. You can’t ever put your guard down. You can’t stop growing. You can’t stop improving.

But there’s so much room at the top.

The air is clear. You don’t have to compete at the bottom for the low-hanging scraps. Your definition of success is different than mind, and that’s OK. Maybe you want a little automatic income. Maybe you want a yacht in your front yard. Doesn’t matter what you’re after. There’s only one way to get there.

Producers forge their own path.

Consumers wait and, well, consume.

Producers decide the price, the distribution, and the terms of use. As consumers all we can do is consume what’s available. I choose being a producer. I don’t want to wait-around anymore for my noon feeding. I don’t want my life at the mercy of the privileged few who get to make stiff. I want to make stuff too.

I know not everything I make will work. Most of it won’t. That’s the cost.

But I will have a few wins and I’ll keep working to earn those. At the end of the day I’ll still decompress as a consumer. But the choice is deliberate. Most of my day is spent on the other side of the desk — the one with the big ‘P’ on the wall.

A producer’s life is one of abundance, while a consumer’s life is one of scarcity. There are only so many chips in the bag. So many episodes in the season. So many dollars in the account. As a producer, if I need money to buy something, all I have to do is create a new product and earn the money.

Consumers must wait to be paid a fixed amount. There’s nothing extra.

As consumers, we work for a fixed amount. We get what we’re given. There’s no room for abundance.

When we adopt a producer’s mindset there’s nothing but abundance. There’s no limit to the work we can create. We can grow the number of people we serve. We can automate our sales process, so we don’t have to be in the room at the moment of consumption.

It’s a question of time-management. The more time you allocate to being a producer, the more you’ll be successful. Sure, you’ll screw-up a lot. But if you’re a producer, you can’t help but reach the goals you aim for.

It’s time to adopt a producer’s mindset if you want to be successful.

We’re waiting for you.