Can I Be an Artist and an Entrepreneur at the Same Time? Meaning: Can I Be Myself?

A few years ago, while coordinating a major cultural project, I had to meet a new-to-me administrative requirement: a financial audit. We hired a specialist accounting firm, and I handed over the general budget, a detailed cost breakdown, and every invoice and receipt—each labeled with matching codes so everything was easy to trace.

The accountant looked at me, eyebrows raised.
“That’s the most organised documentation I’ve ever seen from the arts sector,” he said. “Maybe you should switch from arts to bookkeeping?” He meant it as a joke—but he unleashed a declaration.

I told him about my love for numbers, for Excel spreadsheets, and math problems. I even told him how, when I was a child, my dad and I would sit at the table—hands flat, no finger-counting allowed—and multiply big numbers in our heads. Once we both had our answers, we’d write them on slips of paper and compare. Three hundred twenty-nine times eighty-seven. Try that without a calculator or a pen. It was a mental gym we did together, and at the end of that near-painful concentration, there was a reward: an answer. No ambiguity. Just right or wrong.

When I was structuring my book—a collection of stories, vignettes, and poems—my friend and writing mentor suggested I print everything out and hang it on the walls, so I could physically step inside the book. It was beautiful advice. Romantic. I imagined myself, the writer, pacing a room of floating pages. But when I tried it, I felt nothing but lost. I’ve never been great with spatial thinking. My brain doesn’t work that way—it works in sequences. In tracks, timelines, logic, equations. So I did it my way. I wrote the first line of each piece on a little square, like a puzzle piece. Then I sat on the floor and played. I built a train. I mapped a timeline. I shaped a structure—just like I would a budget.

Recently, a friend who works with startups told me something fascinating: many of the founders she’s met secretly dream of becoming musicians. It struck a chord. I’ve known engineers who became brilliant novelists. I am a poet who would like to be a CFO. I didn’t set out to love numbers than I love words—but here I am. And for a long time, that confused me. I felt split in two. An impostor in both worlds.

Can I be an artist and an entrepreneur at the same time?

That question carries another meaning for me:

Can I be myself?