Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Do What You -Love- What You Do

What do you love? Is gardening, cooking, or sewing your joy? How about rock-climbing or driving? What do you love doing?

I hate to hear people say that you cannot get paid doing x or y thing. You can get paid to do anything. Income is not the issue. Passion and dedication usually are. When I'm speaking at corporate meetings, the first thing I ask the employees is if they are doing what they love. Those who say no are usually the least effective at their jobs because there are always going to be times when jobs seem tedious, even when you love it. However, when you love it, you get that extra push to keep you faithful and dedicated. When you do not love it, those tedious days will drain you of creativity and dedication.

There are three ways to make money at your passion:

1) Do/Make it and sell it (self-employed)

2) Teach others to do/make it and sell it in a book and/or seminars (people employed)

3) Work for a company that specializes in what you love (employed by company)

How you do it is up to you, but don't let your options pass you by.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great points. I knew a man once whom others thought was a "sell out" because he worked a job versus starting his own business. He knew he wasn't a sell out because he loved his job. He was a mailman and he would often say, "What job lets you get outside every day without breaking your back, lets you meet and greet people, and provides a steady paycheck?" He was happy and content.

When they'd push him to start a business he'd say, "Some people are chiefs and some people are the cheif's people. I am the chief's people."

That didn't make him a sell out. He wasn't a sell out because a. he absolutely loved what he did for a living and b. he knew what made him happy.

As for me, I write for a living. I write just enough to help with the family budget but not so much that it rules over my life. I like the balance. It took awhile for me to get it...to realize that I am not selling out by not being rich and/or famous in the field.