- 50 Guerrilla Marketing Tactics You Should Be Using
- 5 tips to appear large on a small budget
- 101 New Years Business Resolutions
- From Passion To Profit: Getting Paid To Do What You Love
- 30 local resources you can't live without
- Acting On Emotion Can Be HARMFUL For Business
- Essential tools for the online bootstrapper
- Where the hell are you?
- Quotable Business: Taking That Risk
- 10 things your small business can learn from cage fighting
- Monday Marketing Tip: Underpromise and Overdeliver
- Can your small business run without you?
- Bartering for a better bootstrapped business
- Building an effective Guerrilla Marketing Strategy
From Passion To Profit: Getting Paid To Do What You Love
Posted in: Entrepreneurship
If you could pick one of your favorite hobbies or past times and turn it into a money making business, what would it be? Give yourself a moment to reflect on the things you love and ask yourself this one important question: Why am I not doing this already? Struggling in a 9-5 world may seem like the obvious solution to life since thats what has been pushed on us our whole lives, but really breaking down what you love in your life and turning it into a profitable business is exactly what we should all be doing.
Who has a 9-5 and hates getting up in the morning and getting ready for work? I know a lot of people like that and I bet you do too, if you’re not one of those people yourself. I always ask them why they’re not doing something different. I try to implant this into friends and family all the time when they see that I am on my own, doing what I love to do, answering to no one, and making money at it. Now, I want to give you some thoughts to take with you today on turning your passion into profit and hopefully I will spark the fire inside of at least one my readers here.
Brainstorming your life
One of the first things you need to do is break down everything in your life and figure out exactly what it is you love to do. Maybe you love writing stories or blogging about your life. You might also love music or sports. Some people I know love to cook. Regardless of what it is, take out a sheet of paper and write down everything you love to do. Don’t worry about making it in order or neat and clean yet; we’ll be forming this all together throughout this article.
Forming opinions on your list
Once you have a list completed of the things you love we’ll want to figure out what about these things really makes you love them. If you chose sports as something you love, you could break it down and put that you love the competition of the game, the strength you need or endurance and skill. Maybe you just like the lifestyle these players have. The object here is to fill out your sheet with as many ideas as possible. Again, don’t worry if you’ve got them in order of your favorite to least favorite, the point is just to get things down on paper.
Profit finding brainstorms
This is where it can either get really fun, or really stressful, depending on how you look at things. I hope you look at it in an enjoyable way, because after all, we’re working on getting you outside of the cubicle and doing what you love! What I want you to do is sit down with that paper and give yourself 5-10 minutes for each topic you wrote down and really think about any ideas that could make money. From big to small, don’t let any idea go unnoticed. If it’s as realistic as selling t-shirts with slogans for sports teams on it, or advertising on CNN.com, you need to get it all down on paper. These ideas might spark some other thoughts or profitable ideas, so don’t let any of them go unnoticed.
Finalizing the list
This part is simple; go through everything you’ve written down and format the list in a good order so it’s easier to read and follow. Now, once you have the list done, step back and look at it for a minute; you’ve just written up the foundation of your new life! Regardless of what others might tell you, having the beginning thought about an action you’re wanting to take is the most fundamental thing you can do have when building your business, and you just did it. I’m sure out of your list you can find 1 thing that really doesn’t seem very hard to create as far as manual labor, pricing and marketing costs right?
The PROS of doing what you love
- You’re doing what you love
- You’re working for yourself
- You’re creating a life changing product
- You’re freeing yourself from dependency on the cubicle
- Potential profits are endless
- You have passion for your business
The CONS of doing what you love
- Finances aren’t promised; at first
- People might think you’re crazy
The final question to ask yourself
You might be wondering why the con list only has two items; I doubt you can come up with many more cons to doing what you love! In my opinion, there are many other additions you can add to either of these lists, but I believe these sum up the basics of them and really show you what you should could be doing with your life on either side of the fence. There is one last thing you have to ask yourself to make this whole process complete; Do I want to spend the rest of my life fulfilling someone else’s dreams or is it time to chase my own?
If you liked this post you may wish to subscribe to our feed to ensure you don't miss anything.
Subscribe via Feed ReaderSubscribe via Email
What is RSS?
Daniel Sutoyo
December 14th, 2007 at 10:25 pmIt is definitely good to take time to reflect on what we do. It is so easy to fall in the downward spiral and complain about our jobs either 1) we don’t enjoy the job itself or 2) we don’t enjoy our colleagues
Just to add to the Cons on the list, you might end up realizing you just simply don’t have the resources, abilities, and time to do what you love. For example, I love the NBA and wanted to play in it. But quite frankly I just don’t have killer moves like Kobe. Although it is discouraging to discover this, this reflection process open doors to other opportunities. I can be a NBA analyst, team physical therapist, or in marketing for a particular NBA team.
But like you said, there is just so many good things on doing what you love. I’ll definitely keep these in mind when I am job hunting!
Mike Smith
December 15th, 2007 at 12:19 amHi Daniel & welcome to the site. Thanks for taking the time to write such a great comment. 100% Agree with you.
For the NBA, you could be an analyst, a blogger (ads pay pretty good for jerseys, tickets, ect), a news reporter for your local paper or a sports magazine, ect. The list goes on and on. You could even coach a high school team or elementary school team. Endless possibilities.
Thanks again for the comment. I’m glad you liked the article and I hope you signed up for the RSS feed to keep up to date here.
turtie
December 16th, 2007 at 7:36 pmInteresting read. I always thought that you gotta do what you hate, in order to do what you love. That’s why people have their 9-5 jobs and work on their “real” ambitions outside work. The daily job is just something to get you by while you scheme for bigger and better things. Hopefully I can quit my day job some day and just blog for a living!
turtie
December 16th, 2007 at 7:39 pmI like what you’re doing here, so I just subscribed. Keep up the good work.
Mike Smith
December 16th, 2007 at 7:39 pmHello Turtie, Thank for the comment.
My advice is to jump in the deep end and plug your nose. There’s really no such thing as a calculated risk, so planning so much on doing something you love isn’t really taking a risk, but planning for something. Odds are as well, most people only plan and don’t jump in, so my advice would be to jump right in
gale
December 17th, 2007 at 2:43 ammy life’s goal is to work more for myself (and do something i enjoy) than work for someone else. great stuff, i’m sure everybody is encouraged and relieved that there are so little cons
Mike Smith
December 17th, 2007 at 2:47 amHi Gale, thanks for visiting my website and commenting on the post. I am glad you liked it
Definitely a good thing to know that there’s 1-2 cons on the list while the pro’s list could go on, and on.
I am an optimist, so I always look at the brighter side of things, but this article holds true with the pessimists as well 
ryan
December 30th, 2007 at 2:38 amSUPERB article. If you are not truly passionate about what your doing, why bother?
If you are doing something your not passionate about, why do it. That is why so many kids don’t do well in school, why customer support for major companies is bad and why everyone who isn’t into it isn’t into it!
Boils down to life really.