Don’t Make Your Passion Your Work

I hear a lot of people say “Follow your passion and the money will follow.” Unfortunately, many people do this and make little-to-no money. I’ve seen so many solo-preneurs struggle, end up broke and eventually resort to a “day job.”

One explanation is that our passions are either not terribly lucrative or not aligned with what our soul has mind for a right way of earning money.

Instead of (blindly) following your passion, trusting that the money will find you, I recommend something more along the lines of what Jim Collins recommends.

Collins recommends combining three important things: 1) what you’re passionate about, 2) what you’re genetically predisposed to do and be excellent at and 3) what the marketplace truly needs and wants.

I would tweak Collins’ formula in the following way:

Firstly, put aside passion and think about what you believe is important. What does the world need? What is missing in how the world works – in your opinion?

Second, what do your strengths, talents and enthusiasms direct you toward? As Collins might say: what were you built to do?

And third, what will the world actually value? Too break  it down: what will people actually pay you for?

It’s when you combine those three things, in an authentic way (i.e. a manner in which you really can get behind, personally), that you will unleash your creativity, energy and determination.

Leave the things you’re just passionate about to hobbies or activities.

If you enjoy gardening, then enjoy it, but it is likely not something you want to try and make money at.

I love to golf, but it would be incredibly hard for me to try and make money at it (at least in the sense of trying to make the PGA, or even the Champions, tours). (I may, however, offer one-on-one retreats for clients at golf resorts, using golf as a adjunct to my life optimization work – but not as me trying to offer any golf instruction (Ha!).)

It’s when we try and take something we love and attempt to make it commercially viable that the trouble begins.

I believe that substituting the idea of what we’re passionate about (i.e. what we are in love with) with what we believe is important (what we stand for), we can then really formulate something that will be engaging, energizing and remunerative.