Hobby as a Career?

There's a pretty mangled and misquoted piece of advice out there being distributed by a number of actors, entrepreneurs and philosophers which says, in essence, "Do what you love to do and you'll never work a day in your life."

So, I researched the quote a found a few variations. There's a strange evolution of this somewhat wayward inspirational quote:

I take the above quote to mean that you should take your favorite hobby and turn that into a living. Well, there are a few problems with that - if you love to play video games, very few people can truly make a lasting, long term career at playing video games. That's not to say that you shouldn't reach for the stars and really make a go of something you love if you have a good plan to monetize your hobby. But, I think there's something to be said for being realistic.

Marc Anthony says something very similar, "If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. Again, I think this is a little backwards. I don't think turning what one loves to do into what they do for a living is sage advice for the masses. Trying to eek a dollar out of your pastime, your creative outlet, your coping device can be a steadfast way to kill your spirit. My mother loved to sew until she started her own upholstery and drapery business. What she once loved to do became a chore. It became a job. It became work. 

Now, this one I liked quite a bit better. I have a feeling that this idea of doing what you love everyday began with the all-knowing Confucius's original quote, "Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life." So, its saying instead that choosing a job that's well-tailored to you, that you enjoy is a great way to infuse happiness into your life.

You don't have to necessarily to turn what you love into a job - you just need to find and choose a job you love. Which, a-huh, in this economy can be hard enough! Its not exactly simple to know what you'll love until you're in the thick of it. But, all the same, I think this is better advice for the everyman. Just find SOMETHING that you love to do. The best part is, I don't think that it has to be any one thing.

Steve Jobs takes it a step further and says that the only way to do great work is to do something you love. He urges us not to settle in some field of work that we don't love. Being in "like" with your career or profession is not enough!

So, in all, I believe in this whole loving what you do thing - it just has to happen in the right order! The truly gritty will try and try again until they find what they love to do and the rest will sort of just happen!

The Time Will Pass Anyway

My sister and I have a knack for thinking up amazing business ideas that inevitably will require hours of training for us to implement and develop. Being gritty, determined and altogether ridiculous we usually cobble together a long-term plan to accomplish our goals and create this new venture.

Once we part ways, we sober up a bit and realize how large of an undertaking we've imagined up and simultaneously, we lose interest. Justifying our new found disinterest, we always cite how long it will take to bring this idea to fruition...as if our time could be better spent on some other entrepreneurial pursuit we have yet to come up with.

Fortunately, the other day I ran across this extremely motivating quote from Mr. Earl Nightingale: "Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use."

So poignant and true. Its the same idea that's always rolled around in the back of my head but I'd never let myself grasp the idea long enough to word it as eloquently as Nightingale did. I'm so glad I stumbled upon this quote at the right time! So, now I will tell myself:

Imagine if you do buckle down, grit your teeth and make this idea come to life. You'll have used your time wisely and you'll have a brand new source of income. And, you'll have checked another thing off your bucket list!

Now, imagine if you crap out and let this idea sit at the bottom of your pile. Then imagine repeating that with the next bright idea you have and the next idea and the next idea. 'The time will have passed anyway' and you'll have no new businesses and no new sources of income.

Typing it now, it makes no sense that my brain thinks this way! But when I'm in the moment, its easy to say to myself:

That's too hard and its awfully time consuming - I need a better idea. A quicker idea. An easier idea.

What idea is going to be acceptable for that lazy person inside my head? The state lottery? Sitting on ass all day and magically getting money from the sky? I don't know, but neither of those are likely to produce any cash!

I love it when I find inspirational nuggets that help me rediscover or reignite my grit.

"Only Morons Start a Business on a Loan" - Mark Cuban

The title of this Mark Cuban interview by Bloomberg sucked me right in, "Only morons start a business on a loan." Even though I bootstrapped my way through the first three years of my business and saw wonderful, surprising growth, I think this spoke to me because I recently took out a loan for my business. Earlier this year, feeling that I truly knew my market and seeing that the profits were rolling in at a steady pace, I took a small loan for $12,000 to boost my inventory. The catch on this particular loan was that it was all due back in a matter of 6 months. I saw the principle payments due back, the overall interest payments and thought it was a great deal. And it was, still is. The terms were very acceptable, I just didn't know how to be a borrower. I had always ponied up the capitol myself.

It was all working so very well, until the fifth month the loans were due back. I just was not making enough to pay back the loan AND continue to grow. I felt stifled by these payments and I definitely feel that the progress I'd made immediately prior to taking on the loan was eradicated. I felt that was essentially starting back over now that the last payment is scheduled for the end of this month. I didn't get nearly what I thought I would out of this sudden infusion of cash.

I'm excited to get back to my normal that I'm so very used to, especially during my business' peak seasonality. I'm not saying that I wouldn't take out a loan again, but I certainly would like to have more of my own cash on hand to combat the payment periods during the slow time of the year. How ironic - you have to have money to borrow money. Or I might take out the loan just before a natural boom in sales. I regret taking out this 6 month loan just before the slow time of year. That was definitely something I would not recommend or repeat.

At any rate, there were a few other awesome nuggets in this video. The grittiest of us will like what he has to say at 1:30 "Small business don't fail for lack of capitol, they fail for lack of brains, lack of effort." Love it!

Let's "grit" our heads down and work, entrepreneurs!

Life Gives You Lemons? Make Lemonade. Then Sell It.

In my last post, I talked about looking for entrepreneurial avenues and ways to make money. One of my proudest entrepreneurial moments is turning a huge life-lemon into a good, old-fashioned lemonade stand. Heck, why not? I found out several years ago, in my mid-twenties, that I was whole-hog allergic to gluten. In fact, Celiac Disease runs in my family, many of the women on my mom's side of the family suffer from gluten intolerance.

So, my sister and I started a gluten-free related business and turned the tables on that nasty little protein that has made life so difficult. Its one of my smallest sources of revenue, but the most meaningful.  Now, I see life problems, even someone else's life problem, as a hole in the market. That's an entrepreneurial perspective I'll never be able to unlearn. Its in there, in my noggin, waiting to help me turn a profit on something else one day in the future.

I love talking to other entrepreneurs and listening to TED.com talks so much because I invariably get a "nugget" of an idea that I can store away for the day it becomes relevant. Some of them are so exciting that they stay in the forefront of my mind, cropping up when I'm in the bath, about to fall asleep or while I'm cooking. Annoying me, reminding me that I don't have endless capital... yet.

At any rate,  like I said, "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade then sell it!" That's the best way to conquer an obstacle - turn it into opportunity.