Doing what you love is as important as ever, but if you’re going to make a living at it, it helps to find a niche where money flows as a regular consequence of the success of your idea. Loving what you do is almost as important as doing what you love, especially if you need to make a living at it. Go find a job you can commit to, a career or a business you can fall in love with.
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Maybe you can’t make money doing what you love (at least what you love right now). But I bet you can figure out how to love what you do to make money (if you choose wisely).
Do your art. But don’t wreck your art if it doesn’t lend itself to paying the bills. That would be a tragedy.
(And the twist, because there is always a twist, is that as soon as you focus on your art and leave the money behind, you may just discover that this focus turns out to be the secret of actually breaking through and making money.)
~ Seth Godin
There’s never been a time when this blog post by Seth Godin, who identifies himself as ‘author, entrepreneur and agent of change’, has resonated more with me.
Last Thursday morning was another one of those major turning points in my life – I tendered my resignation at the bank I work at after being there for 3.5 months. Perhaps one could say I should have given it more time. But sometimes you just know things. I couldn’t picture myself doing what I was doing for long. I didn’t feel as much for it as I wanted to. I couldn’t – I don’t care what position the bank comes up in so-and-so poll or award by so-and-so financial magazine. I have no interest nor knowledge in what I write about – commodity derivatives, bonds, Asset Backed Securities, what do I know about them? Zilch.
When you don’t care for something, your brain doesn’t think. When your brain doesn’t think, you don’t do what you’re supposed to do well. Sometimes you need to do something to realise that it’s not for you. Life is often a trial-and-error thing, isn’t it? Lucky are the people who seem to know from the onset what it is they want to do with their lives. The rest of us stumble and feel our way around, hoping eventually to see the light.
As for me, I have some other plans which I’m hoping will let me do what I love with some monetary returns in sight. But I’ll leave that for another post. Just wanted to say THANK YOU to all family and friends who have lent a listening ear and given encouragement during this difficult period! What would I do without all of you?
To read the entire blog post by Seth Godin, go here.