I hear a lot of debate on the adage that if you follow your passion, money will follow. Today’s advice is from a successful entrepreneur and mentor who says says, yes follow your passion…but don’t limit yourself to one passion!
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“I would say follow your passion but do it in a very organized, systematic way and money will follow. If your passion doesn’t have customers or a market for your skills, then switch to another passion that does.
I think sometimes people expect to get hit over the head and have this OMG moment of discovering, ‘I’m so passionate about this’. Sometimes it’s not a huge burning passion but a realization of ‘I really enjoy this! Now what can I do that could allow me to do that?’
What do you like spending your casual time on? What do you enjoy? Anything at all, whether it’s reading about a certain thing or going to the museum or eating. These huge industries built around these enthusiasms so you just have to nail it down.
Your job is to do market research on the industry or job you want. Try to meet the entry-level people at each of these companies and work your way up to finding out about job openings. It takes time. It’s developing a network. If you can meet the newest people, you can do an informational interview with them and say ‘How did you do it? You are in the same position I want to be in six months from now. How did you do it? What was your strategy? You seem to have succeeded. How do you like it?’ So really get to know what you’re getting yourself into.
Then, go in a direction. Don’t stay stuck in trying to decide. Go in any direction. Get started and once you get into a direction, you’ll find another direction and it’s okay to change directions many times.
That is the thing that gets people stuck because they feel as if they have to know for certain. I know that everyone knows for certain at a certain point and it’s always wrong. Ten times you’re going to change directions so just start now because if you’ve got ten to go, you’d better get started. Just give yourself ten changes of direction. Right now.
If you think of it that way, you can be very creative in how you go about it.”