Making Money From My Passion

If you're reading this, I'll assume you have an idea of what will drive or motivate you - essentially, what your passion is. If not, let's determine what your passion is.

The concept of a passion is a value that holds significant meaning to you or an activity that you enjoy doing to the fullest.

Turning your passion into a business idea, allows you to monetize it.

It must be noted that being passionate about something doesn't mean that turning it into a business will come easy. Owning and managing a business long-term takes time and dedication.

BUT......since you are passionate about the main activity or cause, it should make it a bit easier to work at it every day.

Additionally, a business idea does not have to fit into any particular lens. It could be a means of making passive income where the effort you put into it at the beginning, works for you overtime. More on this later.

For now, let's re-visit the 3 categories your passion items could fall into:

• Things you can do or consume in some form daily, if life allowed;

• Things you are willing to perfect as a skill;

• Things you are willing to share knowledge on;

Now that we know all our passion items can be categorized into one or all of these buckets, let's go ahead and do just that.

Make sure you have three columns or boxes and the headings match the categories above.

Take your passion items and list them under the appropriate box(es). You can put an item under multiple boxes if it works.

BRAINSTORM TIME!

This is where the real work starts. Buckle up! We're in it for the long haul.

1) As you look at all three categories, pay particular attention to the items that repeat themselves. These are important.

SPECIAL NOTE: Let's make sure these things are all legal activities and won't be harmful to you or anyone else (or your health).

2) Consider what gets you excited about each of these items or why they are still on your list.

Evaluate once again, if these are things you could do every day, talk about consistently, share knowledge on or continue to learn more about. It's okay to change your mind now that you're evaluating deeper. Feel free to go back and re-adjust as you need to.

3) You now have an idea of what gets you excited and why it does. Are there any initial business ideas that come to mind? List them. There are no bad ideas (at this stage).

4) Can you combine category items to build a business? (There is a powerful match when we decide to do something we love to do with things we are knowledgeable on)

5) Is there demand or a gap to fill? The key to success is to lead with your passions and skills and determine what people need.

If this has helped clarify things in any way, then that's enough for me. This exercise was intended to do just that.

We don't have to know all the answers at this stage but as we continue on this journey, a few things will be important:

1) Commit to being great at one thing.

I have a habit of dreaming up the world of possibilities and then trying to do too much at once. It doesn't work. At this point, you may have multiple business ideas or concepts you could implement based on what you are passionate about. Pick the one you think could best solve a problem and go for it!

2) Be consistent.

Commitment is a scary word but in order to be good at something long term, we have to remain committed. I've never seen advice that says otherwise. As long as you are committed to the idea of giving it your all, learning more and making adjustments where necessary, you'll be okay.

3) Slow down.

Everything in life comes at us so quickly and we get programmed as such. With quick access to everything, it can be helpful to slow down at times. Slow down and process differently. It helps settle the mind more so we can be better prepared to respond and act.

4) Be Flexible

In business, change is inevitable. We have to keep in mind that things won't always work out in the exact way that we want them to. If we are willing to accept change and see it as positive, the better suited we will be for entrepreneurship.

5) Have Fun

While starting a business is a serious endeavor and requires a lot of work, have fun with it. Adding an element of fun is helpful to break the monotony. It's why we create fun content!