I know you’ve heard it before…”Follow your heart and do what makes you happy” or “Make sure your business is aligned with your passion”. Today I want to explore some of this with you.
A friend of mine from Texas, Scott, said to me a year or so ago…
“It’s rubbish that they say you have to follow your passion in order to succeed in business. What’s important is that your business makes you money. Your business has to make money. Once you have the money then you can follow whatever passion you like, when ever you like!”
I’d not heard of Scott’s theory put in such a way before and it challenged the way I thought, which I loved and it made me think about my business and my passion and making money.
I’d like to ask you this…what are you doing? Are you running a business that’s profitable? Are you following your passion? Are you doing both? Are you sacrificing one for the other or are you following your passion and yet to make any real money?
There is no doubt for me that I have to have an interest, and a vested interest, in what I do on a daily business within my business. My first business, FIFO Families, was focused around my family and improving the lives of other families living a fly in fly out lifestyle around Australia. It took me a couple of years to really start making money and to be able to “bring my husband home” from FIFO so that he could stay at home with the kids. But it’s all part of the journey, right? I was motivated and driven everyday to do what I was doing, but it took a while for the money to start coming in so it could support us.
The second time round, with my current business, I have been able to streamline processes and plans more efficiently and I have clear boundaries and experiences in regards to what I will and won’t do again. That’s one of the great learning’s from running your own business and getting to do it again.
This year, however, has seen me introduced to other ways to make money and create income, which I am starting to dabble in. For instance I am slowly learning about the world of crypto currencies (Bitcoin and the like) and how to trade gold and silver on line. Why? These are additional skills that I can learn and use to make money. We can always learn more and we can always learn about additional ways to make and create income.
Scott’s remarks stay with me today and I still do what I am passionate about, but the horizons are a little wider and higher.
