Let me ask you a question. When Sunday night comes and you think about the work week ahead, what is your response: 1) dread or 2) excitement?
If you answered dread, then I suggest to you that your work and your passions are not aligned.
Why is that important? Don’t we after all have to just make a living and grin and bear a job we don’t like to do because, well, that’s just the way the world works?
Absolutely no, that’s not how it has to be. You can actually find that thing, that passion, that driving ambition that will make you a living. When you find that passion and turn it into a successful brand and then a successful business, it will do more than make you a living. It will give you a life.
I think of my husband, who used to get stressed every Sunday night when he was working in a J.O.B. (Just Over Broke, a term Robert Kawasaki coined). He dreaded Monday mornings when he would have to go back into the office and perform duties that had become boring to him. He knew that he had reached the “glass ceiling,” He wanted something more.
Now fast forward to today. It’s a Monday. I never heard anything from him last night about dreading the week. This morning he spoke with a client and received great feedback from the house design he had done. He has the satisfaction of providing his expertise and skill to an appreciative client who is paying him well. The rest of the week until Thanksgiving he is working for his former boss, on his own terms and doing tasks that he enjoys. He’s earning more than he could ever do for his former job. And he is making time to do some fun projects, like designing tiny houses, that he can eventually sell online so he can create another source of income, one that is not based on chasing hours for dollars.
You have a unique talent. There are so many opportunities to develop new skills, especially with the Internet. You have unique life experiences. What matters to you is different than what matters to another person. All these factors can be turned into a business that reflects who you are and what you love to do.
I love a meme that I recently came across. It urged parents to ask their children, “What problem do you want to solve?” rather than “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
How about you? What problem do YOU want to solve? What is it that you love to do that could solve a problem? How can you make an impact? What do you have or what could you produce or sell that could provide what someone else desperately needs or wants?
The intersection between your passion and what another person desperately wants is where branding success happens. That’s what makes a stable business on the trajectory for growth.
So find out what your passions are. Pursue what you love to do. You will find that you are not only making a living, but you are making a life. And that life will dazzle!
