If You Want to Become a Success…Follow Your Passion
Glen Allsopp / 
10 Comments / 
June 3rd, 2008 / 
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I’m sure many of you have heard this time and time again, I know I have. You have already envisioned the rest of this post:
“Write about what you love”
“Forget about the money, that will come later”
As with most people, you have probably dismissed ideas like these and looked at what others are having success with and tried to copy that. I’ve learned these statements are the truth the hard way, let me explain.
My Story
Recently, I took the “brave” step to start following my passion, my real passion, one that I only truly understood once I went down the wrong path.
To try and put a long story into a scannable format, I was always fascinated by the internet and the money-making potential that it held. I started building my own sites and learning about SEO and other traffic building techniques and instantly fell in love with what I was doing. Even when I wasn’t making a penny I still kept at it and had a lot of fun.
That’s when things went downhill. Because I enjoyed doing what I do so much, I thought the next logical step would be to offer my skills to others in order to help them become successful. Whilst I’ve enjoyed parts of that, there are so many “negative” sides to what you are doing:
- Clients will never implement all your ideas, then wonder why things didn’t work
- The reward for rankings that are making a company millions of dollars will rarely bring much return for you
- A lot of people also just want the cheapest services and get scammed by people who give the industry a bad name
That’s not to say there aren’t any good companies out there because there are, I’m working at one and there are plenty of others. What I’m trying to say is that I went down the route of what I thought was the next step to helping me make more money but in doing so I was no longer loving what I was doing.
Communicate
I was at a bit of a loose end and wasn’t sure whether a change would be too much, communicating with others is a critical factor in my opinion.
Communication comes in handy for many things, including:
- Being able to network with others in your niche
- Meet like-minded people that you can learn from and bounce ideas off
- Having people to give you advice (in my case) - you can’t have the answer to everything.
Luckily I received some great advice, here are some examples:
Choosing what you want to do with your life is one of the BIG questions
everyone has. My advice.1. Do what makes you happy
2. Follow your instincts
3 Do what you are best at
4. Associate yourself with the best.
5. Don’t shorten your vision because you think you can’t do it, it’s a
cliche but people really are limited by their own imagination- Lyndon
Lyndon’s first point really goes with the title of this post, the third with my thoughts on how critical communication is and the last is some of the best advice I’ve read in a long time.
The money I can make from consulting, I can make by being a web publisher/webmaster… which I enjoy doing more. So that was a clear cut choice for me from the start. Own my own sites, build my own brand. Maybe this is something you’re gravitating towards as well…
- Maki
Maki’s thoughts were exactly in line with my current thinking, I think I just needed someone else to really state what I was feeling.
Kelvin and Hugo also had some advice for me that helped push me in the right direction and allowed me to really focus on what I should be doing, sometimes it has to take that nudge to make a change. Hopefully, this post has helped others see the light.
If you aren’t doing what you love, then why do it? Of course there are exceptions and bad logistics that some people come across, but I truly believe that if people can drive themselves hard enough they can achieve their dreams.
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Welcome to stage two of professional life..
I’ve been lucky enough to have a wife that indulges my passions and it has allowed me to enjoy working for most of the last 20 years.. I haven’t always done the same thing for very long, but each thing I have done I have had a passion for, at least at the time I started.. I didn’t always make money at them, but it didn’t matter, I loved what I was doing.. Even now I love my “job” even if I don’t exactly love the people that I work with..
I’m glad to see you take the talent you’ve developed and put it towards yourself rather than others..
I remember very well that you were always into your jewelery making business so I’m glad to hear that is still going strong
Thanks for the kind words, hopefully it doesn’t turn out to be a mistake
Great that you discoverd it that fast. I’m far too entangled in client work and other obligations by now to really follow this path. Client work is good for learning but once you’re really good you won’t ever be realy happy with client work. I have to take a path combining both ways which is not that easy but also makes sense.
Like I say, I’ll still be doing client work for now, but around January time I’ll possibly be stopping all that completely and I’m definitely not taking any more work.
It is great for learning, but there are so many frustrations in my part that I prefer working for myself. Thanks for the comment Tad
Taking that first step is the hardest thing to do. I keep checking the water, don’t know why I haven’t jumped in yet.
Exactly, so what is stopping you? I’m assuming you are afraid of failing and having nothing to fall back on…
You’re right, it’s the not having anything to fall back on. I’ve been building up a safety net and hope to be making the jump in the coming months.
Take it from someone that is a serial business starter - do it.. The absolute worst thing that can happen is that it fails and you need to go get a job.. I am currently on company #12 in the 23 years.. Of the 12 I have started and run, 4 failed horribly, 3 became nothing more than hobbies with expense accounts, 2 did “ok” and three I actually made a real serious living at..
Of the 12 the 4 that failed horribly prepared me for the 3 that feed the family, buy the corvette, and generally give me the opportunity to do things like take 2 weeks to take my dad to Canada to go fishing next week.. So even if you fail “this time”, it will teach you, assuming you listen to it, something important for the the next one..
Glen,
I have had similar experiences - infact I still do keep having. Following your heart or in other words doing what you are passionate about is certainly the best option one can keep for himself. But, the horizons of passions are overwhelming - we can get swayed away, if we don’t understand what we really are passionate about. Too much of passions for too many passionate things can be obfuscating - a rhetorical explanation for why we fail to understand the availability of too many options in our lives. Ya, why there are too many of them? Options certainly are optional afterall.
Cheers to the life which is also an option at the end.
Rome, I come back to this as I’ve just read a great eBook on the topic that I think you should check out
http://www.inspiredmoneymaker.com
Look at the top middle of the site for the free ebook, sadly you have to enter your email but I’m sure you can unsubscribe if theres any spammy info there. One of the best ebooks on following your passion I’ve read, if not the best.