Comments on: When Following Your Passion Will Leave You Broke

By: What will you do today? « TheUniversityBlog

What will you do today? « TheUniversityBlog — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 08:40:57 +0000

[...] not suggesting that all you need to do to succeed is to believe in what’s possible and keep trying again and again (and again) until you’ve won. It’s not that simple and it’s not [...]

By: How to Freelance Without Ending Up Penniless — Aliventures

How to Freelance Without Ending Up Penniless — Aliventures — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:11:55 +0000

[...] fund. You may have little choice but to take freelancing gigs which give you a sporadic income. Your passion might be one which would leave you broke. You may already be in financial difficulties. If that’s you, please talk to a professional, or [...]

By: Ali

Ali — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:33:02 +0000

Great point, Dave. Frankly, there are some passions which either can’t realistically be monetised, or which would lose their fun if you did try to monetise them. I’m convinced that people can have more than one passion — so the trick is finding the one that *does* have a market.

By: Dave Doolin

Dave Doolin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:57:36 +0000

Lots and lots of passionate surfers. Very few professional surfers.

Succeeding professionally at a passion requires a viable market.

Or a trust fund.
Dave Doolin´s last blog ..I’ve Just Wasted $53 on Hosting and a Domain, s***, What Now? HELP!?

By: Ali

Ali — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:41:27 +0000

Thanks, Karilee! And thank you for the link to the Mark Silver article too: I'm totally with him. Good luck finding your people and the problems that you can solve. You might like one of my previous posts: What To Do When Your Adventure Feels Like A Long Hard Slog ... it's from a similar viewpoint as Mark Silver's piece (though there are no diapers in mine!)

By: Karilee

Karilee — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:11:31 +0000

Thanks – good article and good title. “Do what you love and the money will follow” was never clear enough to me. I read Mark Silver’s “Ode to Diapers” the other day and got much clearer. http://www.heartofbusiness.com/ode-to-diapers/

For me, finding the people I want to work with, and figuring out what problems I can solve for them, is a much better approach. I think combining that idea with your clear reminder that one doesn’t have to make the change full-time or even fully-committed is important.
Karilee´s last blog ..Are You Meant to Be a Manager?

By: Persistence – Knocked Off His Stride, But Not Off His Feet

Persistence – Knocked Off His Stride, But Not Off His Feet — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:09:53 +0000

[...] Presentable by Jason Santa MariaEmbrace Disaster In Customer Service over at My Wife Quit Her JobHow To Deal When Following Your Passion Leaves You Broke over at AliventuresJerry Yang’s Commencement Speech over at Yahoo’s Corporate BlogWhat [...]

By: Ali

Ali — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:23:59 +0000

Antti, I agree that working for yourself on something you don’t care about is a massive mistake. You need a certain level of passion just to have the motivation to get out of bed in the morning! Sometimes you can find something you enjoy that’s not perhaps your core passion; it can make you money, without jobifying your true creative time.

Andrew, maybe we should all form a support group for friends-of-freelancers — they could phone each other in the middle of the day.

(I slept in yesterday, but I think I needed it! It’s easy to forget that when you work for yourself, you end up packing a lot more in than when you’re in a typical office job…)

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:30:15 +0000

Your comment on “Protect your time fiercely. As soon as friends and relatives….” is all too true. As I’ve recently joined the free world, a lot of friend call me during the week to hang out, and laugh when I say I’m ‘working’…

You ‘think’ you could transfer your 50 hour work week into 50 hours of working for yourself, but it’s all about discipline, you’re not going to get out of bed if you’re not going to be in trouble for a sleep in*!

Nice post Ali.

*Slept in this morning….
Andrew´s last blog ..10 Reasons You Shouldn’t Be At Work Today…

By: Antti Kokkonen - Zemalf.com

Antti Kokkonen - Zemalf.com — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:53:30 +0000

I think at least a bit of passion is a must if one wants to make it as a freelancer or run own business. Working for someone else on a job you don’t enjoy that much can be done, but if you’re relying on yourself to pay the rent, it’s probably not a good plan to start doing something you don’t want to. Then again, when you turn your passion into “job”, it might not be that much fun anymore and you’ll notice that you ain’t so passionate about it anymore after a while.

After reading the posts here for a while, I’m thinking it’s the passion for freedom that drives people off their 9-5. Again, I thank you for the inspiration Ali!
Antti Kokkonen – Zemalf.com´s last blog ..Why Blog Commenting Is So Important?