Do what you love and the money will follow
The first time I heard this I was about fourteen and all I really loved were Victoria’s Secret catalogs. I envisioned a grand future where all I had to do to make money was steal my mother’s mail, but alas my passion never earned me a dime. Mowing the lawn and weeding, though, made me quite a bit of dough. And I hated them.
Years later, after I’d been writing and drawing for more than a decade, I realized that I was again doing something I loved and still making no money at it. I started to fear I’d been duped by this old cliche and was a little worried that money and enjoyment were different sides of the same coin. Or worse yet, that they were different coins altogether.
Why I don’t buy it
Here’s a little story to illustrate it what’s wrong with this moth-eaten adage.
Billy Bob and his brother Cletus really love to sell fish. Every Saturday they fill up their rusty ol’ van with salmon, park it on the side of the highway right in the baking sun, put up their plywood sandwich board that reads “Samin. 5 dollurs a pound.” They stand there all day, trying to sell their product to passersby. They really really really love it. And they never make any money.
Why not? Is it lack of love? No way, they’re as passionate as the next guy. The problem is their nasty van. The awful sandwich board that nobody can read as they drive by. The fact that all their fish is caught down river from a nuclear plant and glows in the dark. Not to mention that buying salmon just off the highway is a somewhat frightening idea.
It doesn’t matter what you’re passionate about. It matters what the customer wants and whether or not you’re supplying it.
The only equation that really makes money
The only real equation you need to know to make sales is a very simple one. And contained within this equation is pretty much everything you need to run a successful business. The equation is:
The customer wants/needs something + You show the customer you have that something at a reasonable price + The customer pays you for it = The End.
In that formula love and passion never make an appearance.
The truth is your customer doesn’t care much what you think about your job or your product, insofar as the quality doesn’t suffer. As long as your product or service is what he needs, and is available at a price he can pay, you’ll make sales.
True Story Alert: The guy I bought my car from was an ass. About 12 seconds after meeting him I was thinking, “This dude obviously hates life, hates me, doesn’t believe in Santa Claus and would like to drive a stake through my temples.” After 3 hours of torture at this guy’s desk, spent mostly in silence or with me trying to crack his exterior with awful jokes, I had my car and I left happy. I’ll never let him sell me another car, that’s for sure. But I’ll be damned if his attitude keeps me from getting what I want in life.
True Story Alert #2: I recently bought an iPhone. It’s a brilliant brilliant product as I knew it would be. But the one thing I didn’t research before buying the phone was whether or not Steve Jobs was passionate about it. I never asked if the guys who put it together on the assembly line really loved it. I can assume they did because obviously a lot of people put in the time to make this phone just about the coolest thing ever. And when it comes right down to it, I don’t really care.
I wanted a phone that did X so I bought a phone that did X. The same will be true for your customers. They want what they want and they’re not going to check your pulse first to see if you’re excited.
Yeah, but isn’t this still good advice?
And now for a complete contradiction:
This is great advice!
Just because this saying isn’t true is no reason not to believe it, at least part of it. The do what you love part.
If you do what you love, the assumption is you’ll make a better product. You’ll put in more time building an intelligent business. You’ll create something new and unique due to your constant submersion in the field. And you’ll also be happier in the process because you actually care about what it is you do. You’re better at doing the things you like. Simple.
You can certainly look at your passions to help you choose a field to enter or a product to develop. Use them to pin down something you’ll be happy to put in the time to develop, to blog about consistently, to R & D until it’s perfect.
But after that, don’t rely on passion alone to bring in the bacon. It’s about sound business principles, providing valuable services and products, good marketing and the like.
Passion itself isn’t going to make you rich, but it greases the wheels and sure makes the trip more enjoyable.
Disclaimer for those about to make comments about my disillusionment
No, I’m not disillusioned.
Yes, I love what I do.
I design and write because if I didn’t I’d probably die of unhappiness. But I loved those things for a long before they ever made me a dime. They started making money only because I marketed myself, told everyone I met what I do and what I could do for them. The passion has been there since the beginning, but the money only showed up once I applied business to my passion.
This post is not advising to concentrate on cold hard cash with the dispassion of Scrooge. The salient point is to find something you love, do something amazing with it, create a product you can exchange for money and then apply intelligent business to it.
Don’t wait for people to find you. The world and the internet are too damned big for that. Speak what you do and speak it loudly. People will find you. When they do, that’s the time to win them over with your passion.
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14 comments
I think the myth needs a reword:
Do what you love and the money will eventually follow, if you don’t starve to death or quit first.
That’s the thing. Eventually, writing made me money and I support my family with it, and it’s generic equivalents. I spent many years poorer than a garden variety church mouse with a husband near apoplectic with fear that we would starve our children. Now, it’s great. At the time I would’ve eaten the person giving that advice. One, because I hated them and two, because I was hungry.
Oh, crap I was hoping to have something witty here but I can’t top that one, Naomi.
But you’re spot on - it’s like the quote says: “People don’t fail. They just give up trying.” It all comes down to how long are you going to hammer at it (and how often are you going to reevaluate your strategy to get better results).
Or, of course, how long you can keep devouring those people who give you advice until you get your big break.
@ Dave - Good point, re: giving up trying. I think so many people (esp. self-help authors) try to associate an incredible amount of shame with quitting. I don’t buy into a lot of the excuses, but sometimes there really are mouths to feed.
I think the reevaluation period is critical, but what’s so often forgotten is that sometimes, reevaluation is only mentally allowed under certain circumstances. I can reevaluate, but only if it doesn’t lead me to going back to work full time, or whatever. Thank God I don’t have a mortgage because if I did, I would’ve defaulted and subsequently had a hell of a time selling the whole start-my-own-biz thing to the hubby in residence.
Dave & Naomi -
I think there’s actually quite a bit of sanity in quitting. Hear me out here. I mean…if after a healthy reevaluation of your goals and results you find that you suck at what you’re doing or making no money or having no fun, by all means quit. You know? Why waste a life trying to do something that brings you nothing but anguish?
I have a relative who’s killing herself trying to make a go of a career that is really not even up her alley. In fact she thinks the field is BS and that the people she’s surrounded with are idiots. But she’s afraid of quitting. So after 3 more years of school and $75,000 of debt, she’ll need to head into a career in this BS field, just to once again prove that she’s not quitting. Such a shame.
That’s one thing I love about being able to make decisions. Pick something and go for it. If it doesn’t work, change your mind and do something else.
Thanks for the conversation, you two. And the laughs.
I just had 16 pounds of chocolate cake. I’m going to go throw up and/or enter a coma. Goodnight.
Yeah, “do what you love” by itself isn’t enough. There needs to be a plan and a fair measure of competence.
And even then, some willingness to compromise and work in stages. Truth be told, I don’t love what I’m doing now. But I like it well enough to do it until I can get what I do love developed to the point it can support me and my family.
As an aside:
“I never asked if the guys who put it together on the assembly line really loved it. I can assume they did because obviously a lot of people put in the time to make this phone just about the coolest thing ever.”
I’m pretty sure that the people on the assembly line and people who put in the time to make this phone just about the coolest thing ever are different people. Assembly line people doing what they love? Probably not. Apple design engineers doing what they love? Better friggin’ believe it.
So what choices did each group make to get where they are? What choices and opportunities lay before them? (This could get pretty deep pretty quick.)
Matt -
Man, that’s a great point! Why are people on the assembly line on the assembly line? And why are the execs up in their leather-bound offices? As you said, that conversation can go a long way and very quickly.
I took a tour of the production floor of Intel once, up here in Washington. I couldn’t stray at all beyond the yellow path for tourists, outside of which they erase your brain and then shoot you dead, but I sure got a good look at the assembly workers. Not a particularly happy and inspired bunch, for sure.
I think you nailed it, Matt! Thanks for your input.
@ Charlie - re: quitting. Um, absolutely. My hubby went back to school for web design and realized after about half an hour that it was a Very Bad Idea. Like your friend, he really considered continuing on to finish school and subsequently get a career he hated, and for what? So that he could tell himself he wasn’t a quitter. Not very cool.
Now he hangs out and teaches the kids to play Sim City and everybody is much happier.
Naomi -
Very cool story, and right on the money. I’d much rather quit something and be happy than end up a miserable “winner with a career” who didn’t quit when I should have.
Thanks, girl!
“Everyone says they want to win the lottery, but I really do.”
The argument here is one of interpretation.
“Do what you love and the money will follow.”
Some folks read, “Easy, Easy Easy”
Other folks read, “Work your ass off for what you’re passionate about.”
They each get the return on their investment.
Do, work, plan, put the effort in, what you love, and yeah, the money will follow.
Kick back and play at it . . . and you’ll starve.
Charlie,
Thanks for the post! I’m a sucker for a good mantra, and this was one of my earliest ones. I agree, it doesn’t make the dollars land on the table, but it has always kept my values straight.
Other good ones:
Don’t get a job in something you hate, just because it’s respectable. Create something.–My Mom
There is no “try.” There is only “do” or “not do.”–That teacher guy in The Karate Kid (Awful source but think about it! Good point!)
It’s on its way.–my current mantra, from Wayne Dyer, to which I add: If I make it happen.
Nothing is on its way if we just sit around waiting for it, which I think was part of your point. And any mantra that gets you motivated is a good mantra.
Regards,
Kelly
P.S. There have been times when I’ve done what I loved, plus two or three other things, just to make sure I could be respectable (or at least fed, housed, and clothed) while also creating something. It helped while waiting for that money to follow.
Liz -
Well, yeah, but I really do want to win the lottery.
Seriously, you’re absolutely right: it comes down to the work. You have to put in the time one way or another.
Thanks for stopping by. I know your name from elsewhere and it’s great to see you here.
Kelly -
Hahaha! Excellent. I love your mom’s advice of “create something.” That is so succinct yet so important. I too have had many jobs where I was nothing more than a paper-shuffler. Even though it was part of a company that created a great product, I personally created nothing. I hated every second of it.
I was always envisioning the last day of my life where I’d look back on things and realize all I’d done was move stuff from point A to point B. But that I’d done nothing.
Your twist on Dyer’s line is really good. That’s a really great way to think about things, and I appreciate you leaving that here. Thanks for the inspiration.
P.S. Are you by any chance trying to catch flies with chopsticks right now?
No, no, I’m waxing my lovely yellow car.
—Kelly
Charlie: I really appreciate this article - it is indeed true! There are many things we all love to do, but these just don’t pay the bills. You are right, we must have a sense of DEMAND. That is what will allow us to engage in activities that will generate income. People pay for what they need, not necessarily what they want. Good catch there. So, we must have a nice balance between those timeless activities that perhaps only we cherish and those activities that pay the electric and other bills. Best Wishes, Keith J, Author “365 Great Affirmations”
Keith -
Thanks, man! Indeed, demand has a lot to do with it on both sides. Service providers have to demand the income, just to light the fire under their own butts. But they in turn have to create demand in their customers who either need their services, or just really really want them. Or a combination of the two, which is even better.
Thanks for your input!
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