Why would chasing your passion lead to more money?
This is the first question to ask, in deciding whether it’s logical. The most common answer is that, when you do what you’re passionate about, you won’t hate your job. You won’t get tired or burnt out as fast, and you will develop a deeper knowledge about the subject matter.
However, this ignores a fundamental truth: some passions are less lucrative than others. A passion for trading in financial markets, or coding, is probably going to pay more than, say, a passion for making paper-mache palaces.
Some passions are so niche, it’s possible that they cost you more than they will earn. Most garage bands, for instance, don’t really make money; any income they create mostly disappears into funding further recording sessions, new instruments, and so forth.
Furthermore, don’t overlook the fact that pursuing a passion is seldom free. It usually means going out of the way to educate yourself (e.g., to learn your art or craft from a master), and this may mean having to spend time and money for development.
Finally, you need to consider competition in your passion. If many other people currently share your same passion, they effectively become competitors for market share. For example, it’s easier to find customers if you’re the only digital artist in your field – but if there are thousands of others chasing the same artistic endeavour, they will end up competing for your clients.
Some passions have inbuilt competitive elements. If your passion is esports, for example, your ability to make money from it may literally correspond to how often you win. In these cases, it’s not just your passion – but your talent and coaching opportunity – that decide how much you earn.
Given these factors, it’s fair to say that chasing your passions doesn’t always lead to more money. A lot depends on a wide variety of factors, ranging from how lucrative your passion is, to how much natural talent you possess, to the overall level of competition.
A more useful question might be:
How can you use passion in a way that leads to more money?
The main things to understand are:
● Passion can be created
● Balancing passion and financial realities
● Complementing passion with skills
● Sharing your passion
● Delegating the business portions
You don’t have to “be lucky”, and happen to be passionate about something that’s lucrative. This is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse.
In reality, passion can come out of thin air, even for a subject you happen to hate. How? It’s simple: most of the time, your passion for something grows as you get better at it. For example, you may loathe exercise and getting in shape at first. But as you do it more often, and you get better at it, you will probably find your interest in it grows.
The same can sometimes be seen in people who were “forced” to do certain things as children – such as reading and playing music. For those who made sufficient effort, it’s not unusual for them to appreciate it more as they get better at it; and it eventually becomes a real passion.
So do consider pushing yourself to do things outside of your comfort zone. Find new passions in lucrative fields, by making a genuine effort to “get good” at them. You’ll often find that the better you get, the stronger your natural drive becomes.
Passionate people often overdeliver, to the point where it hurts them financially, and may even start to annoy their bosses or clients.
For example, say you’re passionate about carpentry, and you’re hired by a contractor. Because you’re so obsessed with creating works of art, you may end up spending 20 or 30 hours on a job, that only pays you for 10 hours worth of work.
This is not great for your employer. If you’re a freelancer, you could end up aggravating clients, who have budgeted for a certain amount of work (not everyone needs an expensive, top quality job; they have limited funds as well).
Passion may also drive you to do certain types of work for free. Passionate subject matter experts, for instance, have a tendency to end up giving hours-long free consultations to anyone who asks; because when you’re good at something or love it, you naturally want to talk about it.
Finally, having a passion tends to also bring with it certain codes or principles. If you have a passion for food, for example, you may be averse to accepting money from restaurants for reviews. The fear of being a “sell-out” is a major emotional barrier, when it comes to monetising your passions.
It’s important that you accept it’s right and proper, to be making money off your expertise. This may involve awkward conversations and painful decisions; such as not going “all the way” on a project, or accepting sponsorships. You need to internalise this truth, before you can start making more money off your passions.
Passion alone doesn’t make money. Passion with the requisite skills, to top your field, will make you more money.
Simply having passion for something doesn’t make you good at it. Even if you’re passionate about running, you still need to train; and even if you’re passionate about music, you need to learn and practice. As such, making money from your passion doesn’t stop at being very interested – it means you also need to be good in the field.
This means two things: first, you have to set aside time and money to practice the skills relevant to your passion. Second, it’s important to find mentors or role models, who can channel your passion and take you to the top of your field.
The only easy part of pursuing a passion is that you won’t feel the “sting” of the cost, as you’re already interested.
Passionate people tend to do better work; but the market needs to know it.
Some of us keep our passions to ourselves (as we feel it’s a personal space), and we don’t like to show it on Instagram, YouTube, etc. If this is necessary for you, then note that it’s much harder to make money off your passions. If no one knows how good you are, you won’t get better job offers, more prospective clients, etc.
This means that, while it’s quite bothersome, you do need to make the extra effort to showcase your passion. It means learning a bit of social media marketing, for instance, to grow a following for your work. It might even mean undertaking a major project, such as a book about your passion, or looking for live performances, gallery showings, etc.
It’s perfectly understandable if you don’t want to do this; but then you need to be realistic. If you want to keep it to yourself, it probably won’t make you as much money.
It helps to have a trusted friend, mentor, or neutral third party, to help with the business portion. This is especially true when deciding on how much to sell your work or services for, or what direction to take.
Passionate people tend to have strong opinions about their work, and can be “too close” to something. For example, if your passion is for a certain genre of music, you may unconsciously close yourself to certain projects – such as a classical musician refusing to write advertising jingles.
Aesthetic tastes are also a factor here. If you’re passionate about fashion, for instance, then you may feel strong against existing fads, and refuse to tailor your work to them.
This can mean creating products or services with limited demand.
This is a careful balancing act, as you also don’t want to lose your passion by just catering to the market. As such, it’s best to get another person to bounce ideas off, and to alert you to the effect of underlying biases (but don’t let them end up dictating all your work either).
At Exodus Capital, we believe your passion gives you an undeniable edge. But we also aim to complement your passion with the right kind of mentorship, and to balance it with financial realities so that your passion becomes sustainable – in that way, you can truly live a good life by doing what you love. Do drop us a message if you’re interested.
