When I started my first blog in January of 2012, I had no idea what I was in for. I didn’t do it to make money and I definitely didn’t do it for the accompanying fame{who knew I’d become so famous?! 🙂 }. Instead, the main reason for starting my first personal finance blog was because I sincerely enjoyed talking about money. I liked saving money, I liked earning money and I wanted to have more of it. So why not start a blog that talks about all those things?
You might not think of a blog as a business but my blogging career kind of accidentally turned into a viable business. About 6 months in to my journey, I was happily blogging along when I discovered that people just like me were out there making thousands of dollars off their blogs. What started for many of them as passion projects, turned into viable businesses. I guess I got lucky since I happened to pick a passion that evolved into a business opportunity.
Starting Your Business
Starting your own business is one of the tenets of the ‘American Way’. Our country was founded on small businesses and although many of them eventually grow to become larger corporations, at one time or another, there was probably only one person in charge. I’ve had countless ideas over the years for new businesses but rarely have I acted on them. The reason for my inaction is that starting a business is expensive. You have to really believe in your idea and want it to succeed in order to do so.
One of the best things to come out of this whole internet fad is the low entry barrier for starting a business. I probably wouldn’t have started my blog if I had to do it the old fashioned way by mail or by passing out flyers twice a week. Can you imagine me standing on the corner trying to give away free articles about ‘How to Save More Money at Chipotle‘?
Passion Breeds Success
Having been around the blogosphere for a couple years now, I’ve seen a lot of bloggers come and go. In short, the reason why some have succeeded and others have failed, is passion. If you aren’t passionate about your job or hobby, you will never make it to the top.
I’ve seen it in sports all my life, as a player and now as a coach. The ones who have great natural talent tend to peak early on in their careers, the ones who have great passion tend to peak later on when it matters. When you can find someone who has early natural talent and passion, you get a rare specimen like Kobe Bryant or Lebron James.
Enough about sports though, why exactly does passion matter so much? The reason why I think it matters is that starting your own business is a shit ton of work. It’s not easy and although I glorify my four hour work day, there was a lot of time that went into building my online sources of income initially. I’ve learned a ton from netowrking, orgainizing my businesses and everything in-between that now allows me to manage my current projects in a very time efficient manner.
I think a lot of big businesses suffer from too many people at the top without passion. These upper management types might be doing it for the money, the power, whatever it is, they probably care more about personal success than anything else. They are not driven by passion. On the other hand, when you start your own business or work for yourself, you tend to align yourself with something you’re passionate about, that’s the only way it will work.
Finding Your Passion
All my life I’ve always been good at a lot of things but I’ve never been great at any one thing. I played college sports but I never felt the passion and drive that others had. These days, I have friends who play volleyball at the beach every day of the week. But for me, I like going down once a week, playing hard and competing and then going home. I still give it my all every time I play and work my ass off but it’s not something that I want to do every day of the week.
Too often, I think people try to force themselves into a passion instead of just waiting to see how things will play out. Even though I majored in aerospace engineering in college, it’s definitely not my passion. I’m content with my career though: it pays well, I’m good at it, other people seem to think I’m good at it and it’s easy. But I can’t see myself doing it for the next 30 years because I’m not passionate about it.
Discovering a New Passion
My blogging and writing career though might become my passion. Even though I started this site(my second one) because I would like to eventually make money off of it, that’s not my main goal. I like writing about lifestyle type topics and that’s why you see the articles you see. It’s a nice benefit when you can find something that you’re passionate about and get paid for it. In personal finance writing, I think I’ve found that but I’m not sure yet.
I wanted to use my 3 month day job hiatus as a test to see how much I really liked working online full time. Am I passionate about working for myself, working from home and finding new ways to make money through the internet? So far, I’d say yes but I’m not sure yet. Like I mentioned earlier, I’m not going to force this career onto myself until I’m 100% sure that I’m ready for it. I’m going to wait and see how it plays out. Patience in this case will determine whether or not this career becomes my passion
Readers, what do you think about passion for your job? Do you think passion plays a part in success or getting to the top? Or do you think you can get there just by working hard and putting in your time?
-Harry @ the Four Hour Work Day
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Hayley @ A Disease Called Debt says
I started by blog as an outlet to get my thoughts out of my head about my debt situation. I’ve always liked writing but I didn’t anticipate just how much I’d enjoy blogging! I love it! I hope someday I will be able to earn an income from it. 🙂
Harry Campbell says
That’s awesome! Even if you don’t make money directly from your blog, there are a lot of avenues/business opportunities that have come about from blogging.
Amanda says
Like what?
Harry Campbell says
Well through blogging I’ve met some awesome people who I would consider my friends even though we haven’t met in person yet. It’s also helped me land countless freelance gigs since I can use my website as a reference for samples of my writing.
And one of the biggest benefits has been the networking opportunities that came from it. I got a job interview from a writing gig I got from someone who hired me because they liked my blog.
Not to mention all of the SEO/website design/maintenance stuff I’ve learned. I’m now helping others out with their new websites(one of my friends is starting a cool surfing website) and looking to collaborate in niches other than personal finance.