Be careful what you wish for...

This is a great subject Gordon! I hope that many others will post their thoughts concerning this.

I have always believed that being 'true to yourself' was one of the most important things in life. As Julie said, "authentic" and letting your self expression flow from the core of your being.

At one time, I had a deeply held dream to publish a lifestyle magazine for our coastal area...and I did. It was quite an ordeal to accomplish this and my partner and I spent a full year in pre-launch due diligence work and meeting with advisors, accountants and other magazine publishers.

Then the headaches began!

Management problems which sapped our energies away from the creative side of the business. Collection problems from businesses who didn't pay for their advertising, politics of other local competitive media, etc. Stresses galore! Not at all what I had envisioned.

After a couple of years, I realized that I would have much preferred to work for a magazine and enjoy the fun that our staff did, than to own and run the whole enchilada! The prospects for some juicy profits were very real,indeed, but the LOVE had disappeared. Live and learn...

I took photography classes at the college. My instructor quit his day job to become a wedding photographer. The money was great! But the joy soon departed from his life-long 'very much loved' hobby of photography when he decided to turn it into a profit center.

He 'burned out' from the stresses associated with the work...and walked away from doing any photography for several years. Then he decided to teach it, but won't take another paid job for any amount of money!

He wants photography to add joy to his live and is now very satisfied with a day job that affords him a nice living and yields plenty of time for him to play with his hobby that he loves, once again.

My son grew up desiring to be a composer. He is a talented musician...can play almost any instrument - and made money in high school by putting together a professional dance band. He wanted to study serious music at the university, but something happened on his way to achieving his dream.

He began to feel a sense of mission and purpose. He knew that his life was a miracle. He began life as a twin, but I lost one in my early pregnancy which required that I go to bed for the remaining time to increase my chances of bringing him into the world alive.

He wondered why his life was spared and knew how grateful I was to the very competent physician who had seen me through that difficult time. My son was also grateful to him for his life!

Even though composing music was his passionate love, he chose to go into medicine. I personally sensed that he was acting out of a sense of having a 'call' on his life, rather than an actual love for pursuing medicine.

He strongly feels a sense of being pre-destined to his life's work, but his zeal for music is enjoyed in the private moments of his life when he composes and plays beautiful music on his piano, saxophone, trumpet or guitar...just for himself.

The rest of his time is spent in life or death situations as a neurosurgeon resident. He would share that he believes that most physicians have a strong sense of purpose that overcomes selfish desires and it is not money that leads them to medicine these days; not at all!

My thoughts: I think that many people are able to find satisfaction in doing something for the greater 'whole' of the universe that they may not particularly love doing, but it gives them a sense of being part of a mission and...yet, it doesn't always jive with doing what they may REALLY love.

Perhaps it is something that runs deeper in our being that is guiding our steps and leading us to do what we do. And it may be unexplainable no matter how hard we try. But, actual LOVE for the endeavor may not be the exact description of the force behind it.

But, still...that LOVE for doing something that may not bring direct financial rewards may ultimately make us a better balanced person. That can serve to build us up in other important ways such as increasing our sense of self-worth so that we can better accomplish a day-to-day 'honorable work' which can reward with a sense of richness of accomplishment as well as enough money to meet our needs in life. But maybe we don't have to really love it to still thrive from it in other ways. Yes? No?

Could it be that by doing what we love in our private life moments may only serve to give us a sense of bliss that keeps us balanced and healthy and strengthened to accomplish our real mission on this earth.

Yes, I think it would help to see our daily work as contributing to a 'mission' - no matter how unimportant it seemed in the overall scheme of things. Wouldn't there be much less dissatisfation in our lives if we viewed mundane work from that perspective?

Shaped by our life experiences, talents, strengths and genetic gifts, finding our rightful place to 'bloom' in this big old world can pose quite a challenge to some.

But I'm not certain that the vast majority of people who really make this world go 'round are truly in love with their work and yet, if they find themselves in a position to do what they love - give it their best shot - it may surprise them... and turn out NOT to be what they wished for - even if it IS financially rewarding.

In closing, I've never met an artist (and I have mixed, mingled, socialized and befriended many through the years) - who really makes their living doing their art who will seriously look for a market BEFORE they begin to express themselves. They put their own unique-ness 'out there' for the world to judge and either people buy their work... or they don't.

But, I've never known an artist to go back to the drawing table to modify their art just to suit the public. They are so true to the honesty and purity of their self expression and would rather adjust their lifestyle to have enough money to meet their needs than to change their artistic expression to make it more marketable. Guess that is where the term 'starving artist' comes from, huh? :)

Yet, most of them feel VERY rich in their spirit...to be able to do what they love (from the depths of their soul) and get paid for it, even if they can't afford to live in luxury!

They seem to take the time to smell the roses more than others (from what I've seen anyway) and they rejoice in a 'different kind of wealth' just by being keenly tuned in to the 'simple pleasures' in life.

Yet, for others...In doing what they love, the money may indeed follow, but there may be a price to pay that isn't always what is expected or desirable to get what they THOUGHT they had always 'wished for'.

Happy Holidays everyone!
~Amber

> From Sandy's post below:

> "Theory: Many books,courses etc exist
> which state
> and imply you can "do what you
> love" and make
> money. I think this idea of "doing what
> you love"
> has been transposed to " creating a
> product
> YOU LOVE"...and the other part of the
> equation:
> After you do WHAT YOU LOVE the money will
> follow..

> Looking for comments and viewpoints on how
> you
> can integrate what you love with the
> appropriate
> market and/or if you should consider market
> first before "what you love"...
> "

> I'll come back to this last part, but I'd
> like to open this topic for discussion.

> But first;

> First, I’m going to give a little
> history/bio here. You new people may learn
> something, and you old timers will at least
> be able to note “the picture doesn’t
> change” , as my mother used to yell at us
> when we were holding the refrigerator door
> open.

> Over a decade ago, I was a Job Coach/Job
> Developer for a Jobs Training Partnership
> Act (JTPA) program here in Summit County. We
> were one of the first Supported Employment
> programs in the country.

> My office was at Fallsview State Psychiatric
> Hospital, and I would daily go into the
> hospital and do job clubs, skills
> assessments, testing, training, the whole 9
> yards of getting people ready to re-enter
> the world of the “gainfully employed”.

> The concept was that we could help people to
> become contributing members of the community
> by helping them find and keep work. We would
> “coach” them on-site, and help develop the
> mastery required to keep a job.

> This JTPA program was very successful and as
> it so often goes, we were taken over by the
> BIG community agency that served severally
> mentally disabled people.

> During this stretch of time in my life, I
> called upon hundreds of businesses in and
> around Summit County.

> Here is what I said:

> “I have a client in our program that is
> seeking gainful employment, and we would
> like to present him/her to you as a
> candidate for the position of…”

> Something like that.

> Here is what MOST of the employers HEARD:

> “Here is a paranoid schizophrenic, a Vietnam
> veteran, who has been incarcerated for
> violent outbursts, and we’d like for you to
> let him come to work in your shop…”

> Granted, I may have had 2 or 3 clients that
> might have matched that description, but
> scores more that were no where near that.
> But, when people hear Mental Health, or
> Mental Disability, their imaginations go
> wild.

> Biggest part of my job was educating people
> on who we were working with.

> Often, the employer would say that there was
> nothing available, but would ask if I had
> someone who could do such and such, and from
> this my partner and I developed a Jobs
> Available LIST.

> This WORK ended for me when my day became
> 70% paperwork and trying to keep grants,
> fill quotas, etc. etc.

> That is when I started RESUMES PLUS. I
> charged 495.00 dollars to find people jobs.
> These were regular people, mostly college
> seniors or other people seeking to make
> career changes.

> I had a guarantee, I’ll find you the ideal
> job in 90 days, or you get all 495 back,
> plus a free resume for a year.

> Never gave a refund, because of this little
> catch: they had to tell me what the IDEAL
> job was for them. This got hard very fast
> for most people. Almost everyone started
> with INCOME, or dollar amounts, as in;
> "I want to make XXXX dollars a year.
> "

> So, I called upon my Job Coaching skills and
> gave tests and did all kinds of assessments
> while asking,

> WHAT DO YOU LOVE TO DO?

> See, I had bought into the fallacy of DO
> WHAT YOU LOVE THE MONEY WILL FOLLOW, and
> I’ll explain my hypocrisy in a moment.
> Because I do believe that, but then I don’t.
> So bear with me.

> I’m telling you this so you see I have a
> background in this. I’ve helped scores of
> people find work, their IDEAL jobs, and made
> a nice living doing it too.

> Now, I’ve taught golf as a part-time thing
> for about 30 years, but my DREAM, my love
> was to be able to Teach the game on a full
> time basis.

> And when my dream came true, my nightmare
> began.

> 18 to 20 hour days. Loved the students.
> Hated the MANAGEMENT of the business, and I
> HATED all those silent partners I got when I
> opened a business: the lawyer, the CPA, the
> banker, the insurance agent, the county
> inspector, the state tax guy, the feds…OH
> the FEDS…anyone who owns a small business
> understands this.

> Giving golf lessons, building clubs, doing
> all the GOLF stuff was what I loved, but it
> wasn’t long until my EMPLOYEES were doing
> all that so I could devote my time to
> RUNNING a business. And it didn’t take long
> for me to realize that even though I was
> making more money than at any other time in
> my life, I was miserable.

> Where did DO WHAT YOU LOVE, THE MONEY WILL
> FOLLOW go to?

> What I had learned from my days as Job
> Coach/Job Developer/Social Worker/Golf Pro
> (amazing how they all seemed to have similar
> core competencies) was this:

> Having a skill, doing something you are good
> at, is NOT the same as doing what you love.

> I’ve met hundreds of people who were good at
> this or that or they liked to do this or
> that, and that is how I built up the IDEAL
> JOB profile.

> In a recent post Michael Ross made comments
> about finding out what your skills and
> strengths are, which is fine as far as it
> goes.

> I preach about doing your mission, finding
> your passion, and living in the moment of
> NOW. And that is why I must confess to being
> of two minds on this. I am a hypocrite in
> that I do believe that people should find
> what they love to do, DO IT, and the money
> will follow.

> NOW, here is where I may muddy the waters,
> and your opposing opinions are welcome.

> I found from first hand experience, and
> working with hundreds of people, that being
> OK with what you do to make a living is the
> first step toward finding the freedom to
> follow your passion.

> In other words, if you are able to achieve a
> certain comfort level, that is your INCOME
> leaves you with some disposable income, or
> 5% investment income, you can begin to
> explore the LOVE of your life.

> Now I’ve not met anyone, although maybe some
> will post here, that had NOTHING, or quit a
> job and went right into doing what they
> LOVED…and were able to convert that into an
> income replacement vehicle and then build it
> from there.

> If they are honest, most will admit to
> either having a small nest egg to work from
> or having some help.

> NOT all, not everyone.

> But what is at issue is DOING WHAT YOU LOVE
> and the MONEY WILL FOLLOW.

> So, I now open the floor for discussion.

> I KNOW most of this will be ancedotal, or
> personal experience, but please, if you have
> an opinion on this, please post and we’ll
> discuss, debate, maybe even help someone
> here.

> Thanks for your participation,

> Gordon Alexander




Blissfully happy in my own little creative space in this universe