factoryjoe:

iwc:

Whenever I hear someone say, “do what you love”, I roll my eyes.  I hate to be cynical, but it’s such a silly, naive thing to say.  It’s got a nice ring to it, but it doesn’t mean jack.  I prefer the 3-circle diagram above.  I didn’t invent this, the idea came from Jim Collins, who was quoted by Tom Kelley in the latest Entrepreneur Thought Leaders podcast (it’s a nice episode).

The idea is know what you’re good at, and try to find out what you love doing.  Once you figure those two out, think about how can you make a living out of that (if you got rich parents, feel free to skip this step).

Obviously it’s not as easy as it sounds.  I’m not good at many things, and I’m still not quite sure what I love doing.  I think many of us confuse what we love doing with what we’d like to see ourselves as.  I once fantasized myself as the next Thomas Pynchon, but I don’t really like locking myself in a room and dig deep into my soul and write and edit (not to mention I have no talent in writing at all).  So in order to get the top two circles right will take some time, some honest talking to yourself (to this day I’m still trying to talk myself out of giving comedy a try).

I’m afraid I don’t have much to say about the ‘getting paid’ part.  From our experience, we tried many different routes - by talking to people, reading and thinking and most importantly, trying.  I believe we’re in a decent position now, running a profitable business, but we’re still experimenting each day.  And I would be the last person to tell you that our way is the best.  I know this, however: if someone were to just show us the way, that would’ve been no fun at all.