MAKE MONEY or HAVE FUN? (CAN YOU DO BOTH?)

Consider a Venn diagram with two circles. One is filled with the things that you consider to be “work”, or things that you don’t love to do, but you can do them to make money. The other is filled with the things that you consider to be “fun”, or things that you love to do, but that don’t make you any money when you do them.

There is an important distinction that many people make about this diagram. Too many people make the mistake of seeing this diagram as UNIVERSAL, meaning that the diagram would be a list of all of the things that NO ONE likes to do (but they can do for money) and a list of all of the fun things that EVERYONE likes to do (but they don’t make money).

The correct way to look at this diagram is to remember that these two lists of things are PERSONAL TO YOU. Everyone has their own set of lists. Something that you may consider to be FUN may not be fun to someone else. And something that someone else consider to be work may actually be fun to you.

This is especially true when it comes to SOLVING PROBLEMS. Some people consider certain problems to be FUN to solve, while others may not. Solving problems can give people a lot of satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment.

So, if you could fill up these two lists with everything that you can think of, you’re going to find that somethings are going to actually land on BOTH sides and create the overlap in the Venn diagram.

Those are the things that you need to focus on. If you made this list (of the things that you LOVE to do that ALSO can MAKE you money), you could then put everything in order of ‘How much FUN’ and ‘How much MONEY’.

Some things are going to be mostly fun with just a little bit of money. Some will be more money but just a little bit of fun. Some things are going to hit a sweet spot of being both incredibly fun and also give you the ability to make enough money.

And when I say, ‘enough money’, I mean that you can build a full-time, comfortable living around these things. If you set a criterion of ‘needs to make a minimum of one million dollars per year’ as a requirement, then you’re probably not going to find many things on this list.

But you can live VERY comfortably and be VERY happy making a lot LESS than a million bucks a year. Remember, the TOP 1% of income earners in the USA are making ~$400,000 and achieving $400,000 is A LOT EASIER than achieving $1,000,000, especially if you’re first starting out.

Also, if you want to make $1,000,000 (which is certainly possible), you’re going to have to make $400,00 first, so you might as well start at a realistic and achievable goal and grow from there.

I commonly use ‘six-figures’ when asked how much money you can make with the information contained in this book/course. That range is $100,000 all the way up to $999,999. There are a lot of numbers in between that I’m guessing would make most people VERY HAPPY to be earning, ESPECIALLY by doing something that you ACTUALLY ENJOY!

You can look at me as an example. If you can’t tell by now, I LOVE to talk about and brainstorming business ideas and side hustles. I LOVE helping people find their passions and helping them see how they can turn them into a business that helps other people. I LOVE to read about and keep up with new technology that people can use to make money.

I ENJOY hosting events and answering questions about all of Amazon’s business platforms. I ENJOY the process of writing, publishing, launching, and marketing books. I think about all of this stuff even when I’m vacation. I’ll talk with pretty much anyone about these topics (often when I’m not even asked).

And these things that I like/love/enjoy doing? They can bring VALUE to other people. And some (or many) of these people will happily PAY ME to help them and answer their questions. I really do feel as though I’ve found that magic overlapping part of that Venn diagram.

And I want to help you find yours.

One more thing about creating and sorting your own personal list from this Venn diagram exercise. I’ve often seen people think that none of this will work for them because they are not the “BEST IN THE WORLD” at something. THIS IS AN EXCUSE. You can easily provide significant VALUE to other people even when you are not the best in the world, and I’ll prove it to you right now.

Take someone who really likes basketball, but they don’t put it on their list because they are not LeBron James or Michael Jordan or because they realize that they’ll never play in the NBA. Does that mean that they can’t make significant money around the sport of Basketball? Of course not!

There are TONS of careers related to the sport of basketball. They could be a coach, a trainer, a statistician, or any number of other careers related to the sport of basketball. They could be a high school coach or host their own basketball clinics. They could start a YouTube channel showing drills and techniques for players to improve their skills. They could offer remote coaching over Zoom or publish exercise and nutrition guides and journals. The list goes on and on.

Take me as an example again. I’ll never sell more books than Stephen King, but if I made that my goal, then I’m likely just going to disappointed AT THE EXPENSE of living a VERY HAPPY life and making plenty of money by writing books for MY market, not HIS market. Get it?