One of the common problems I’ve noticed people have isn’t about not knowing what they want out of life. It’s that sometimes they have too many passions to choose from, whether it’s entrepreneurship or
startups, technology, filmmaking, screenwriting, book writing, music, personal development coaching, you name it.
People know they can’t do all of them, but at the same time they want to be successful with all of them. How do you know which one to go for?
Let me explain how I learned the hard way about picking something and staying with it. For 12 years, I was doing all of these businesses at once, jumping from one thing to another. The result of all of that? I was broke.
Finally, I chose just one business based not on how much money I would make, but on the fact that I was really interested in that topic, which was fitness.
I made a commitment that I would not leave that business until I was either legally bankrupt or a millionaire. In two and a half years, I became a millionaire.
So, if you have many passions, which one do you commit to?
Commit to something you’re passionate about right now! Or if you’re passionate about three things, what opportunity is in front of you right now?
For example, there were a few other passions I had other than fitness, but the fitness business was just starting at the time. I found a model to go by, decided to go with it, and it worked.
What is an opportunity that presents itself right now for you? That will at least narrow your options down.
The biggest issue with not knowing which route to take is that most people make the question “What do I do” this ball and chain for life decision. They’re thinking, “This is going to be my whole life here.”
Don’t be such a drama queen. What if it’s not a life decision? What if you took the pressure off?
In other words, choose and commit to something now, but don’t make it seem like you’re locked with that choice like it’s a prison of eternity. Give it a few years and if it doesn’t work, move on to one of your other passions.
Better yet, do one at a time and succeed at as many as you can, but be strategic about it.
Here’s my example. Many moons ago I was going to write a book. I hadn’t written anything before. I didn’t have a course or a training company at the time. I just knew, kind of, what I wanted to write about.
But then another voice came with an idea to create a seminar company. Wouldn’t it be better to test out the material live and see if people are actually interested?
It would take me a year to write a book, but for me to stand up in front of people and give this information, I could do that in a week. So I got eight people together at my house, tried out the material, and they loved it.
People started asking if they could bring their friends next time. Sure enough, I had another eight people two weeks later at the house, and I did the same program with some tweaks. Then I started writing up the program.
It took me a lot shorter time to write an event than to write a book. In about two weeks, I had a full one-day program. I put it out there, people loved it, and asked if I had anything more. It took on a life of its own.
I didn’t write the book until about 10 years later, but by then I had 250,000 people that had taken my trainings. When I wrote the book, guess what happened? It was a #1 New York Times bestseller. That was the best thing that could have happened to me.
Had I started out with the book first, I’d probably still be broke today. It just made sense to me to start small with what’s easiest, and I did. It was in my area of passion, which was training, personal development and business development.
I didn’t ask, “What’s the main thing in my life?” I asked, “What’s next?
What’s next for you?
What’s your experience with being a jack-of-all-trades but master of none? Or are you able to juggle multiple things at the same time successfully?
No comments:
Post a Comment