by constructaquote - 7 April 2017
In this video, Constructaquote Founder and serial entrepreneur , Lyndon Wood discusses whether you should follow your passion or chase the money when it comes to business.
Scroll down for the video, or read on for the article version…
One of the most common questions I get asked is “should I follow my passion or follow the money?”. It’s a bit of a cliche and you see this topic coming up all of the time and there’s no right or wrong answer, really.
It comes down to your own individuality. Are you someone that’s very driven? Someone who has high ambition? Are you someone who is happy operating locally (and I don’t mean in business, I mean personally) Do you like your local surroundings and only living in one place? Or are you global and love to travel? Do you like to do lots of different things at the same time? Are you high functioning?
Balance can stress people out. Lots of motivational quotes and books will tell you to get balance in your life. But, what does balance actually mean? Because balance for me is mostly business and getting to spend an hour or two in the evening watching a film , it’s not necessarily a 50/50 split. Balance is a myth, it’s stressful.
Quite often, your passion doesn’t earn you money. Sometimes it becomes a lifestyle business and you can try very hard trying to build a business out of your passion. For example, knitting. You might like to knit but you can’t necessarily make money from it. You might make a few £’s selling some stuff on eBay or to friends but you can’t make a serious business out of it.
Quite often, when you do follow your passion, you end up losing the passion because it becomes work. What you really enjoy and get your escape from becomes work. When it becomes work you lose a degree of freedom because you have to work 10,11,12 hours a day because it’s your own business – so your passion soon gets lost and you lose that element form your life.
There’s no doubt about it that money saves lives and when something goes wrong medically, you can pay to see surgeons and get operations and treatment quicker. Money gives you security for your family, especially your children. However, it can also damage your kids if you over spoil them or give them too much – but that’s a whole other conversation.
It’s also important to not focus necessarily on just the money, but focus on being world class and the money follows.
To summarise…
It’s not about balance. It’s not about passion or money. It’s about being world class, you as an individual and whatever motivates you.
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