During my last year in college, my first boss gave me this advice: “Do what you love best and money will follow.”
She didn’t tell me how money “will follow”. Decades later, I realized how.
When you do what you love you become good at it. After a few years, you become a master in your own right. People will seek you out for what you know. Sure there will always be people better than you and will be able to do things differently – but people will seek you out to avail of your skills, then later on learn from you. They will try to walk in your shoes. Give it a few more years, they will listen to you and think how can they do things differently – do it better.
In all these phases I stood to gain a lot. Not just money but by learning and loving what I do. Then later on teaching what I’ve learned would help me push that glass ceiling further. As I share the craft, those who strive to do things differently would come back and tell me how they made it better. With that I’d learn from their experiences.
But it always starts with that first step – you have to answer the question:
What do you want to do?
If that alone is hard to answer, then try this variation:
What would you do with your life if money wasn’t a concern?
