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Pursuing Your Passions

by Jonathan R Taylor

Envision for a moment, doing what you truly love and getting paid for it. Having a hard time? Most people do, unfortunately, because they've been conditioned to think of work as something that's unpleasant, but necessary.

These days, however, fulfilling your passion in the workplace is becoming more of a reality. What if you have a love of the outdoors? I have a friend who turned his passion for hiking and camping into a profitable summer business as an independent guide for week long hiking trips. Another friend of our family recently took her interest in health and fitness and used it to build her business as an independent trainer.

In their excellent book, Finding Your Perfect Work, Paul and Sarah Edwards give several examples of people who have taken their unique gifts and passions and turned them into a livelihood. For example, Bob Bell and Ted Seibert started their company, The Sand Castle, from a love of building sand castles. Of course, their sand castles don't get washed away, because they build their two story castles in shopping malls, trade shows and fairs throughout the country. Stephen Yoke took his hobby of collecting miniature toy cars and turned it into a business selling them at car and toy shows. Within months of quitting his old job as real car salesman, he was bringing in over $200,000 in sales.

What passion do you have that could be turned into a profitable business? Whether it's painting, writing, teaching, speaking or anything else, all it takes is some motivation and creativity to get started. Check out Dan Miller's Turning Passions into Profits for more ideas.

To access the links in this article, visit www.careercalling.com/Archives.htm and read edition June 03, 2005.

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