Which passion should I follow? Ask Evan

Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. Today I'm answering a question from one of my readers, Jamie, who sent me a message from YouTube, so YouTube reader, love my YouTube readers, thank you. Long message, so I'll try to kind of cut it down, but it's about finding your passion. So Jamie wrote in saying, hi Evan. "Thank you for creating your videos. I appreciate your advice. I keep returning to the same dilemma. I've watched a video recently where you explain a technique to list your passions, things you'd like to learn, how much it's gonna help people, and I'm stuck between either being a businessman or music artist." And kind of skipping down, "What do you think? Do I risk pouring 10 to 20 years into becoming a musician that might not make it, or do I pour myself into a rewarding life in business? I spent the last 3 years going between business and music, and I realized I need to choose one or the other." Perhaps a strange one to answer, it's a strange one to ask too. Uh, thanks, hope you're having a good evening. Uh, yours, Jamie. So, great question, Jamie. And finding your passion and building a business around it is one of the most important steps that you have to do when you're launching a company. Too many people try to start a business because they're just trying to make a lot of money, and rarely do you see those companies work out. Because it's hard. It's really tough. And if you look at the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, you'll find that they created their business because they really had a strong passion for it and they love what they do. They would do it even if they weren't getting paid and they would find another way to make money. So you want to be able to find that passion and put it into your business so that when it does really get hard, you're able to keep plowing through all the barriers that are going to come at you and keep going into the future. In terms of what to do in terms of business or music, I would try to find a way to combine them. And in one of the books that I'm a big fan of called Built to Last. It looks at combining the genius of the and. And that's where you see a lot of mediocre companies say, "We're either gonna do this or this." But the best companies and the companies that stay around and stick and last for years and years are the ones who say, "We're gonna do this and this." And they look at ideas that are— most people would think don't go well together and they find a way to match them. And I think that that can apply well to your business. Somewhere in here you talked about some of your passions on the business side is technology, programming, business efficiency. If you look at most musicians, and I deal with a lot of them from being in the salsa world, there's a lot of salsa bands that come in. For the most part, musicians are awesome at what they do, but they're not great on the business side, and they're not great with technology, and they're definitely not great with programming. Now there are a few that can, will break the mold, but in general, artists are not great at the business side. It's too bad because a lot of artists have a hard time promoting themselves and being good business owners. So if you have that ability to combine the two, it's a very powerful combination that I wouldn't want you to feel like you have to give up one or the other. Now, if you're a musician, you can only probably go so far as a musician. If you're a programmer, you can only go so far as a programmer. But if you can combine them, you could be one of the best in the world at those two things together. And there's gonna be other people who can learn from you and benefit from you. So an example, you know, if say a lot of the bands aren't great business people. How can you combine your skill with music and understanding of that, plus your skill on the business side and programming technology to make them a lot better, add a lot more value, and also tap into both of your passions at the same time? And I try to look for ways to combine your skills because that makes you really unique. You know, if I went out and tried to find a programmer, there's tons of programmers out there, right? And are you gonna be the best programmer in the world Maybe, but probably not. You know, you're the best at you. You're the best at what you can do. And so the more you can tie in your passions and personal interests together into that unique package, the more value you're gonna be able to bring the right kind of client. And the goal here to be a successful entrepreneur is not to be able to target everybody, but to target a niche where you can be the best in the world at what you do. And that's how you can make a lot of money, but also add a lot of value to your community and make it really fulfilling and personally rewarding. So as much as you can combine those, the better. And I don't know what the magic answer is, but you're basically looking for ways that you can find, you can add value to your clients and combine those specific interests. So it could be around the musicians, it could be on the programming side, but ideally you can combine both of those together to make a successful business. I don't know if that answered your question or gave you more confusion, but if again you could tie into what's uniquely you and build a business around that, then you have a long-term sustainable competitive advantage over your customers. You can charge more, you'll get a lot more satisfaction out of your life, and you don't— you won't feel like you're always forced to pick between one or the other. So hopefully that helps. For those of you watching, if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. It makes me want to do more videos for you. And if you have a comment about this video, or if you have a question about your own struggle or business, I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to try to help out. If you want to leave in the comment section below, I always read those. So thank you, and I'll see you on the next episode.