Sharon quit her Marriott job after falling in love with salsa at a Toronto club and built one of North America's largest Latin dance schools, earning far more than before. Evan Carmichael uses her story and his own to argue you can't see the final step, but each one you take reveals the next.
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How to turn your passion into a business. So I got an awesome question from one of my YouTube viewers— love you guys— Susmito, who wrote in to say, I've only watched 3 of your videos including this one, and I love you, man, in a completely non-homosexual way. I completed my undergraduate degree last year, and I very recently discovered my passion for Latin dancing, and I can't seem to get enough of it. I feel like dancing is all I want to do right now, but I can't see any way that I can turn this passion into something lucrative anytime in the near future. But I know that if I If I stop dancing now for the sake of academic or professional development, it would drill a hole through my heart and I will regret it forever. Keep making these videos, very inspirational. Susmito. I love it, man. I'm feeling the passion and as somebody who's gotten deep into the salsa world, I can definitely relate to what you're going through. I want to share a couple stories. The first is of Sharon. She's the founder of Toronto Dance Salsa. It's a company that I've invested in. When she was getting into salsa, she was at the Marriott Hotel chain. And she's a go-getter. She was rising up through the ranks. She got 4 promotions in 4 years and was on the fast track to success. And one day she walked into a salsa club named Babalu here in Toronto, Ent City, and she just fell in love with it. She had no dancing background. She had 2 left feet. She sucked. She was stepping on people, but there was something about the vibe, the music, the energy, the people. She wanted to keep going. And so it started off as, "Hey, this is this fun thing we can go, let's go check it out," and it became an obsession. She started going out every night. She started now sleeping 4 or 5 hours a night because she had to wake up early to go to her job at the Marriott, but she was up late the last night before going salsa dancing. And it was taking a toll on her, but she got through because she loved the dancing so much. And because of that passion, it led to her becoming better, right? She went out every night. Sucked at the start. She was the worst of her friends. She, she picked up so slowly, but because she kept at it, she got better and better and better, and eventually she joined a performance team, and she got better through the performance team. Then she started teaching a few classes with the school that offered the performance class, and I don't know if she got paid. If she did, it wasn't very much for teaching those classes. Still nowhere near compared to what she was making at the Marriott. Then from there, a competing school that was in ballroom wanted to launch a salsa division, and they recruited her to go and join, and she started teaching classes there, and they wanted her to jump on and become full-time teaching salsa. And that was a difficult decision for her because here she was on the fast track to success, making really good money at the Marriott, and she felt like, if I go and do this teaching salsa thing, I'm gonna make $20,000, $25,000 a year. So how do I balance that? She went through the same thing you're going through right now because she felt like it would drill a hole in her heart And she would live with regret if she didn't take that job, didn't take that opportunity. So she quit her job at the Marriott, went to go do the salsa thing, and turned it into a full-time career. And it turned out well for her. Right now she's making way more money than she ever was making at the Marriott. She turned that opportunity into eventually breaking away from the school, having her own school, launching it up to being one of the biggest Latin dancing schools in North America. And it all came because she started from trusting her passion, right? When you are following your passion, you don't know how it's gonna work out. And that's the big problem, right? You're looking at this saying, "I love dancing, I love Latin dancing, but I don't know how it's gonna work out." And a lot of people, they let that hold them back from starting. Because you don't know how it's gonna work out, you don't see the end goal, that prevents you from starting. Where a lot of times with this, the step The staircase appears as you take each step. You don't know what that last step looks like, but you'll get there because as you take a step, the next step becomes visible, and the next step becomes visible, and so on. This is the difference between making decisions with your heart and making it with your head. The biggest decisions in life you have to make with your heart and trust that it's gonna work out, and it will work out. If you love dancing, you're pouring everything you have into it, And maybe you become a DJ, or you become a teacher, or you become— you start doing DVDs, or you start a website. Whatever it is, there's so many opportunities, and you can't figure that all out right now, but by following your passion and listening to your heart, it will work out. Let me share my example, my story with you. I first went to salsa dancing on a date, and then I took up another class at the same time to learn more moves so I can impress the girl that I was on a date with. And I just fell in love with it. You know, I didn't know salsa growing up. I didn't know the music. I didn't understand the counts. I don't speak Spanish. I'm tall, which counted against me because my steps were too big at the start. And so if I was looking at it from a business opportunity, right? I had actually just sold my company, and now here's my chance to launch a new company. A business opportunity, you're gonna plan it out. Here's what I'm gonna do. It wouldn't make any sense. Salsa didn't make any sense at all as an opportunity for me to get involved with because I didn't have any of the track record or experience or history or music— musicality, nothing! I sucked! But I loved it. And I didn't worry so much about making it into a business right now, I just followed that love. That eventually led me to meet Sharon, get connected to Toronto Dance Salsa, I'm now an investor in the school, I DJ most of the events at the school, I've got a whole bunch of YouTube videos on dancing you can find online. I teach one of the classes, the highest level class, level 6, at the school. So I'm actively involved in it because I love it. Like, I'm still out dancing 20-25 hours a week because it fills me up here. I love the people, I love the community, I love the music, I love the dancing. If I didn't have it, I would feel like somebody drilled a hole through my heart. Still, like, this is maybe, I don't know, 10 years, 10 years since. It's been a long time. And so I would never have figured out from walking in that first day that this is how I would make a career out of salsa. Sharon would never have figured out walking into that first club how she would ever make money out of salsa. But we both continued on, and you have to continue on because you love what you're doing. Always listen to your heart in those big decisions. And trust that the staircase will appear as you start climbing. Believe. For those of you watching, you like the video, you can subscribe to the channel, see more just like it. Thank you so much. I'll see you soon. If you want some Believe in your inbox every week to keep you motivated, check out the link below to join my newsletter.
