When You Love What You Do, It Shows

You’ve probably heard the adage, “do what you love and the money will follow.”  It’s also the name of a book published in 1987 by Marsha Sinetar. Yes, my age is showing..:)

However, I didn’t find this book until the early 1990s.  By that time I was rapidly approaching burnout in my career as a housing services administrator at a small public liberal arts college in Massachusetts. At the time I didn’t know that I was being slowly fried in this job.  All that I knew is that I was miserably unhappy. So, this book became my soothing balm, and I lapped up its words like a kitten to milk.

At the time, one of my hobbies was a form of decorative painting, stenciling.  I stenciled the walls of my living room, purchased raw wood and paper items and gave stenciled items to family members for Christmas and birthday gifts, and learned everything I could about the art.  I also invested very heavily in a large variety of stencils, brushes, paints and other supplies. I was a total stenciling nerd.

Having read Marsha’s book, I thought, “Well, I love stenciling.  Let’s turn that into a business!” In 1993 or 1994, I had become a crispy critter and quit my job with the intention of starting a business as a decorative painter.  What I discovered is that for me, doing what I loved didn’t result in the money following me. In fact, it was a very poor financial decision, and lo and behold, I discovered that I now hated my hobby when it became my job.

What I failed to take into account were my gifts.  While I was good a decorative painting, it wasn’t my passion, nor was it a gift.  It was a learned skill. What I had always been good at was taking a vague concept, creating an action plan for meeting the goals of that concept, generalizing other life experiences and knowledge into the plan, and putting it into action.  I was especially excited in situations where I could innovate and create at will and create something new on the other end. My stenciling business used few of those gifts. However, I did have an incredibly cool business name card and logo!

So, when I meet someone like realtor Beth Christo, who walks her talk and loves what she does, her passion for her clients really shows.  And, if you’re in the market for luxury property in Florida, she’s your go-to-person.

Listen to my interview with Beth at https://www.MainStreetMavericks.com. And, if you’d like to be a guest on my show, fill out the guest application while you’re there!