It’s Not a Bad Word
Why shouldn’t you be able to turn passion to profit if you want?
Fortunately, today’s creators are outgrowing the old mindset of “starving artist”. One thing required for that shift is to recognize that “profit” is not a bad word.
Money is simply a unit of energy. More energy means greater freedom and opportunities.
Earning from your creations (if that’s your goal) is a wonderful thing that supports your creative endeavors and helps you make more art and continue to grow and improve.
To have work… a job that pays the bills is a blessing. To be able to do work you love while earning from it, is truly a privilege and a blessing, and it’s one that you’ve earned.
The Pro Life and Mindset
Pro athletes get paid for their passion pursuit. Teachers get paid for their love of teaching. Chefs get paid for the love of cooking. It’s only logical that any creator of any genre of creativity should also be able to earn from their creations and creativity if that’s their goal.
The difference is your goals for your craft and its role in your life. Just as with the previous examples, not all who pursue those passions ever turn pro or wish to. The weekend golfer never intends to turn pro, nor does the cook who loves cooking for family and friends for fun but not a career.
So if turning pro is not your goal for your creative passion, this article may not be for you. But if you’ve ever wondered how to turn your passion to profit, so that you can do more of what you love, you’ll enjoy this article.
If we stop to really think about purpose and the meaning of life, it just makes sense to spend most of our time doing work we love. The ideal scenario for many creators is to be able to also earn a living doing the work that lights us up… to go turn our passion to profit.
Our creativity already brings us joy. That it may also sustain us is a worthy consideration if that’s your inclination.
Sure, you may have to bite the “job-job” bullet at first. For any destination, there’s the journey there and we can’t expect to arrive without taking the journey. Some destinations are farther and harder to reach, and yet, if we keep on going we will arrive.
Think You Don’t Have Time…?
An accurate generalized TV time statistic is hard to come these days. Besides the variable of using computers, pads and phones for viewing of favorite shows, there’s also streaming services like NetFlix, Apple, Amazon and YouTube. There’s also a wide generation gap where seniors over 65 watch significantly more TV than younger generations.[1]https://www.statista.com/chart/15224/daily-tv-consumption-by-us-adults/
However, a general consensus on the average TV time per day is 4.5 hours a day for adults 18 and over. But it gets worse with an average of 3 hours for social screen time per day.
WHAT?!? That’s over 7 hours a day that could be use to pursue your dreams!!
Now if you track your time and are clear on how much time you spend engaged in these extracurricular activities, then plug in your own numbers. We’ve also written about that concept in this article with a similar theme: do what makes you come alive.
Bottom line? Most of us squander far more time than we realize. If your numbers are anywhere in the ballpark of 2-5 hours of recreational screen time daily, then you can put that time to work for you, creating versus consuming.
In today’s online world… the world wide web, it’s easier than any other time in history to pave a pathway from passion to profit. Today, it’s absolutely possible to not only do the work you love, but to earn a living from it.
Turning Passion to Profit
It’s still not easy. It’s just easier than most any time in history, (except perhaps if you got started at the beginning of the internet up through 2012. Those were the golden years of the gold rush of the internet.
Now, it’s a crowded marketplace but consider how very many still are not utilizing it. If you start now, what’s possible in a year… in 5… in 10…?
Versus if you don’t even start.
Today, it’s absolutely possible to not only do the work you love, but to earn a living from it. You just need commitment, determination, patience and perseverance.
You’re going to arrive in your future anyway. Better to arrive on the heels of effort that turns your passion to profit, if a creative career is your dream.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
Table of Contents
- Audio Article: From Passion to Profit:
- Never Easy… Always Worth it
- Find Your Niche
- Do What You Love and Love What You Do
- Creative Ways to Build—and Grow—Your Business
- Social Platforms
- Multi-purposed Content to the nth Power
- Action Pierces Through Procrastination
Audio Article: From Passion to Profit:
The Star of Your Life
YOU are the star of your life… the main character (MC). If you’re not yet living the life you’ve imagined then treat each day as a rehearsal for what’s to come.
The cook spends more time prepping and cleaning than it takes to enjoy the meal. Olympic athletes train hard for four years after many previous years of day upon day dedicated to hard work. Same thing with soccer players, professional dancers, successful authors, actors, painters… successful anything.
The practice ever precedes the performance, and the practice is always longer, more arduous and enduring. So it is with the journey toward greatness… toward our own personal greatness.
For that is what we’re here to do. Grow more into all that we can be. Our own version and determination of greatness for us… what constitutes our life well lived for a great life, according to us for us. You for your life. Me for mine. As it should be, each to their own.
But when it’s your craft… your art… the work you love doing, you can enjoy the journey as much as the destination.
YOU are the star of your life. If you’re not yet living the life you’ve imagined then treat each day as a rehearsal for what’s to come.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder-iCreateDaily.com®
Never Easy… Always Worth it
You’ll still have to want it enough to work for it tirelessly day and night, likely for years. It’s just that it’s easier than any other time in history. It’s easier to create and easier to connect directly with your audience. And the thing about doing hard things…? We grow stronger, more resilient, confident, capable and… HAPPIER!
The journey may not be easy. In fact it rarely is. But the journey toward the life you want to live is always worth it.
If you embrace a spirit of adventure and a learner’s mindset, you will enjoy the journey as much as the victory.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
Free to Pursue Work You Love
Your grandparents didn’t have that option. Likely your parents didn’t either, which is why they may not understand your determination to pursue work you love over just “getting a job” to pay the bills.
It’s different today. Opportunity abounds. What’s the same is that it still requires hard work.
Your grandparents did not have the freedom to follow their passions. You do. Don’t wait.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
Find Your Niche or Create It
No matter how niched is your interest, there’s likely more than one way to earn a living from it. There’s one man who is earning a six figure income doing one simple task: teaching people how to jump higher.
I’ve lost track of that story with the guy’s name, but he had created so many videos on YouTube that sports teams and athletic departments around the world were hiring him to coach their athletes. Meanwhile, you can find another cool example of two school teachers significantly multiplying their income by packaging their expertise into online educational programs for teachers.
“The riches are in the niches,” as the saying goes.
The Long Tail
Seth Godin calls niches “the long tail“.
Working hard doing work we love is a privilege that wasn’t available to most of our ancestors even just 30 years ago. Now that’s astonishing to realize. Just 30 years ago. More than that, there are many all over the world today who still are not yet doing work they love. However, it’s more possible now than ever before.
What’s different today is the Internet. The Internet has leveled the playing field, and the rules are that anyone with a passion, a work ethic and an internet connection can play. It’s the “Flat World” concept popularized in the book with that title by Thomas L. Friedman.
Working hard at what we love is a privilege.
Working hard at what you love doesn’t feel like work.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
Turning Passion to Profit
We get it. Unless your creative genius is being an entrepreneur, then you’re not likely passionate about the prospect of building your business. Most creators are not in love with the business building process. Okay, that’s fair.
However, if you had to go to work to do a 9-5 type job you don’t love, better to do that 9-5 business working for yourself, even when it’s doing some things you don’t enjoy doing. Most people like to eat, yet most people are not fond of cleaning the kitchen. Yet we do it because it has to be done in order to have a kitchen we can cook in and a home we can enjoy living in.
If you’re just not cut out to run your own business, no worries. There are other ways and means to go from passion to profit without having to do all of that, which we’ll touch on later. We’ve also covered the concept of focusing on your strengths, and how to love what you do when you can’t do what you love.
Success is a simple concept. The more you do the better you get.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
Creative Ways to Build —and Grow — Your Business
When it comes to building your business, brand building is important, especially for creators making anything to sell. There are many fun ways to do that in today’s vast land of opportunity. Video helps do that more quickly than any other medium. The next is audio, such as podcasts—yours and/or as a guest on other’s podcasts—followed by social postings, followed by the written word.
If video isn’t your thing, don’t force it to be. There are so many other mediums and options to do video without you having to be on the screen. It’s a matter of deciding to do something based on what makes the most sense for you and then just starting.
One thing is certain, the more we do the better we get, so don’t be the person who says “I’m not good at…”, something you’ve barely even done. You were not good at your craft in the beginning either, but you know how you got better at it. That’s the purpose behind daily creation, and why it’s at the heart of iCreateDaily brand.
Don’t overthink things. Take action. Action generates perspective that leads to clarity and confidence.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
How to Grow Your Audience on Social Platforms
Our creative endeavors are like musical notes. There are virtually infinite compositions that can be created from the same basic finite number of musical notes. For artists, composers and other content creators that includes many different outcomes that can be created from our one initial work.
This is good news. It’s called repurposing or multipurposing and it’s in alignment with the laws of nature. Plant one seed that produces many trees with many fruits and many more seeds.
Here’s the nitty gritty of just a smattering of things you can do to leverage your efforts to grow your brand on your journey from passion to profit.
Content Creation and Proliferation
VIDEO
Create video content of your are of interest and expertise.
- Talking/teaching/playing/painting
- Time lapse videos
- Music over visuals
- Words on screen no audio
- Video of still shots of your work
AUDIO
Video can be purposed into audio content, thereby leveraging video creation into audio.
- Podcast
- Audio only with a still shot of your art
- Read your poetry or a chapter of your book for audio only
- Audio only of your musical composition (yours or others)
- Audiobooks read by you, (yours or others in public domain)
BLOGS & WEBSITES
Audio and video content can be editing into transcripts and/or article formats toward building out your website and social content.
- Your writing
- Your writing for others websites with linkbacks to your site
- Others writing for your site
As writers, we often sort through several possible directions we could take an article. So we can choose one for our blog, then offer to write on that topic for someone else’s blog or website and for that we can take another of the possible angles. Then your sign-off bio links back to your site, which helps increase your traffic and grow your Google ranking, which helps to further grow your website traffic.
You will also need to learn about and employ Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Without that, it’s like having a storefront in a back alley way with no signage pointing to you. In order to be found by those who will love and follow your work, you need to do the things that will help them find you.
Build an email list of folks who love what you do and purpose your other content into messages for them — and vice versa.
To build your own email list is the safest and surest way to grow your brand and your tribe. You can lose a social media account or have your traffic cut dramatically by a social platform’s algorithm changes and your website can crash or be hacked, but your email list is yours.
VLOG
Video blog – you reading your articles, chapters, or just talking, sharing, teaching, presenting, interviewing. Now the same article is in print and on video and audio; even if your face isn’t on screen and it’s just a still shot or series of still shots.
ART PRODUCTS
Your one piece of art can become so much more:
Cards, posters, prints, originals, wallpaper, books, coloring books, journals, mugs, T-shirts, cushions, placed on Etsy, placed on Shutterstock and other artist/photographer mediums, sold from Facebook, sold on Amazon, licensed…
We shared more on this in the article on Fantasy artist, Eeva Nikunen and how she’s leveraged her art into multiple products.
The ultimate creator’s vacation is a trip to the farthest reaches of possibility.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
Multipurposing Content to the nth Power
Your one article can become 5 more things:
- a social media post
- an email
- a video topic
- read as a vlog
- a podcast topic (as host or guest)
Your one video can become 5 more things:
- an article
- an email
- a Social Media post
- an audio clip
- edited into other videos
All of this content creation can become 5 more things:
- free downloads for lead generation
- posts and emails that serve your audience
- books
- talks
- courses
And that’s how your brand grows in the world.
Deep Honesty
Your challenge is patience, persistence and unbiased deep honesty. It is a calm, unfrenzied visioning and implementing, visioning and implementing. You’re in it for the long haul. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and you will get there if you set short term and long term goals and work them daily.
Investigate whether you’re avoiding something because it’s truly not your thing, or, if you’re avoiding it because it’s uncomfortable. If it’s just discomfort, that could be your next growth step to take. Only you can decide for you.
Discomfort is a good thing when we’re pushing against our own limitations. That’s how all life begins, grows and gets stronger.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
Action Pierces Procrastination
The other thing to be aware of is the common inclination to make things bigger in your head than they actually are by overthinking them. An iCreateDaily community member recently said it this way:
“So now to figure out what the problem is… why I think it’s complicated.”
Paralysis by analysis can be a huge stumbling block for anyone. From overthinking and overanalyzing, to anguishing over making decisions, we can spin into an abyss of mental and emotional chaos.
The mind is amazing, but it can also be a maze and we can also get stuck there. The best remedy is to just take action. You can course correct as needed, but getting going will get you unstuck and out of feeling overwhelmed.
Taking action releases paralysis. Taking action frees up the energy blocked by fear. Go do. Turn fear into faith… paralysis into performance… inertia into industry.
~LeAura Alderson, writer, editor, creator iCreateDaily.com ®
For more on your soul purpose, you may enjoy this article.
Also, entrepreneur and marketing thought leader, Neil Patel shares ideas on how to profit from your art in this 2 minute video.
You must find the place inside yourself where nothing is impossible.
~Deepak Chopra, MD, Indian-born American author, b.10/22/1946
In Search of Greatness
We thoroughly enjoyed this documentary, In Search of Greatness.
The focus is athletes from a handful of different sports, who were exceptionally successful in their chosen sport, in spite of not being the best in the beginning.
We love how this highlights excellence as being the result of dedication, hard work, and passion. Further, how these athletes perceive their sport as a creative endeavor… as their art.
Get Gratitude.
The Day is the Way.
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Hello! I’m LeAura, owner and co-creator of iCreateDaily.com®. As an autodidactic philosopher, generalist, personal development advocate, entrepreneur, writer, editor, author, ideator, media publisher, and podcaster, I’m passionate about helping others achieve their best possible life! Our small family of entrepreneurs, writers, investors, educators and creators own and run websites around topics we enjoy, such as gardening, health and fitness, creativity and pets, with more to come.
While my greatest teacher is Life… my formal training includes certifications in mediation, fitness, and strategic intervention coaching, including marriage and family. Today, the synergy of creating websites, articles and podcasts, brings together all my favorite things: family, learning, growth, creating, connecting and contributing. To share these with you is a privilege, that serves my lifelong aspiration to help others.
My personal areas of creativity are in writing, masterminding, ideation, synthesis and bringing ideas to life through business and entrepreneurship, all with a pervasive spiritual foundation with a focus on elevating the lives of others.
References
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