17 Grim Lessons From Doing What You Love
And from three years at that. This is from long ago. But the lessons hold true.
Beware, they’re grim, dark and demoralizing.
That’s the truth when it comes to lessons from doing what you love in life.
1) Money is not everything, but it makes up for 99% of almost everything anyway
It is very normal to read about some successful person who would preach, “Money is not everything” or even “Don’t focus on the money. Focus on helping people and do what you love.”
I find that that’s such a hilarious irony because all you have to ask is, “Take away the element of money. What are you then?”
The answer is usually nothing, specifically, the work you do loses a lot of meaning. That’s how the world works and that’s how success is defined most of the time.
Indeed, money is not everything, but it’s extremely ignorant to say that if you’re broke. It’s also downright selfish to say it to people struggling when you’re already making big bucks.
It’s a tough lesson to balance this idea with elements of life that are more important money. It’s also tough to find sincere, successful people who believe the same.
2) The connections you make with others will never be your friends, but they’ll act like they are
Networking is pretty important in the business world. Making the right connection can even make or break your business.
And it’s because it’s all business. There’ll be no real friendship involved. It’s all talk, shady in nature at that.
The folly was mine that I believed those who were trying to help were doing it because they really wanted to help, but they were always back for favors.
I’ve deleted a bunch of connections off my Skype because the conversations bored me with all its business talk. Nothing real came out in terms of business anyway.
Many were the times someone would message me to talk about business and shit, but when I ask, “How’s life?” the “away” status would soon appear, never hearing from any of them again.
That’s just how it is with connections. It’s all business. That’s why kids run home to tell their mom, “I made a new friend!”, not, “I made a new connection!”
3) Offering to help is nothing but an insincere formal opener
When you make the aforemention connection, the textbook answer to making the best impression would be to offer to help the other party. That’s apparently the best way to go about it.
Everybody would want to make a good impression. How do you do that? You offer to help, even if it means you’re not qualified to.
Hence, not everyone will be a real connection since it’s all talk to most of them and they’re too cheap to followup with action.
4) Life coaching is a fucking scam
People who claim to be life coaches are nothing but psychologists wannabes with zero, real qualifications. They claim to have expertise because they write a bunch of a generic blog posts or put up some videos of themselves talking about their own life and then claim they can transform your life. But in truth, they’re all nothing but self-help blowhards.
Of course, that’s going to cost you a bomb, which from what I observed, cost up to hundreds or even thousands of dollars for an hour of their time.
I know so because I paid for this bullshit before and I also tried to be one at one point of time. It’s a blessing in disguise I didn’t manage to coach anybody.
There are good people out there who can really change your life, but you’re going to have to do your research, thoroughly.
Or heck, go for professional therapy for your mental issues instead.
5) Even your supporters can be very discouraging
I’m going to forgo the point of discouragement from your haters and critics because that’s a given.
Guess what? Even your supporters can be very discouraging.
I’ve no idea how many people who claim to love what I do at the start only to start criticizing me to no end because they feel some of the steps I take later on are disagreeable to them. I was even once told, “Dude, I didn’t sign up for this shit.”
It’s extremely disheartening to see how a supporter can turn into a know-it-all, and then because they don’t dare to do what they love, take all their energy out on you just because they’re a little insecure.
Doing what you love is like modern art to others.
As the quote by Craig Damrauer goes, “Modern art = I could do that + Yeah, but you didn’t.”
6) Testimonials are mostly bullshit
The bright and shiny testimonials you see on products and sales pages are mostly rubbish. I know you’re thinking, “Oh I know that” but really, you don’t know the half of it.
It’s mostly made up or at the very most, constructed from a relationship were both parties just want to help each other. E.g. I’ve give you my product free of charge. Could you write me a good testimonial?
What do you expect the other dude to say? Fucking no?
7) Your most satisfying day ever isn’t going to beat a good sales day
That is why money is still that important.
I’ve had days where I made money from out of nowhere and I felt on top of the world. On days where I felt I wrote the best piece of shit ever, but felt low because I knew I was going broke.
8) A lot of entrepreneurs are faking their inspiration
If you ever see someone post some testimonial or “real” reader’s email thanking them and then say something like, “This is what keeps me going”, know that the entrepreneur himself does not do the work or create any kind of art.
They simply outsource everything and are pretentious enough to claim credit.
It boils back to the question of how important money really is, because that’s the definition of success to most businesses. And that’s okay. It’s whether you want to look into it and see whether the entrepreneur really does his own work to spread a real message.
Again, do your research to find the real deals. I know of a few. I guess this is one of the biggest lessons from doing what you love as you learn from what others love.
9) You can’t learn forever because it’s all the same shit
You want to create a business and start making money? Then learn.
Then do something. Stop reading so much otherwise you’re going to get paralyzed from an overload of information.
You need to create your own real lessons from your own actions from here on out.
10) Nobody wants to hold your hand
A grim lesson from doing what you love here, in the real world.
This isn’t school or the office where you can rely or even shift blame on someone else.
If you want to do what you love, you’re going to have to take the reigns and do things your way. You’ve to call the shots. And it’s going to feel scary as fuck.
And the people who claim to want to hold your hand and “guarantee” your success? They’re lying. They’re just selling to you.
11) The answers you seek come only when you think out of the box
Picture this: For a long while I kept studying bloggers who were expert on making money online. I tried their shit out, but it never really worked for me.
Then I realized I was looking for answers in the wrong places. My goal is to be a writer who create stories. I should have looked and studied real writers who inspired how to create art, not bloggers who taught about making money, tweaking, testing and all that shit.
Any kind of knowledge may be good, but be sure to follow your gut from time to time. Take what you need and reject everything else.
12) 20/20 hindsight makes you feel dumb as hell
You know how successful people teach, “The answer was within me all along!” and all that?
It’s true.
I’m already seeing a level of success for myself today and everything that I’m doing today? I could have done it on day 1 of this blog. I’m not joking.
This is such a beautiful, yet blunt truth that you truly have what it takes to succeed, but because you were merely distracted, you fall off the path and waste as much as a few years of your time.
Also, sometimes you’re your own culprit. You hold yourself back because of fear of… pretty much nothing. It kind of makes you feel stupid.
There is truly no secret to success. You do know what it takes to succeed. So just do it.
13) Humble yourself, for having passion doesn’t mean you’re good
If you read back my old articles you’d know that my writing style and choice of topics have changed a lot.
If you read about my $1000 wake-up call, you’d have an inking that I’ve made a significant shift of late.
It can be a real downer to know that you’re not good enough.
Learning is always good, but your ego is going to be pinched from time to time. It’s best not to take things so personally.
14) Nobody gives a shit about your passion
They just want a package-deal on what’s in it for them. This is probably one of the hardest lessons from doing what you love since it has to do with just that, doing what you love.
You can show the world your beautiful story of how you plan to change the world, how you quit your job, how you courageously beat some disease or whatever, but they don’t make for good business or trust just yet.
People will only fork out the cash if they know what you offer is going to help them. Your story can only inspire, not help. This is how it works in the business world.
15) You must be dreaming if you’re playing on hope
So many people simply hope to be discovered to be the next start. So many people hope their book becomes the next bestseller. So many people hope their whatever thing goes viral.
Hope really doesn’t have a part in doing business. You might as well play the lottery every week and you’d have a better chance of striking it rich.
Fuck hope and fuck your dreams. Work hard and form a real strategy. Throw hope out of the window. Your rewards will come accordingly.
16) No sales copy is perfectly honest
Every entrepreneur I know will stretch the truth and then call it “It’s just business”, which is not illegal or even wrong as sad as that sound.
But it can make you very cynical especially if you think these guys are super honest or have a positive message to spread.
I once refunded a course because the owner was full of shit. He promised “unlimited” (his own words) support but it never came. He then proceeded to tell me I asked too many questions. What an asshole.
So, as with how I mentioned that learning has a ceiling, don’t buy into too much courses or whatever. It will turn to crap in the end.
17) Sometimes you want to give up
But you’ve to keep pushing on anyway. That’s how it is.
It’s not going to feel good at all because that’s when you doubt yourself and start to think what you love is a sham.
It can be very demoralizing. It makes you question what you do and also your entire life itself.
This is your make or break moment though. Best to choose the way forward.
Hope you enjoyed these lessons from doing what you love in life!
