This starts Part II - Protect Your Passion.
The quickest way to lose your passion is to jump in too quickly.
Monetizing your passion too early is going to kill it.
I’ve experienced this myself multiple times.
I didn’t know that was the problem at the time, and it took reading this book more than once to realize it.
Before we turn our passion into a full-time job, we need to make sure we have a full-time job during the growth phase.
The growth phase is the part of our Passion-To-Career path where our passion isn’t able to pay for 100% of our financial needs.
We need to have a day job that covers 100% of our financial needs.
There are a couple ways that I have found to speed this up.
First, get good at your day job.
You need to be productive enough to keep your bosses happy.
The more you can get done in less time, the better.
Second, you need to cut your financial needs.
Cut out any extra spending. Cut out any subscriptions you don’t need.
I realized today I’ve been paying for Apple Arcade for a while but haven’t touched any of the games in at least a month.
I canceled it.
That’s another $15 per month going back into my bank account.
My partner got me a coffee maker that can make up to 12 cups of coffee at once.
It says 12 cups but they mean literal cups, so it really makes about 6 coffee mugs of coffee for me.
That’s great and it’s a way cheaper coffee maker than the Keurig I was using before.
Plus, with working from home since the COVID situation, I don’t go to Starbucks near as much anymore.
In fact, I don’t really go anywhere right now if I can help it.
The third thing to do is cut hours.
I’m lucky enough to have a boss that’s cool with this.
The trick is to make sure you’re still getting enough work done to keep the bosses satisfied.
After cutting expenses, I figured out I could work 30 hours per week and still pay all my bills.
I’m not putting as much money into savings as I was before, but this is getting me closer to where I really want to be in life.
It’s given me extra time to focus on my Overlap.
This is not something Sean mentions in the book — Cutting hours. At least not so far.
He does say it’s important to make sure your day job covers 100% of your financial needs and that you are putting absolutely no financial stress on your Overlap.
I agree with this and I’m making sure my day job and Overlap abide by those rules.
Something Sean mentions in this chapter that I don’t agree with is that your Overlap and your day job can not have any sort of cross over.
He says your day job and your overlap need to be completely different.
I understand what he’s saying, and why, but I don’t agree it’s the case.
Something he says about this is,
If you come home from your day job bursting at the seams with energy for pursuing what you’re passionate about, that’s the right day job. The right day job will charge you for your passion. The wrong one will drain you and deplete the kind of energy you need. Are you coming home exhausted, or are you coming home charged up and excited to work on your side projects? That’s how you know.
I can not agree with that more.
It has nothing to do with the industry you’re in and you’re overlapping to.
I have known plenty of people who did a day job and overlapped to the same thing.
They did it successfully without issues.
I have done it myself in the past.
What’s important is what he says in the quote above.
Are you coming home charged or not?
Regardless of industries, if you’re not coming home from your day job motivated to work on your Overlap, something has to change.
Right now, I’m writing this after my day job.
I don’t want to be, really.
I mean I’m enjoying it while I do it, but it took me a while to get started.
I really didn’t want to do it today.
But I have a totally different day job than my Overlap for the most part.
Though much of my day job is marketing and much of making an Overlap successful is marketing so those two things have quite a bit of crossover.
The thing is, I’m still motivated to do this and I’m still sitting here happily typing way because I’m motivated to succeed.
I love my day job, but I love helping people in need even more.
I’m going to become a privacy consultant and OSINT investigator.
I’m going to help find missing persons.
I’m going to help victims of abuse escape their abusers.
This is what drives me to write every day.
This is what drives me to record my podcasts.
I’m charged.
If you’re not charged by your day job, try working on your Overlap in the mornings before you go to your day job.
Be careful that this doesn’t negatively affect your day job.
My best piece of advice is to find ways to make your day job improve your life skills that will affect your Overlap.
Sometimes the dislike for your job is just a mindset problem.
I have found it helps a lot to view your job as a paid learning experience.
Find ways to spend as much time at work practicing something that benefits your Overlap.
And again, as Sean says, if you’re not coming home charged to work on your Overlap, you need to get a new day job.
Don’t let the golden handcuffs get you.
You might be like me and have a great day job.
I know my job well.
I’m productive and happy. I like who I work with.
I like what I do.
I don’t have the best benefits in the world, but they’re good enough that I’m happy.
I’m wearing golden handcuffs.
Realistically, I could do this for the rest of my life.
I could put my head down and get to work for the next 35 years getting better and better at this.
There isn’t really a salary cap for me.
The more money I can make the organization, the more money I can make myself.
The thing is, I’m not in it for the money.
Well, I am, right now.
Like I said earlier: I’m going to be a privacy consultant.
I’m going to be an OSINT investigator.
I’m going to help find missing persons.
I’m going to help victims of abuse escape their abusers.
I can’t settle for the golden handcuffs.
I want to help people in need.
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