Wrong Skills

Marsha Sinetar wrote a book, Do What You Love and the Money will Follow. Nope. It won’t. Oh there are plenty of examples of people in the book who’ve found their right livelihood. Good for them. It won’t work for everyone.

We live in a weird world. It’s strange what makes some people successful and others not. The world we are living in now rewards certain behaviors, attitudes and skills. Other skills are not so important. However, in other places and times, those less valued skills could have been highly valued. In our world those talents and skills need to be monetized. The ability to turn a passion into a paying gig is whole ‘nother skill set.

Real world example. For most of my life I loved going on wilderness canoe trips. As much as I loved those trips, they never made me a dime. A friend of mine also liked paddling. He turned his love into a company that guided people on paddling trips. Good for him.

I took a lot of people on my trips, but never made money. Of course, those people were friends. They were people I actually wanted to be around. I guess that makes me a terrible businessman. However, it does make me a pretty good friend. Being a pretty good friend doesn’t make you a lot of money.

My lack of business skills used to bother me a bit. I’m an intelligent person with various skills. People less smart and with fewer skills have made fortunes. Then again, it’s been proven that a fairly high percentage of CEOs are psychopaths. We live in a world where some of the worse among us can rise to the top. I don’t feel bad about not making a ton of money in a society that rewards terrible people.

Of course, there are plenty of good and decent people who rise to the top. Their abilities happen to fit that narrow band of skills that society rewards well with money. Good for them. They may even love what they do -even better for them.

You might be rewarded for doing the things you love, but it won’t necessarily be with money.

-Sixbears