Monetizing your hobby doesn’t have to drain the joy

by | Feb 7, 2018 | Entrepreneurship, Mindset, Video, Weekday Wisdom

Weekday Wisdom, Episode 26

Vanquishing Mind Goblins, #2: “If I make money with my hobby, it will drain all the joy and fun out of it!”

Do you think that if you make money from something that you love, you’ll stop loving it? That’s what we’re going to talk about on today’s Weekday Wisdom.

Mind Goblin 2 - Making Money with My Hobby will Drain the Joy

Have you ever thought, “If I do make money from something I love to do, it’ll drain all the joy out of it.”?

That’s the Mind Goblin we’re going to vanquish today.

Yes, if you monetize your hobby in the wrong way, it most certainly will drain the joy. But there are ways to monetize your hobby while protecting and nurturing the joy.

Let me explain: For many years I was a web designer. I kind of fell into web design because I’m very creative and I like playing around with the design and, frankly, making things look pretty. But the thing is, once I started doing it for other people, I couldn’t do it the way I liked it. My clients were asking me to do things that were beyond my technical know-how, and I really didn’t want to learn. Eventually, it got to the point where I absolutely hated my business.

It all started with monetizing a hobby. I did it the wrong way.

kernel of joyI’ve monetized several hobbies, and what I’ve learned is the way to monetize your hobby so that it doesn’t drain the joy, is to find out where is the kernel of joy is in your hobby.

What part of your hobby do you love the most?

Protect that kernel.

For example, another one of my hobbies is cooking. I love cooking. I love preparing food and dressing it up and serving it to people that I love and care about. One time, I made this full-course meal, all Indian food. I was experimenting with Indian cooking. I made Rogan Josh (lamb stew). And I made samosas (savory pastries). And I made naan (Indian flatbread), which I will never do again. It’s hard work! Anyway, I made this beautiful meal and I have invited some friends over to share it with.

They were all so impressed with my cooking, they said, “Carma, you should really go into catering.”

Here’s the reason why I know that catering would be the wrong way for me to monetize that particular hobby: Although I enjoy the cooking itself, the joy that I really get out of cooking is sharing the results of my efforts with people I care about. If I was to cater, all I’d get to do is the cooking. And then I would hand the resulting food off to people I don’t know, and I wouldn’t even get to share in it. Therefore, basically, I’d be doing the part that’s OK, and completely missing out on what I thought was the most fun part of cooking.

That’s why catering is a bad way for me to monetize my hobby of cooking. Now if you love cooking and that’s not where you find the joy, then maybe catering is a good option for you.

All this said I have monetized my cooking hobby. Here’s how: I have a food blog, CarmasCookery.com. I’ve been building up that blog over time and it is now actually making some money. It makes money through affiliate links through Amazon, through sales of my cookbooks, and there are a couple of companies that pay me to post on it. (Of course, I have final say on what gets posted on my blog. I never post anything that I don’t think is good, or true, or something I wouldn’t agree with.) At this point in time, there’s not a lot of money. This is primarily because I haven’t really put a lot of effort into monetizing that particular hobby or blog.

Here’s where you have to think about things. Find what about your hobby brings you the most joy and protect it. Do not monetize that. Do not monetize in a way that will take that part out.

One way to monetize a hobby that can really protect your kernel of joy is information marketing. And that’s where I help my clients. I help them create information products, like books, online courses, webinars, teleseminars, workshops, seminars, retreats and more.

In a nutshell, an information product is a way of sharing the information that’s between your ears. You’ve built up information and knowledge and skills by participating in your hobby. If someone else wants to get into that hobby, they want to learn those same things. You can share how you developed yours through an information product of some sort.

Monetize Your HobbyIf you’re interested in this idea of monetizing your hobby through building up an information marketing empire or even just creating one single information product (like a book), then I recommend that you go to CarmaSpence.com/monetizeyourhobby and download my 20-minute video. In this video, I talk about the three different ways that hobby entrepreneurs earn money. One of them is through information marketing. I talk about the five-step process of creating your own information product. And I give you several ideas of what types of information products you can create. I’ve edited the video down, so it’s pure information. I’m not selling anything on the end. It’s just solid information. So go CarmaSpence.com/monetizeyourhobby and think about how you can monetize your hobby without draining the joy.

Remember, you want to protect your kernel of joy, because without that kernel of joy, yes, you will no longer enjoy your hobby.

Remember:
Don’t box yourself in.
Spread your wings and fly.
You — yes you — are capable of more than you know.

Please post a comment belowIf you enjoyed this episode, please comment below. Like it on YouTube. Leave comments to let me know what you thought about today’s content, what your experiences with today’s content was, and if you have suggestions for future content, definitely comment below. I would love to hear from you. I want to make the Weekday Wisdom something that is valuable and that you look forward to watching.

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