How to get paid to do what you love – The 7 steps

Read the previous blog post ‘5 reasons to do what you love‘, and then go through these steps for what you need to do to make it happen and start getting paid for it. These are the 7 steps to get you there…

1. Be grateful

About 6 years ago, I was introduced to the concept of being grateful. This experience changed my life and the way I saw the world – I will write about that story another time. In the meantime this is what I would like you to do – list 100 things that you are grateful for. This will change your life – I guarantee it! You will see the world from a space of abundance, nothing is lacking in your life and that makes a huge difference.

2. Search for ‘Your WHY’

There are different ways to search for ‘your why.’ If you haven’t, you should read Simon Sinek’s book or at the least watch his TED Talk. Also, I have a couple of resources that helped me to find my purpose and what juices me. One is a conversation with Glen Carlson, this is in audio format – which you can listen to here. The second is a short video by Glen about the power of finding your purpose. He has opened up a tap of opportunity for me and I can’t thank him enough. If this doesn’t come immediately, talk with someone about it – but finding your why will make a huge difference.

3. Find who you can help?

When you are grateful for what you have and you are on the path of searching for your purpose, the next thing you tackle is who do you love working with? Who would absolutely love you for who you are and what value you can provide them? Who are the people that would love to have you around and pay you to deal with their biggest problems because you can solve it most authentically. Outline what these people look like and where they hang out.

4. Start talking to ‘Your People’

A very good friend of mine, Andrew Griffiths, said to me “Ronsley, if you do the 1% that other people aren’t willing to do, that’s success”. When you know where your people are hanging out and how to get hold of them, start chatting with them. One of the easiest ways to do that it to have a platform you can invite them to. Like a YouTube channel, a periscope video or a podcast episode. It doesn’t matter what the channel is (or if there is a channel) but it is important to start having the conversations.

5. Collate and collect what they want

After a few conversations, you will start noticing trends and common traits. Make a note of all of these. Understand what hurts them and what makes their life difficult.

What are they doing as a result of these problems? What are their secret fears and what they wished they had more of? Make the list.

6. Create ‘Their Amazing Solution’

Now, that you know who you love working with, what their biggest problems are and what your purpose is – you can create a product that provides the solution. This is easier said than done. That is why step 7 is so important. But, work out a way to bring your value to the people that matter the most to you. Create a beta product and see whether it does make their lives easier. Test and re-test. Quick iterations is key to getting your work out there. Be prolific versus perfect.

7. Be accountable

The 6 steps above seem like a lot of work. Especially if you look at doing them all at once. Create your safety net because things are going to get tough.

You will need the right people around you to make sure you don’t get in your own way and that allow you to see things from new perspectives. Create an accountability group that meet weekly. I always prefer weekly to any other duration because it allows me to pivot and turn based on perspectives that my closest peers offer me.

If these steps look like a mountain to climb to do what you love and get paid to do it, that’s because it is. We have been trained to take the easy way out, and the easy way usually has its own set of problems.

I would rather deal with problems doing what I love doing….and, so should you.