Passion to profit is a transition from “Who are you?” to credibility
Joe Forrest centers his writing around three passions. Doing this acts as a tailwind for content generation because you’re bursting at the seams to write about these topics.
One topic I can’t shut up about
This past weekend I was chatting with my wife’s cousin about the creator economy.
He’s looking for a new job soon and has many skills that are very marketable.
As soon as he started talking about the desire for a new job, my ears perked up and I steered the conversation, as quickly and as deftly as I could, to talking about building up his own body of work that he controls.
I challenged him to talk about what he was passionate about. I even mentioned “Niche of One” in the conversation as a way to differentiate himself from other similar people with an audience.
I realized in that conversation that two of my passions are basically (a) side hustles and (b) encouraging other people to start their own. (I’m working on figuring out what the third is.)
During the conversation I pointed out to him: “Notice how I steered the conversation to side hustles? What do you jump at the chance to talk about like that?” And that led to him exploring some things.
I enjoyed the conversation thoroughly. (My wife’s cousin appeared to, though he might have just been being polite, haha!)
So, yeah, I’m passionate about side hustles. There’s one problem though
The problem is that I’ve researched a lot of these, and see how they work … but I’m not what I would call successful at it.
Perhaps I was somewhat successful, but I’m kind of starting over as of this year. That and my knowledge is a bit dated.
Making $30 in one month on Medium is great for me, but it’s not exactly something that I can point to as evidence that I know what I’m doing.
Nor is this amount of income generally inspiring. At this point, it would be more lucrative for me to get a minimum wage job. Forty hours at $12/hour is take-home pay of $441.
If what I know about making money online — what I love talking about — hasn’t translated to substantial income for me yet, how can I get to a point where it does?
How do I build credibility?
It’s hard and slow in the beginning
Writing about ways to make wealth online is a chicken and egg of sorts.
I can write about my ideas, no problem. I can make connections and have insights.
At some point, though, someone will comment:
“Has this worked for you?”
There are three type of responses:
- Nothing at all
- Lie
- Tell the truth
Saying nothing at all is basically equivalent to “No.” Lying isn’t really the way to go either.
So if you tell the truth, either it has worked for you, or it hasn’t.
We can posi-spin in and say that “it has a lot of potential” or “does excitement count?” or something like that.
But the answer is the same: No, I’m not making money with it yet.
But you know what? It’s okay to say that
I’ve heard some authors say that writing about writing isn’t really writing.
Or that income updates don’t really count as writing.
Whatever.
If I’m still making only $30/month on Medium a year from now, I’ll know something’s wrong.
But until then, I’ll keep writing, and I’ll keep documenting the process.
Because demonstrating zero to hero in public for yourself builds credibility.
Fast forward to sometime in 2027 when I’m making $5,000/month reliably online.
I can point to my writing at the beginning of 2024 and tell people, “See? I was where you are now, and this is what I did to get to where I am now.”
I don’t know what that will look like yet, or how I’ll get there. But by putting in the time, learning along the way, I’ll build my reputation.
That’s the only way that really works.
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Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash