MBA2534 Q&A Wednesday: How Do I Find My Passion?

0:05Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinhome. And welcome back to another Q &A Wednesday episode where we answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners, one of our viewers, one of our followers. Just go to 100mba.net slash Q to submit a question if you want to ask a question and I'll answer right here on Q &A Wednesday. Today's question is from Fabio and Fabio asks, how do I find my passion so I can build my business around it? My answer to this question might surprise you and it's don't. Don't find your passion and build your business around it. This is advice that's being spread across the internet, on YouTube, on social media.

0:44Find your passion, discover your passion, build something around it. This is bad advice in my opinion. I think this is actually horrible advice. Don't worry, I got your back. I'm going to show you in today's lesson what to do instead. What to build a business around instead of your passion. And why building around your passion is dangerous and really can cause you a lot of pain and agony in the future of you trying to build your business. Let's get into it. But first, did you know that 80 % of small business owners started their business based on a passion? It's funny because a similar percentage of businesses fail.

1:19OK, this is according to a study by Guidant Financial. Many entrepreneurs follow their passion. But here's the thing. Passion alone isn't enough. In fact, passion can actually move you in the wrong direction. It can actually get you to do the wrong things. Okay, I'm going to show you what to do instead of following your passion. I want you to think about for a moment why you buy any product or service, why you booked that last holiday, why you bought your car, why you bought your watch, why you bought your last smartphone. Okay, was it because the person behind it was so passionate about the product?

1:55No, because the value of the product was great and it was greater than the price point. So therefore you felt, oh, this is a good buy. I'm going to buy it. The message I'm trying to send you here with today's lesson is passion is a really bad idea. Why? Because the marketplace, which is called reality in business, doesn't care about your passion. Your passion doesn't have any value. OK, I know that you have to be passionate about something so that you can build something great. But passion is fleeting. Think about what you're passionate about today and think about what you're passionate about five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago.

2:33It's a distant memory. You're not passionate about that anymore. Instead, what you should be building a business around is value. What value can you offer the marketplace that will allow you to make money, will allow you to produce something that people want? What sustains a successful business, any business that's been around for a while, isn't the passion they have for it, but the value they offer the marketplace. The more valuable you are, the more value you can offer people, the more money you'll make. It's that simple. That's how economics works. The more value you add, the better. Think of any company that you love, Disney, Apple, any product or brand you love.

3:14The reason why you love it is because of what they give you, the value they give you. So the key question isn't what I'm passionate about, but rather, where can I add the most value? Let me give you an example to make this super clear. Let's say I want to become a travel blogger and I want to start creating a blog about all the great destinations in the world where you could travel. But you got to start somewhere. You got to start with maybe a niching down with a country, right? I love Japan as a country. I'm passionate about Japan. I've been to Japan several times. I love the food. I love the snowboarding over there.

3:49I love the culture. I love their culture of excellence. I am passionate about Japan, but it's a bad idea for me to start creating a blog about traveling to Japan because I can't add the most value there. Why? Because I don't speak the language. I'm not Japanese. I don't understand the culture as much as a Japanese person or somebody maybe that lived in Japan for a certain period of time. I don't understand where to go in terms of where not to get ripped off or where's the best areas or where's the best value. I'm still a tourist, even though I love it so much. Instead, if I was going to choose a country, I would choose Egypt.

4:25Egypt is where my family's from. My parents immigrated from Egypt to the U.S. I was born in the U.S., but we used to go back to Egypt every summer. So I've been to Egypt over a dozen times. I'm not super passionate about Egypt. If I was given a free ticket to any country in the world, Egypt would probably be like number 45 on the list. OK, but I can add the most value there. Why? Because I've been there so many times. I understand the culture. I speak the language. I know where you can get ripped off, stay away from those places where to get an authentic meal. I can give more value there and therefore I have a competitive advantage.

4:58Therefore, my likelihood of success as a travel blogger is going to increase dramatically because I'm using my special experiences and skills that I have that can add the most value. Why does this matter? Well, first of all, value is enduring. It's based on your life experiences, your skills, your talents, your unique perspectives. What you bring to the table is unique, right? And this is where you become valuable as a business. For example, when I started Webinar Ninja, my webinar software company that I built over 10 years and just sold to ProProfs recently, it wasn't because I was passionate about webinars or technology for that matter, right?

5:40It was because I saw a gap at the market and in that gap, I can add value. Webinars are basically teaching live, okay? And I was a teacher for over a decade in the classroom And I have a special gift, I would say gift, but it's experience of doing a lot of teaching. You know, I used to teach five days a week, five times a day, right? So 25 classes a week. I had a lot of experience in teaching. I didn't just neglect my past. Say, oh, teaching, that's what I used to do. Now I'm an entrepreneur. No, I leveraged my experience as a teacher and said, how do I create a great teaching experience online via my software Webinar Ninja?

6:16And that's how we differentiated and were able to have unique value in the marketplace and were able to grow our software. So as you could see, I use my skills, my value as much as possible so that I can have some leverage of some sort in my business so I can compete. Here's the thing that people don't talk about. Business is hard as it is. Don't make it hard on yourself by not leveraging your strengths, by not leveraging your experiences, the things you've gone through, your perspectives. One example comes to mind. I'm a student of comedy. I love stand-up comedy. I watch a lot of comedy on Netflix.

6:56It's probably the number one thing I consume on Netflix. And one of the comedians on Netflix is a guy named Hasan Minhaj. Hasan Minhaj is an Indian-American immigrant that immigrated with his parents. and he came to America and he wanted to be a comedian as he grew up. And this is something that is uncommon in this culture because he was supposed to be a doctor. That's what his parents expected. Okay. So as a comedian, he could say, forget all that. And I'm going to try to do like really crass comedy or I'm going to do situational comedy or what's the deal with this thing like Seinfeld and copy somebody else.

7:33No, he leveraged his experience, his unique perspective And a lot of his comedy is about growing up as an immigrant, growing up as a minority, you know, growing up with expectations from his family. And he's not going to resonate with everybody. He's going to resonate with a lot of people like him. And therefore, he stood out and was able to have success and have his own Netflix show and specials. This is what I'm talking about. Leveraging the things you already have, the experiences you already have, the life you already have. So how do you identify your unique skills, your experiences, your strengths?

8:07Think about the skills, the knowledge and experience you accumulated over the years. Don't just think about things and say, oh, that's nothing. Don't take things for granted, right? Just take catalog of everything. Have a paper and pen. Write these things down, right? What are the things you're naturally good at? What are people often complimenting you on? What are people often coming to you for advice on? Okay. What are some things that you did for a long period of time? Okay. If I were going to start a new YouTube channel, all right, and I was going to do something outside of the business genre, I would start a YouTube channel on reviewing cars.

8:42Why? Because I grew up around cars all my life. I know a lot about cars because my dad was a car salesman and I used to work at the car dealership since the age of 13. I drove all these different cars and trade-ins and brand new cars and different models and luxury cars and fast cars. And I know a lot because I've been around it all my life and I've been interested in all my life, but I have a lot of skills and experience around it. It's not just because I love it so much is because I have a lot of skills around it. I'm able to have a leg up and have a story behind a narrative around what I'm presenting and what I'm offering the world.

9:15The next step is after you kind of take stock of your skills and experiences and uniqueness, find an intersection between what you're good at and what the world needs. You know, you could be good at something, but if there's no need in the market, there's no problem being solved. You're not going to get paid for it. Okay. And that's really the sweet spot. When you have a skill of value that can be applied to something that people need. So maybe you're a skilled graphic designer and you have experience in the tech industry. Maybe you created front end designs for some startups, or this is something that you did for a while.

9:47Don't neglect this value. You can create a course for backend designers, how to create good looking, simple front end design for their software, right? There's a lot of people that are trying to build software on their own, they may not have an eye to design like you, but you have that experience of doing it for other big companies or maybe for other apps, and you can show other developers how to do that. So you are convinced that you shouldn't be following your passion. You should be following your value and the talent that you have. And now you've come to can stock of all the skills and uniqueness you have in the value and the talent that you can offer the world.

10:23And you're starting to think about what you can do. What were the overlaps of a need in the market and your value. Now, you wanna get started. You wanna just get out there, right? You wanna start small. Before you start diving headfirst into your idea and just like, you know, giving everything you got to it, you wanna do some tests. Offer your services, offer your product, throw out a video with this topic in mind, with this value in mind, okay? And see what happens, okay? A lot of books, a lot of bestseller books out there started out with a tweet, right? Started out with a blog post, a very long blog post, and then it got traction.

10:59People liked it. So they thought, okay, I can turn this into a book now. Okay. That book later on can become an online course. That course then can become a keynote speech. The keynote speech then can become a consulting program. The point here is, is that you want to test, see what people say that resonates with people. If people are willing to read it, consume it, give you money for it, see ways for you to start doing some small experiments, exposing your value and solving the problem that is ahead of you. Listen, this is not going to be a clear picture from day one. And this is why it's important to adapt and evolve.

11:32You want to be open to feedback as you start creating content, as you start creating your product or service, you start providing it to people and they are giving you feedback and letting you know what they think. This is super, super important. Feedback was one of the biggest things that propelled our growth at Webinar Ninja, our software company. Anytime somebody used the product for the first time, And we would ask them on an automated survey what they thought of it. Some people answered, some people didn't. Sometimes we got on calls with people, got on Zoom calls and just said, hey, can we just jump on a call and figure out how we can be more valuable to you as a software company, right?

12:04As a software, as a tool. We then also asked for feedback when people canceled. When people canceled our software, we asked them, hey, no problem, you can cancel, but can you just let us know what are the areas we can improve so that we can earn your business maybe in the future? or what are some areas that frustrated you? This is tough to read sometimes, but it's gold because it's exactly the playbook you need so that you can start saying, okay, these are the things we need to work on next so that we can become better and better. I wanna wrap up today's episode with some heartfelt advice, advice I would give myself if I was getting started, okay?

12:40And this is just straight from the heart, a little bit tough love, but here's the honest truth. Finding your passion might sound like a great idea. It sounds exciting, it sounds fun, it sounds exhilarating. Yeah, let's do something fun, right? But if you want to build a serious business that lasts the test of time, that actually fulfills your wildest dreams, you need to focus on value. You need to focus on where you can add the most value. No one cares about how passionate you are about something. I know that sounds tough, but the truth is, is that people are selfish. This is the truth. We're all selfish, and they want to know what's in it for them.

13:15And what's in it for them is value, not you getting excited. OK, they want you to give them what they need, a solution to a problem in a unique way, which is your unique perspective, your unique skills. Really think about how can I add the most value so that I can win in business so I can really have a competitive advantage and really have a higher likelihood of success. You want to stack the chips to your favor. You want to make sure things are working to your favor. By focusing on your value, by focusing on your unique strengths, you're able to build a business that is unshakable. And I've done both.

13:54I've tried to build a business around my passion. It was a disaster. But I've also built businesses around my value. And that has really made my life easier. It made building a business easier. It made it fun. It made it lucrative. It made it rewarding. And as you make more money in your business and you start gaining more personal wealth through your business, you're going to be more inspired to give more value. And then you have more money to invest in yourself to become more valuable. And therefore, your product and your services and your business become more valuable. Fabio, thank you so much for asking today's Q &A Wednesday's question.

14:29If you've got a question you want to ask, don't forget, you can go to 100mba.net slash Q and submit a question so I can answer right here on Q &A Wednesday for you. Thanks again for tuning into the$100 MBA show. I hope you found this episode valuable. And this really kind of shifts your focus on what's important in business, value over passion. But if you're looking for more insights on this topic or more mindset shifts, we got a ton of business lessons for you on our website. Over 2 ,500 business lessons. And you can filter by genre, marketing, sales, finance. And you can just dive in and just have a smorgasbord of content over at 100mba.net slash show.

15:07and you can just dive in and enjoy there. Again, I'm Omar Zinom and I'll see you in the next episode. But until then, don't just let this episode go by. Take action. People that take action, people that emphasize what they learn by implementing what they learn, they win. That's the key here is taking action after you learn. Thanks again. Take care.