Let me ask again – Does passion guarantee a successful venture?
NO! But, passion, combined with vision, hard work, and tenacity can certainly help to ensure that your project or venture will continue beyond the “thought” stage.
image source: marioragona
When I originally started the make money online challenge I was quite excited to see if I could earn some additional “passive” income online, which would help to increase my capacity to continue pursuing personal freedom and designing my life. Though I was passionate about my self-imposed challenge I think I was lacking motivation in certain areas.
So, ultimately I have failed with my goal and plan because I have not taken any action towards monetizing my site or creating new niche sites.
Can failure be a success?
Even though I failed the specific task at hand I consider my lack of progress a success because this little project required me to analyze what the heck I really wanted to do online. Don’t get me wrong, at some point I will come back around to my attempt to generate passive income, but right now the timing was not right.
As such, I have decided to take on another challenge, and have started making the initial steps toward making money online for humanitarian causes (but I will discuss that a little more in depth below).
The main reason I questioned You about passion is because lately with my new project I have been investigating information on how to legally structure a non-profit organization, obtain a tax id, and pursue 501(c)3 tax-exempt status and it has not been easy going. In fact, I just emailed someone and told them that this has been more intellectually challenging than I had imagined.
Without passion for this project I would have given up last week! Hence the reflection on passion and a venture’s success…
I am not sure if you are going to be pursuing an online business (like selling clothes or an ebook) that you will need to go into the depths or organizational structure that I am in the process of going through. But sooner or later you will be expected to pay tax on your earnings. Having everything transparent and legally correct will make your life much easier in the long run.
Before you pursue your next venture or idea, I would ask, ARE YOU PASSIONITE ABOUT IT?
Online Social/Humanitarian Venture Update
All of the above brings me around to my next item…During the past couple of weeks I realized that my life has been designed pretty well thus far. So, as stated above, as of now I am refocusing my make money online energies toward trying to assist other people.
Currently I am in the process of connecting with some AMAZING people who are going to partner with me on a pilot project and pursue an idea that I have had for quite some time and if we are successful it will encompass many of my long term interests - exercise, working online, social media, and of course helping people. I am not at liberty to discuss all of the details at this time but I will just say that one of the pilot project participants has a HUGE online following and the other is an established author. Both are tremendous individuals!
In closing, I would like to thank Skellie and Caroline Middlebrook for giving me the initial impetus to investigate making money online with only a post and an ebook. Also, I want to thank Brian Clark for helping me to remember what’s important and please continue to follow Jarkko as he is going great guns with his make money challenge.
I will be writing more about lifestyle design and my upcoming pilot project so if you would like to stay up to date, please sign up for my RSS feed.
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May 19th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
I agree passion alone doesn’t guarantee a successful venture…….
good post……….
May 20th, 2008 at 2:51 am
Mark
Sounds like life is going in the perfect direction. I do think that if we find we are not doing what it takes to get something we SAY we want then something is amiss.
Maybe we don’t really want it. Maybe we do, but not enough to pay the price or not as much as other things. Maybe the timing is off. I definitely agree passion alone won’t get you there.
I am so excited to hear about your new ventures and wish you could just whisper them in my ear. I’m good at keeping a secret. * please *
As you can tell I hate surprises… when they involve waiting anyway.
As for me, I have had a similar realization about the whole make money online thing. I say I want to make money from my blog, but I don’t want to advertise and I can’t bring myself to target an audience just to get more traffic.
SHE-POWER is my baby, my self expression and that’s the way I like it. The main thing I’d like is a bit of extra income and recently I’ve been doing odd marketing/copy writing jobs that pay really well and don’t take up much time so that takes care of that.
I’ve accepted that I could add more things to my plate and yes I might get more cash, but to be honest it’s not that important to me. I like to have time to breathe, time to write, time to just BE with my kid. When I feel like I’m on the go all the time with too many competing priorities I end up stressed and a very snappy mom.
And fear aside, I want to be a novelist more than anything else so I guess that means that’s where my “extra” time and energy should go. Anyway, that’s where I am right now.
Will be on the plane in a couple of days now so Spain here I come. Wash away my worries, heat up my creativity and soothe my over-analytical mind.
Ciao mi amigo
Kelly
PS. Did you see my Clay Collins interview asmy first SHE-POWER Man. I’ll be hitting you up for an interview in the next couple of months so be ready…
May 20th, 2008 at 4:24 am
WooHoo!! So exciting, Mark. I can’t wait to see where you are going. :)
Shana
May 20th, 2008 at 8:29 am
I can tell that you are passionate!
I wouldn’t approach any online business without feeling very strongly about it. It’s just too much work, and if you don’t love it, it will certainly feel like drudgery. Besides, if you wanted to hate your job, just go work in an office somewhere! There are plenty of ways to make a living doing something you don’t like.
I really appreciate the fact that this blog doesn’t gloss over the failures. There is nothing worse than someone trying to BS you. You are likely building a loyal audience who trusts you to be truthful, so even your failures will ultimately make you successful in whatever you do!
May 20th, 2008 at 10:42 am
I agree wholeheartedly, you are going to the right direction.
From the little that I’ve learned to know about you so far I can tell that this new direction will most likely make you much happier than just getting the passive income streams in place. (And as you say, there is no reason why you couldn’t do that later)
I’ll keep your challenge running. My progress is slow, but still rather exciting. Thanks for the challenge!
May 20th, 2008 at 10:43 am
…and of course I forgot to mention that your new blog layout is really nice! When did you switch to it?
May 20th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Hi Sachin - Thank you for dropping by!
Hi Kelly - WOW! Thanks for the insightful comment. If we are able to launch while you and the family are away I will send you an email.
I still think you will have enough time on the plane to put a good dent into some of your novel…Funny, because I am the opposite, I can’t stand writing but if I don’t write my thoughts then I forget them (must be age :)).
In fact, I just finished a book “Jesus Land” (fantastic by the way) and the whole time I was reading I kept thinking to myself, “This person REALLY can write well.”
And I did see your interview with Clay. Nicely done! If and when you would like to have me as an interview guest I would be happy to participate.
May 20th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Hi Shana - At some point we might need to call on your social media skills to help get our venture and message out there to the masses…So I will keep you posted!
May 21st, 2008 at 3:26 am
Hi Christine - Thank you for appreciating my failures. :)
Sometimes it can be difficult to fail, but also it can be viewed as an evolution!
May 21st, 2008 at 8:54 am
Mark:
I am so glad that you start a new thing with the passion. I was wondering how you are doing after I got your email.
Starting a new company and build the organization isn’t that hard. They are just the paper works and bookkeeping stuff. You only need to learn once. Those stuff can be done by your future secretary from that point on.
The hard part is to run the company, manage the budget, adjust your direction and vision, against those who don’t believe in you, and prove that you are right. I have helped 3 companies started from scratch or small to international companies from the IT stand points. That’s really hard, especially with limited budget. That has nothing to do with passion thought. That’s just to survive.
I don’t think you have failed. I just think that you have learned what is not right for you and move on to the right direction. We are all learning something new everyday and adjust our direction to the right one. On one really knows if they are on the right direction until they get lost. They, then, adjust their direction and move on. We build our passion day by day. Sometimes, I don’t even know what my passion is, but I do know that I have to find a way to pass the current challenge and move on the next challenge.
Personally, passion has nothing to do with success. Passion only helps making you feel better when doing the thing you like to do. Success rely on the desire to face the challenge and solve all the issues we are facing and move on. When the person can’t handle the challenge and solve the issues, they start losing their passion and become failure. Passion != Success.
If you really want to call it a failure, it’s only the beginning of the success. Without the word “failure”, there won’t a word called “Success.”
By the way, I like your new layout, except one thing. The color of the post title is too light to read.
Keep it up!
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:40 am
-Hi Jarkko - I look forward to watching you make your millions so that if I come back around to making money online for myself I’ll just follow your successful model :)
Also, from the looks of it your progress is anything but slow! Keep up the GREAT work.
-Hey Terence - I really like your statement, “I just think that you have learned what is not right for you and move on to the right direction. We are all learning something new everyday and adjust our direction to the right one. On one really knows if they are on the right direction until they get lost. They, then, adjust their direction and move on.”
That is why I was saying up above, really failure can be like an evolution…Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it sucks to FAIL! But if you can recognize it and avoid getting frustrated and giving up altogether then it can create a good alternative.
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Hey Mark… sorry for the late showing here but I logged in the blog today after weeks and saw the trackback! thank you so much for still remembering me :)
And now, many congrats on getting a great start… I’m one of the people you know wanting to learn to make money online (eventually) :) so can’t wait to see what surprises you have to share.. I’m just so glad you hung in there and didn’t give up this blog!
May 24th, 2008 at 5:28 am
Hi Pearl - Thanks for stopping by! I hope you are doing okay…
July 18th, 2008 at 1:03 am
Yeah, it’s really a matter of figuring out which of your money passions has the potential to be profitable, because they won’t all be winners (but we can usually find one) when it comes to making money.
Still, there’s more to life than making money. A site can be a “success” without ever earning a dime. :)