Do What You Love—Will the Money Follow?

Raise your hand if you’ve heard this one before: “Do what you love, and the money will follow.”

It’s said so often that many of us even begin to believe that it’s true. We take this mindset into everything that we do—our college majors, our career decisions, everything.

As such, it has a huge impact on our lives.

How true is this idea, though?

Unfortunately, it’s not true at all. There’s no evidence that simply doing what you love will make you rich. In fact, it seems the opposite is actually true.

Let me ask you a personal question. How many people have you seen become rich just by doing what they love to do?
Better yet, how many of you are doing what you love to do and aren’t rich? How many of you would say that you’re actually even broke?

That’s what I thought. It turns out that “doing what you love to do” is pitiful advice. It does nothing to increase your marketability or enhance your value to businesses or consumers. It simply lets you live your fantasy (unless, of course, your fantasy is earning money).

So what can you do? If you’re worried or feeling anxious because you don’t know how to break out of the cycle of “doing what you love” instead of “becoming rich,” it’s time to put an end to the anxiety.
With the information below, you will have all the tools necessary to switch from that deadly mindset. Let’s take a look.

Do What Needs to Be Done

Let me tell you the best way to become rich. Simply do what needs to be done. Yes, even if you don’t want to or don’t like it. Here’s why—getting rich isn’t just a game or a bed of roses.

In fact, it’s pretty hard. If it were easy, more people would enjoy the spoils of luxury. Instead, these belong to a select few who know how to work hard and what it takes to succeed in the marketplace.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say you want to become fluent in Spanish in one year. In order to do so, you have to buy textbooks, enroll in a course, speak in front of the class, give group presentations, and more.

You don’t want to do any of it. Still, knowing that learning Spanish will increase your job opportunities and marketability, you do it anyway. That’s what becoming rich is. This is much different than saying, “Well, I can learn Spanish on my own just by listening to the songs I love.”

As you can probably guess, the point of this is that you need to work hard—but in the right direction. There’s no point in working hard doing what you love when you can make more money and achieve greater financial freedom simply doing what needs to be done.

Increase Your Marketability

It’s important to understand that you will never be rich if you don’t know how to increase your marketability. Where do you think money comes from?

From doing what you love?

Obviously not.

Money comes from you being able to provide value to the marketplace. It comes from interested buyers wanting that value and paying for it.

That’s how you become rich. You simply need to capitalize on these opportunities to maximize your income and enter wealthy status.

How can you capitalize on these opportunities, exactly? It’s easy. You simply need to hone your skills into something marketable.

Luckily for you, this could mean that you still end up doing something that you love. Of course, it won’t mean that you are making money because you are doing what you love, but you will still be able to work in a field in which you are more comfortable and enjoy.

This means that you should be focusing on yourself and on ways in which you can bring your unique value to businesses. Successful companies are always willing to pay for value they think could bring dividends to their wallets.

What does this mean for you? Simply, it means that you should focus on your skillset and personal brand so that you have a high-paying place in the market. Doing so will guarantee your wealth in the years to come.

The Bottom Line

We asked a question (“Will money follow if I simply do what I love?”) and got a pretty strong answer, “No.”

We also explored why this isn’t true. To recap, you won’t be able to make money if you aren’t offering any real or necessary value to the marketplace. While it’s nice doing what you love, you gain no real monetary value from doing it unless it meets the conditions we just discussed. That’s why you should always prioritize value over enjoyment.

Well, if you want to be rich, that is.