Financial freedom is within each of our reach but many don’t often take the risk to achieve it. Thoughts of hard work, long journeys and fear of the “what if’s” often plaque our minds resulting in us remaining in the status quo. But, to really achieve your financial dream, you must start your own business. The super wealthy are entrepreneurs but started out with a passion, a few bucks and a commitment to excellence. Whether you are a business owner or a professional, creating multiple profit centers in your life is a unique way to start small, create additional cash and build a foundation for you to build long term success. Here are five steps to take to turn your passion into cash and create your own profit center.
1. Identify Your Passion
Have you ever had a day where you were working but didn’t realize you were working? What were you doing? Why did you enjoy what you were doing? When you are working in alignment with your passion, you have more energy, a better view on life and time flies because you are having fun! What truly makes you happy? What would you do differently if money, time and resources were not limited?
2. Identify into your Strengths
Each of us has strengths. Skills that we were either blessed with or developed to perfection. Perhaps you are a dynamic speaker or trainer or a strong writer, a creative designer or great with kids. Whatever your talents are, you can tap into your strengths, align them with your passion and create a profit center to help you achieve your financial goals. Find a quite place to think, grab a pen and a piece of paper and write freestyle for a solid two minutes. Ask yourself what do I do well? What skills do I possess?
3. Calculate your “Financial Gap”
First identify where you are and where you want to be in your financial house. Too many times new entrepreneurs set unrealistic financial goals based upon emotion versus basing their goals on their current financial reality and building a base from there. Ask yourself these questions:
- What is your current monthly income from all sources?
- What is your new monthly income goal?
- What are your current expenses? Assets? Liabilities?
Take a look at where you are and where you want to go and ask yourself, does that seem reasonable? Although I am a big fan of dreaming big, first step is to build a platform to grow from, so a good rule of thumb is to set a reasonable goal for the first 12 months.
4. Retrain Your Brain
Creating a new profit center and new income takes commitment and dedication. You have got to get your head in the game. You have to want the lifestyle bad enough to drive your performance. Every successful person committed to the hours, the resources and what they had to give up to achieve their dreams. You have to be willing to do the same and take the steps to retrain your brain. Next, you have to change your relationship with money and how you think about it. Many of us have fears of loss that overwhelm us that we are unwilling to take the risks necessary to move forward. We have bad financial habits and beliefs about money. These all need to change. You need to want it and believe you deserve it and work to get it.
5. Turn your strengths into a Business
The last step is to turn your strengths into a business idea that will help you bridge the gap between your current financial reality and your financial dream. Is this a new product that you are introducing to your existing business? Or a part time venture to create additional cash? You can make money from doing something you love and something you are good at. Here are some ideas:
- A retail store owner can launch an ecommerce site to expand its current business
- A school teacher can create a tutoring business
- A business executive can create an info-product and sell online
- A professional can write a book and create a workshop empire
- A hair dresser can create training videos and sell them to beauty schools
- A accounting student can offer accounting services to small business
- A printer can become a business coach to coach new business owners in the industry.
- A mom can become a real estate entrepreneur or landlord.
- And the list goes on and on.
