Weekday Wisdom, Episode 25
Vanquishing Mind Goblins, #1: “I can’t make money while I’m having fun!”
Do you believe that you can’t have fun and make money at the same time? That’s the Mind Goblin that we’re going to talk about in today’s Weekday Wisdom.
Today starts a series of seven videos that are all about vanquishing Mind Goblins. The first Mind Goblin is “I can’t make money if I’m having fun!”
Ridiculous!
There are two fallacies going on with this particular Mind Goblin. One is the, “I can’t,” part, which is a mindset issue. It’s having a fixed mindset rather than a growth mindset.
The other fallacy is the idea that work that makes money has to be hard, it can’t be fun. Somehow people have gotten it into their heads that “work = not fun.”
This is the actual definition of the word “work”:
And sometimes the result is income.
In old English, the word “work” suggested applying one’s trade and exerting creative power, being a creator.
Now, in my mind, none of that says that work has to be hard. And none of it says that work can’t be fun. It just says it takes effort.
Well, having fun takes effort, too! Unless you think just sitting there doing nothing, being a lump on a log, is fun. Most of the people I know think you got to be doing something if only watching television.
Let me tell you a story that illustrates that you can make money while having fun.
The year is 1973. The movie, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, has come out. I love Sinbad movies, so of course, I went to see it. In the movie, there is a slave girl who has an eye tattooed on the palm of your hand.
One of my classmates saw me doing this, and thought, “That’s cool. I’ll try it.” And she started drawing an eye on her hand, but, in her mind, it didn’t look as good as the one I had done. So, she asked me, “Carma, would you do it? I’ll pay you.”
She paid me 25 cents to draw an eye on her hand. And I was thinking, “OK. Whatever.”
The next thing I know, other people are coming up to ask me, “Would you draw an eye on my hand? I’ll pay you.”
Within a day, I would sit down on a bench at recess and there would be a long line of people waiting to pay me a quarter so I could draw an eye on their hand. I was having a blast! And, I was making good candy money. (Sorry Mom, I’m pretty sure I spent it on candy.)
So there is such a fallacy to the idea that work has to be hard.
And I’m not the only person who believes that work can be fun. Here are some quotes from some famous people who also believe what I believe — that work doesn’t have to be hard. It can be a lot of fun.
“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you want doing or learning to do.”
That’s from Brazilian athlete, Pelé. Yeah, he said that it is hard work, but if you love something, I’m thinking there’s some fun involved here.
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life. And the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers, also includes that love aspect. Noticing a trend?
Now a quote from Rumi, 13th-century poet, who said,
“Let the beauty of what you love to be what you do.”
And finally, I want to share what Confucius, the Chinese philosopher said,
“Choose a job you love and you will never work a day in your life.”
But wait, there’s more! I did some research and found several entrepreneurs who are making good money — some of them multi six figures — doing something that they think is fun. The first person is Ya Ya Han. She is a cosplay entertainer. She loves to create costumes and she has built a business around her cosplay. Now, for those of you who don’t know what cosplay is, it’s costume play. You dress up as anime characters, or fantasy characters, or science fiction characters, something like that. I learned about Han when I watched Cosplay Heroes on SyFy Channel.
There is Terry Finley. He is a horse racing aficionado. He loves horse racing. And so he created a business which is called a race horse syndication management company. I don’t know what that means, but he’s getting to work with race horses, which is what he loves to do. So he’s having a good time in his business.
Craig Jenkins-Sutton loves gardening and loves to design gardens. So he created a garden design company, which is doing quite well.
J.T. Smith didn’t even set out to make money with his hobby. He likes to design and make board games. So he created a website just to share his design. The next thing he knows, he had a business called The Game Crafter, where he helps people build and manufacture board games.
So if you still believe that “I can’t make any money if it’s fun.” Stop that! It clearly is not the truth. To vanquish that Mind Goblin from your life, find people who are doing what love to do, who are making money, and still having a good time. They are everywhere.
Now that this Mind Goblin is vanquished, we’ll deal with another one tomorrow.
I hope at this point you realize that you can have fun and make money at the same time.
Remember:
Don’t box yourself in.
Spread your wings and fly.
Because you — yes you — are capable of more than you know.
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