No matter how much people will tell you that you have to bet on your strengths, that you have to follow your passion, that you have to do what you love and what not, it's very likely that you'll never succeed.
Simply because the advice in itself is flawed.
People say that you have to focus on what you're really, really good at.
That you have to focus on doing what you love.
Or what you're passionate about.
And I agree with it 100%.
But it misses an important part.
It misses the part where you have to do all of the things you don't love.
The things you don't enjoy doing that much.
That you're not so passionate about.
When you want to work on your own thing (which is what most of us ultimately want to) you have to learn and do a ton of stuff that you're probably not so passionate about.
Unless you already have a boatload of cash and are able to pay others to do all of these things for you.
And it doesn't matter whether you're an architect, an entrepreneur, a designer, a freelancer, an artist, a musician, a blogger, a programmer or what not.
If you're working on your own thing (and not someone else's thing), there are a few skills we all have to learn when we want to be able to do the things we really want to do.
And they are the same for pretty much all of us.
They're the same for me as well.
And I hate(d) most of these things.
Still, I spend most of my time doing these things.
Because they help me to keep doing the things I love.
Without these things I would probably already be back in a cubicle.
So what are these things?
I've said it many times in the past already.
But I'll say it again and again and again.
Because I feel that I can't say it often enough.
The things are...
Marketing, sales, copy writing, social media, content, public speaking, helping people, building a community, empathy and a few more things.
And you don’t learn any of these skills at school. Or by reading books. Or what not. You only learn these things by doing. By figuring out what works and what doesn’t.
So if you have no clue about all of these things, if you're not willing to learn any of these things, if you don't care about all of these things, if you think you don't need any of these things, well then you'll probably never be successful doing your own thing, doing what you're good at, doing what you love and doing what you're passionate about.
It’s as simple as that. But not easy…
