Do what you love, and the money will follow. I have a quote with the same gist on Stesnet. My version comes from Oprah Winfrey. Her quote certainly makes you feel good, and gets you motivated. Plus Oprah is one of the richest women in America so maybe theres something to it. Or maybe not.

Theres some logic to the proposition that if you do what you love, then youll be persistent and get good at it. It also makes sense that people are willing to pay for a service thats well done. But its not always true that youll get good at what you love to do. There are plenty of people who love to write, sing, and play golf who have no chance of ever getting paid to do it. At least not enough to make a living. This is particularly true in fields where the market is oversaturated, like directing movies, where even being good at it wont necessarily sustain you.

Or maybe what you love to do has no market at all, no matter how brilliant you are. You can build the best snow forts ever. But whos buying?

Perversely, doing what you love and getting paid for it can quickly kill the love. Do you think that youll still feel the same way about cooking after putting in 10 hours a day, 7 days a week at the restaurant you open?

Now lets look at the flip side. Will doing something you dont care for particularly prevent you from making money at it? The answer is no. The money may follow even if youre doing something that you dont love. My city is full of Korean nail salons. I cant believe that Koreans love doing peoples nails that much. Or that orthodox Jews love selling photographic equipment. These businesses are built on providing a product or service with no regard to personal fulfillment.

In fact, doing something that you love can get in the way of a business. Your love of what you do can blind you to ways of getting it done faster, or less expensively. Or you may not notice when that thing that you do is on the decline. Take the Hit Factory, a recording studio here in New York as an example. Bruce Springsteen recorded Born in the USA there, and Stevie Wonder recorded Songs in the Key of Life. They made platinum albums for the biggest stars in music and loved doing it. I say made because the place closed recently, the victim of the changing economics of music recording. They did what they love and the money went elsewhere.

So is there a lesson to be learned here? Well, to quote a well-known sneaker company, just do it. Do what you love. Do what you dont love but think you can make money at. No matter what you do, there is no guarantee that the money will follow. But if you dont do anything, then theres nothing for the money to follow and you wont get anywhere. And you can quote me on that.