Turning a Hobby into a Career

I enjoy playing guitar, running, and cooking good food. At what point, though, can something you love to do become something that you can do for a living?

In other words, when can a hobby become a career?

I’ve wrestled with this question, and it boils down to three factors: (1) Does anyone else do it as a career? (2) Is there inherent value? and (3) Are you obsessed with it?

Does Anyone Else Do This?

This is my least favorite factor, but it’s the most measurable. It’s a matter of looking at what people see as worthy professions and deciding whether your hobby is in line with those professions. In other words, does anyone else do this for a living?

We’ll say, for example, you really love cooking. You have a day job, but when you get home, all you can think about is cooking a delicious dinner. Then, see whether other people cook for a living. Sure they do. Not all of them are equally paid, but cooking is their job. So, if you want, you can make the jump from cooking at home to cooking professionally. The option’s there, but you need to act on it.

Of course, this isn’t the only thing to consider. You need to consider the inherent value of what you love. People do jobs in exchange for money. If you want to make money, then your hobby needs to have value.

What’s the Value?

What if you really love making sourdough bread? You hate rye and wheat and white. But sourdough is your lifelong passion. What now? People become cooks, but do people quit their day jobs to make sourdough bread? Can you still make this work?

You need to ask if what you love to do has any intrinsic value. In other words, will anybody pay for this? And how much? In the case of sourdough bread, I would say “yes.” People eat sourdough bread, and they’re willing to pay for it if it’s good. Does anyone remember the Hardees Frisco Burgers? It wasn’t real sourdough, but you get the point. Panera Bread sells millions of dollars in sourdough.

Ask your close friends and family for their opinion. Is your sourdough bread really good? Better than any other sourdough bread they’ve tasted? If not, what would make it better? Be grateful for honest feedback. Otherwise, you’ll be fooled into thinking your bread is worth something when it’s not.

If you discover that people are willing to pay for your hobby, then you can go to the next step and figure out a business plan. This plan might include starting a new business or finding a way to wedge yourself into an existing one. Either way, you can transform your hobby into a career.

This is a tough factor if your hobby is something unique. What if you think that people aren’t willing to pay for it? Is all hope lost? Nope, there’s more.

Hobby or Obsession?

Often, people don’t know what they want. They are overconfident in their ability to judge value. For example, who knew that Google would be able to generate as much money as they have from internet advertising? Remember Furbies? TickleMeElmos? Post Its? The list is endless, and every success story proves that people really don’t know what they want until they’ve experienced it.

This is where it gets tough. You need the courage to challenge the status quo. Maybe nobody cares about sourdough bread. Sourdough bread, in the eyes of the world, is not worth much. What then?

You’ve got to convince people that you’ve got the best damn sourdough bread in the world.

But where do we get that courage? For starters, is your hobby just a hobby or is it an obsession? Is it something you’re willing to slave away at perfecting? Or is it something that you do in what little free time you have? Do you think about it constantly?

Maybe you don’t know the answer. We often don’t. But the difference between a hobby and an obsession can mean the difference between success and failure. I heard someone say that with hard work, you can be successful, but with hard work AND passion, the sky is the limit.

Imagine your life without making sourdough bread. Can you live happily? If not, then you’ve got an obsession, not a hobby. And if you work hard enough, you can convince people that your obsession is worth it their money.