Living Out Your Passion: Entrepreneurship

by: Ellene Meece

Do you feel trapped in a job you hate and you know that God is nudging you to follow your dreams?
Are you one of the thousands who have been laid off from your job and realize it's time to search your soul as to what the divine plan is for your life now?
Is your age a factor in the job market?

God can turn your passions, your hobbies, and your old dreams into an entrepreneurial lifestyle.

An entrepreneur is someone who is willing to accept financial risks and undertakes new ventures. Quoting from his online article, Damir Wallener writes, "The basic characteristics of an entrepreneur include spontaneous creativity, the ability and willingness to make decisions in the absence of solid data, and a generally risk-taking personality. An entrepreneur may be driven by a need to create something new or build something tangible." He also states, "An entrepreneur has the greatest chance of success by focusing on a market niche either too small or too new to have been noticed by established businesses."

Whether this description completely describes your personality or situation, the bottom line is that an entrepreneur wants to live out his or her passion - and make a living out of it!

One entrepreneur who is a good example of a lifestyle entrepreneur is Richard Busch, who after a 30-year career as editor at National Geographic, quit in 1997 at the age of 56 and began pursuing his passion for pottery. Costco's Costco Connection featured him in their magazine in 2004 where Richard described that stage in his life, "The more I thought about it the more I felt like I'd really like to be a potter." He sold his house in the Northern Virginia suburbs and moved to a 165-year-old former dairy barn on Catoctin Mountain, just west of Leesburg, Virginia, and began a new career in pottery. Today, he successfully sells his work primarily from his studio by appointment. His pottery is also available to collectors through various galleries and juried exhibitions around the country, and he hosts two annual studio sales, in June and December.

If you already own a business, it may be time to let your entrepreneurial juices kick in and give it a fresh look! Women Home Business provided a story on Annie Haven's family who had "...been producing livestock since 1924, priding themselves as raising natural grass-fed livestock. Long before organic farming became in vogue, they raised their livestock free of antibiotics, growth hormones and pesticides." The fresh approach included: marketing their fertilizer on the web, changing the name fertilizer to "natural soil conditioner tea," with three variants offered as alfalfa for roses, cow manure and horse manure and repackaging the manure into cleverly designed brewing pouches!

Customers "brew" the manure products by placing the pouch in 1 to 5 gallon container of water, which can then be used to water the plants. The success bottom line on this story is that sales of Haven's fertilizers continue to grow by as much as 30 percent every year for the past five years. The article concludes, "Who knew that people would actually pay $21.95 for cow's manure on the Web?"

Breaking into an entrepreneurial lifestyle isn't easy and of course, it takes courage. So, above all, pray and know for sure that this is God's plan and God's timing for a move into this direction.

Ask yourself what skills you possess
Ask yourself what you love to do the most
Match the skills and passion with an appropriate business idea
Research specific opportunities
Research the market
Find out how much it will cost to start the business

If the pieces come together, how great could life be if you combined what you love with what you do for work? You can turn your hobby into a pastime or start a business from what you love to do best.

This quote came to me on Facebook, and I believe it sums up a happy thought in the midst of the disconcerting economy and work changes. God Wants You to Know "...that recession is also a time of great opportunity. Time and time again success has its roots in failure, because failure knocks you down from top of the hill so you can then climb a mountain. Yes, it's unsettling; yes, it's scary. But this can be your greatest opportunity in life -- if you choose it. The recession has cleared the space of clutter -- think of what you have always wanted to do but brushed aside from the top of your hill. Now is the time..."

Ellene Meece lives in Meeker, Colorado and works with her husband in their natural resource company while running her own online store, http://www.Grandmastreasuresonline.com. Currently, she is the FMIN Workplace Leaders Network Director and is on staff at the Meeker Chamber of Commerce.

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