Famous wise guy Confucius once said, “Choose a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” And that’s all well and good on paper, or as an inspirational desktop proverb, but I’m not living that ancient Chinese lifestyle rn. I’m living the inner-city suburb lifestyle with rising Uber rates and extortionate organic grocers, so I really need my passion project to pay the rent, ya know?
But how do we do that, Confucius? Pray tell, how do we make the big bucks off our god-given gifts? Because we’ve all got them. But we’ve all got bills to pay too.
Lock it in with a qualification
While not every hidden talent requires a university degree to shine like Lady Gaga under the tutelage of a drunk Bradley Cooper, a qualification never hurts. Especially if what you’re good at means a career change.
Think of it as a stamp of talent approval. The muy bueno thing is that you don’t even need to press pause on the rest of your life to study nowadays. Places like CQUniversity are super flexi so you can upskill online at home part time, study on campus like it’s your day job, or swap between the two as you need.
CQUni offers both full-blown degrees as well as TAFE qualifications, so if you feel like you only need to brush up with the latter or go full-hog with the former, or decide you want bloody both, the choice is yours.
Ask your professional hero
Got a mentor or an idol or a big time job crush? It’s time to slide into their dm’s to pick their noggins, folks. It doesn’t have to be sleazy, so don’t make it weird. All you gotta do is ask them for a little bit of their time and professional insight. Most successful people are also surprisingly good people who are happy to share nuggets of gold with up-and-comers. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, yada yada yada.
Find your people
Sometimes the world can feel like a really big, overwhelming, scary place. But in reality, it’s actually pretty small. And thanks to this newfangled thing called ‘The Internet’ it’s never been easier to connect with like-minded weirdos like yourself. So it’s high time you found your people. Whether you do that via social media, LinkedIn, networking events, a personal blog or old-school PR, it doesn’t matter. Put yourself out there and start speaking to them like the hotdamn expert you are.
Have something to sell
This is an important one – to make money, you’ve inevitably got to be offering something so strangers and loved ones alike can plunge their chubby little fists into their fat little wallets and shower you in coin. This offering can be anything. ANYTHING, you hear me? There are people out there legitimately buying backpacks to carry their cats. Come up with your product, market it, and see what the buyer response is like. Steve Jobs started with the iPhone V1 at some point, after all.
Just do it already
Like a Nike ad, it’s time to just do it. It’s now or never… what are you waiting for… and other motivational sentences of this sort. If you’ve got an idea, go for it. Otherwise someone else is going to beat you to it. That’s just how life works, sadly.
