How to Fund Your Passion Without Burning Out

Are you working a job and doing your passion? 

Hint, they don’t have to be the same thing. As noted in a study by Harvard Business Review, Your Job Doesn’t Have to Be Your Passion, “drawing a line between what you love and what you do from nine-to-five can help you build healthy boundaries between your work and personal lives.” 

There is a well intended belief that you must find a job that is your passion. The problem with a lot of passions is that they might actually cost you more than you could ever dream or earn from it.

Think hiking, backpacking, canoeing, fishing, running, playing in a band, coaching sports, charitable work, saving the whales, you name it. There are a lot of passions that we can have. We have the freedom to pursue our dreams. In an ideal situation, we can turn that dream into making money.

The problem with this thinking is, it is really rare. 

For example, according to Hypebot, Spotify has 3 million musicians on its platforms. However, only 7,500 artists make more than $100K. That is .0025%. And this is despite the goal from Spotify's CEO and founder, Daniel Elk, to “1 million creators making a living”.

(On the contrary, I can provide the opportunity for the right full-time senior tax accountant, CPA, to earn $100K with nearly a 100% probability. More on that later. )

When you are completely passionate about something, you would love to do what you want to do every single day. One of the common problems is when you combine your passion with work, then you sometimes lose your passion. So, now you have the worst of both worlds.

I want to play music. I want to be a coach. I want to…. you name it, there are a lot of wannabees. The problem is that wannabees don't make honey. 

Now I already know I am going to hear from some people, why are you trying to break my passion? I have a dream of something that I want to pursue.

Carl, don’t crush my dreams! 

I want to make it really clear, I am not telling you that at all.

As a matter of fact, I know some of you are pursuing your passion and have been able to find, not just a reasonable profit, but a good amount of profit. You are able to enjoy the lifestyle and the freedom. You can do whatever you want to do each day. I think the key part of having freedom is our ability to make decisions. The freedom to pursue the type of work that you want to.

But….

It doesn’t mean that your work has to be something you have a great passion for. What it does mean is that whatever you work on, you should learn to be really great at it.

Don’t you want to be the absolute best at doing what you’re doing? 

And when you reach that level, that expertise, that quality, when you find a way that you can make money not necessarily doing the things you love to do but the things that you’re good at, then you get the opportunity to earn more money.

And by earning more money, you can pursue your passion, what you love to do.

For example, I have worked in multiple companies throughout my career, and I made a decision to prioritize my family and to coach youth sports over the companies that I worked for. I coached youth sports for 25 seasons. I remember driving from work and changing into my coaching gear in my car at stop lights so that I could get there on-time. It was awesome.

As a result, of both of these decisions, I have been blessed with the means and ability to provide for my family, to coach, and to be present as a parent to watch most of their games. All four of our children played varsity sports. Three of them played collegiate sports. Two are now coaching varsity high school sports. I have had the freedom to watch them play at a local and national level. 

However, I am not exaggerating, when I have foregone millions of dollars in earnings, by not prioritizing my work over my family. I am absolutely ok with that decision. And just to clarify, I have been able to more than adequately provide for my family and have the freedom to be present. This is my measure of success.

Your measure of success is what is important to you, not me. Whatever you want to earn for your retirement, freedom, etc., I will be your biggest fan to help you get you there. We have done this multiple times and it is such an achievement, when our clients hit “their number” and find their purpose for their next stage in life.

When I was a young kid, sports saved me. Literally, it saved me from going down the wrong path. Therefore, my passion for sports goes far beyond winning, it is about providing a foundation for young kids and adults to improve their character through teamwork and competition.

But I would not have had the freedom to do the things I love, to be with my family and watch my kids play sports and coach. That freedom would not have happened if I had not developed the expertise to work in accounting, operations, and strategy to help small businesses grow and business owners achieve more wealth. 

And yes, find their joy and purpose.

If I was not good at those things, I would not have the freedom today to be with my family, go to family reunions, watch my kids play sports at the college level, or travel around the country, and have the means to pay for it. 

Now, I am fortunate, because I actually enjoy accounting, operations, and strategy.

But there have been times in my career when I have done the same thing for 60 consecutive months, working for a public trading company to become an expert at doing what I was doing. There was a monotonous and continuous development of the skills of accounting and management of operations. This enabled me to become an expert at what I do. It took repetitive, hard work, to earn that flexibility.

It was not an overnight success

But I’ve learned in all my jobs, when I do a great job, whether working for somebody else or working with my own company, unless I’m doing great work, or have people who do great work with me, I won’t have the flexibility to pursue the dream.

40 Accounting Growth

It was this thinking that gave me an epiphany. I have a really strong and very talented team, and they also have a passion for other things in their life. One of our team members loves to go fishing. My son, Zach Cox, who played college football, wanted to join my firm so that he could coach varsity high school football at the same school where he played.

I am grateful to have team members like this. We have a passion for our clients’ success, but we also provide the opportunity for our team members to pursue their dreams.

As a matter of fact, we’re getting ready to continue to hire for our growth plan for the future.

This is going to be one of our key tenants. 

We will hire talented people with 2+ years experience in accounting, tax work, financial reporting, and financial analysis from a large accounting firm. We want people who want to have more life balance to pursue the things they love.

I will pay them in return for doing meaningful work. And they will have the freedom to pursue their passion.

I am excited by this idea and we’ve been practicing it for a long time. I've been practicing this tenant for a good part of my life and I realize today with the shortage of accountants, so many people are being overworked. People are leaving the industry because they’re overwhelmed. 

Join 40 Accounting. We’ve got work for you, but more importantly, you can come work for us and have the opportunity to pursue your passions, no matter what they are.

And yes, we are not going to look down on you for not trying to become a partner. And wait, hold on a second, we actually are going to offer profit sharing and stock options for those who earn it.

So yes, you get your cake, but you get to eat it too.

This is the vision for our firm. 

Yes, we will have some of the traditional workers that are used to just grinding and grinding for hours. And we will take them too. But we are looking for passionate, talented people who do a great job serving their clients, but will earn the freedom to pursue their joy and their passion.

One of our next hires will be a tax accountant, with a CPA. If you know somebody that has 2+ years experience, from a public accounting firm, has been trained well, but it’s looking to get some more balance and actually see their family during busy seasons, reach out. Send an email to Nick Cuddigan at nick.cuddigan@40accounting.com, because we’re looking for great people. Read more about the Job Posting here.