Growing your brand online can be a lot of work. If you don't love it, you won't make it. You left the corporate world to do your own thing. Bright-eyed and bushy tailed, you hung up your shingle by designing a website and printing some business cards. You're ready for clients and ready to grow.
And then the drudgery starts. You follow people on Twitter. You post on Facebook and write comments on blogs. The big bright dream you had is now clouded by the repetitive work of building your brand.
Social media - or coaching, consulting, speaking, writing - was supposed to be fun. You loved doing it at nights and on the weekends while you toiled from 9-to-5 in your cubicle. What happened?
You began to equate all of this action as something you had to do. And instantly, you replaced a love and a passion with a chore.
No one wants this.
What happened to doing something because you love to do it? When did blogging, tweeting, and checking in become tasks on a list and not the overflow of something enjoyable that welled up inside of us?
Take it one step further. When did we stop doing what we love in order to do what we think is practical? What happened to your passion, your raw talent, your energy, and your hope?
Please, from now on, do what you love. Whether you make money or not. Whether it takes up 40 hours a week or not. I hope that you find something you enjoy doing and that you do it well. And that you improve upon it as much as you wish until you do it as well as you want to.
Do it for love. We need more people who are doing things for love and not for the notoriety, the income, or the habit.
We can tell who's in it because they have an abiding desire and passion to get the job done.
Love begets success. It's never the other way around.