Anne and I have been talking much about earning money with what we love doing. Of course that is easier said than done when you are self-employed.

I loved my 20 year career in hotel & catering until nearly the end. I used to go to work well in excess of the required 40 hours and often did not take the holidays owed to me. I used to be passionate about the people I worked with and providing great service for our customers. I held on to my passion much longer than most but finally the ‘corporate straight jacket’ got to me and sucked my enthusiasm out of me bit by bit. I was not going to do go to work like the walking dead so I handed in my notice without knowing exactly what I would do next! It would definitely have been more lucrative for me in the short term to stay employed but in the long term I would no longer have been able to be me.

Giving up working like a maniac meant I could find the life I was passionate about. Never known to make life consciously easy for myself I took a variety of routes to happiness after I left my corporate career and ended up with having tried out many things I can make money with, I found the love of my life, I worked on my personal development, I did a 500 mile walk, I met a lot of amazing people and have a big network

So here are the things I am passionate about and earn money with today:

I love writing my own material and work as a trainer on personal and business development subjects. I do this most successfully when I work with a partner. My sister I work closely together here and at the moment we are recording one of our live teleseminar courses to sell as a download option.

My husband is to be blamed for my next passion! He got me into playing poker. I only ever played for fun until he entered us both into a $ 100 poker tournament on New Year’s Eve 2006. I had never played for cash, so it came quite as a surprise when I won the tournament and over $ 6500 dollars. After that I continued playing small cash tournaments for fun, not earning a great deal of money but holding my own and learning a lot. Last week after much encouragement from Gary I decided to take it more seriously and try to earn a small income from playing poker. So I play more regularly and keep account records of my ‘work’. My goal is to make $ 500 in the next couple of weeks. Only $ 260 to go!! Best thing is that poker is tax free in the UK

Last but not least there is art and craft. I discovered the joy of creative creating not that long ago and am still amazingly shy about it. Doing swaps has helped to get me out of my anal self-analysis to ‘JFDI’ when a swap dead line is looming. My goal is to crank up my craft business and make some money with it, but also do swaps and grow my confidence and skill.

I KNOW I should only concentrate on one thing and do that well and I have tried for the longest time to do that. I have finally got to admit to myself that that is not going to happen for me. I will always suggest to others who want to start in business for themselves to find a niche and become an expert. I stand by that. It makes business life much easier, more manageable and the likelihood of success much greater. But if that is not working for you, do something else!