Comments on: Making Money from a Passion

By: Catherine

Catherine — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 12:00:07 +0000

Hi Trent

I have read your site for a long time – thanks for all the good advice. This is a really excellent article with a lot of thinking behind it. Quality stuff ; )

By: MattJ

MattJ — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:47:29 +0000

#48 Kai:

Thank you.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 17:48:51 +0000

…or you could just decide that you already know everything yourself, and you don’t need to pay attention to silly things like other people’s perspectives. That’s cool too.

By: Kai

Kai — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 17:40:26 +0000

Based on previous discussions between different pairings, I’m pretty sure that he would have made his comment the same way had you been male, and other women might have made his comment. As he stated below, his comment wasn’t even directly targeted as you, but rather just used your mention as a jumping off point, albeit not explained at the time.
I don’t see a single thing in his comment that makes the gender of the two participants anything other than coincidence, unless you are going to decide than any time a man disagrees with a woman, he’s ‘mansplaining’, and thus invalid.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 16:08:16 +0000

Tracy’s right that I didn’t invent the word, nor was I the first to notice the concept (if I had been, I would have called it something else, because portmanteau words are stupid). But if you read what others have written about mansplaining, I think it’s pretty clear that that’s what’s going on here.

By: Kai

Kai — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 23:19:39 +0000

Whether she invented the word or just brought it up as a concept, its ridiculous for a conversation that had no gender tint until she decided to see it.

By: Izabelle

Izabelle — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:51:27 +0000

@kevin: I’m afraid all those repetitions occur because Trent is now passionate about S.E.O.!

By: kevin

kevin — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:21:43 +0000

The word or a form of the word passion was used 17 times. I think Trent must be passionate about using the word passion.

By: kc

kc — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 16:58:05 +0000

Writing well would communicate much more than merely saying you’re passionate about writing.

By: Adam P

Adam P — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 16:21:40 +0000

Applaud at deRuiter.

By: deRuiter

deRuiter — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 10:49:53 +0000

“As a fellow blogger, I wonder how it feels to see a site that you spent years building from the ground up plastered with ridiculous coupon ads.” Once you sell your blog for a lot of money it won’t bother you one whit. Particularly true if you are allowed to continue to milk the blog with rehashes of old work, annecodotes which are invented (readers are so good at spotting those!)columns full of other people’s work and articles written off the top of your head with wrong information and figures which are incorrect. You won’t care either if you are too lazy or uneducated to grasp that “incredible” ought to be used for incredible things and not as a synonym for “very.” Yes, this used to be a blog which explained basic financial concepts and illustrated them with the success of a man who turned his financial life around, it was fun. For me it was like watching a child learn to walk or learn another new to him skill which you watch as you baby develops, had a bit of charm to it. At that point, bad grammar, unsophistication, occasional misinformation and a general lack of skill in writing the English language was OK. Now it’s not OK, because the content has changed, as has the smug, rather smarmy tone about anyone who spends a few dollars on something which isn’t a Prius, a $200. pot, or game. Note to author: There are some people in America who have worked hard and made enough money to be comfortable. They buy things which they want, not necessarily a Prius, fancy pot or game, and they can afford what they buy without a negative effect upon their quality of life. This is part of the reason to work hard and be frugal in America, so you can succeed in life and buy what you want. The new owners of the blog are using it for their passion for making money. This “follow your passion and the money will come” mantra is ruining a whole generation of navel gazing college students who are piling up massive student loan debt for things like degrees in basket weaving and majors of similar ilk. You can monetize your passion, but you are not being paid for your passion but for your knowledge, skills, and ability to execute them or to communitate them to those who need your product. The example noted above about a bride who doesn’t care about your “passion” for photography but does care if you have the staff, equipment, talent and ability to get her an album full of beautiful photos of her wedding is spot on.

By: Lynda grant

Lynda grant — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 02:37:54 +0000

Oops mansplaining.

By: Lynda grant

Lynda grant — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 02:35:19 +0000

Mans playing love it. GO Jo

By: David

David — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:59:40 +0000

Fascinating stuff, words, as I may have mentioned before. “Mansplain” has not yet made it into the Oxford English Dictionary, but one feels that it can only be a matter of time before it does. Looking it up, I encountered “manslot”, which I had half expected to be defined as “not a happy one”; instead, it is a smallholding similar in size to a bovate given (especially in mediaeval Norfolk) to a Danish soldier. No one who is not passionate about words (as I am) will understand my undiluted joy in finding this gem, but I doubt it would fetch a whole lot on eBay.

Meanwhile, if Johanna and her band are good enough to persuade patrons of bars to part with hard cash for the pleasure of hearing them perform – well, they must be pretty good. Doubtless they could sing in church choirs instead, but why the Devil should they?

By: Tracy

Tracy — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:39:25 +0000

Kai – ”mansplaining’ is not a term coined by Johanna but a specific observed phenomenon.

By: Kai

Kai — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 23:43:40 +0000

“#22 MattJ @ 12:27 pm March 16th, 2012
And some people are willing to move to LA and work crap jobs trying to make it in Hollywood, or NY on Broadway or in fashion, or Memphis/Nashville/New Orleans/Wherever in music.

The point is, YES, monetize your passion if it makes sense for you. For many people in certainly highly-passion-driven endeavors, no amount of passion, or even hard work, is liable to ever lead to a ‘net gain’ such that pursueing their passion will pay off.
That is, if music is one’s passion, then singing for free in the church choir or busking at the mall is likely to be less damaging to the bottom line than seeking the kind of coaching, training, and practice that is required to sing lead vocals of a bar band.”

different people enjoy music in different ways, and are willing to go to different lengths to pursue it professionally. what works for one won’t necessarily work for another.

By: Kai

Kai — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 23:40:53 +0000

Seriously, ‘mansplain’?
Are you genderizing an individual comment from an individual person about an individual topic?

By: Kai

Kai — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 23:38:59 +0000

“Just to chime in: there’s a difference between being passionate about something and being *good* at something. Trent is certainly passionate about writing, but at the rate TSD is devolving (and having read the first chapters of his NaNo a while back), I very much doubt he’ll ever be *good* at it…”

Once upon a time, Trent was good enough at distilling simple financial concepts that it won him an audience. This is not to be confused with being good at writing. In this low-expectations world (especially on the internet), people are willing to overlook poor writing for good enough content.

By: Kai

Kai — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 23:36:06 +0000

No-one pays for passion. They pay for a good or service that you deliver. Passion can help you sell other people on your good or service, but no-one pays you to be passionate. This is a terrible lie that is being fed to young people today.
It’s not good enough to love something. It’s not good enough to practice something a whole lot. You need to be good at it, or good enough for what people seek.
Passion is valuable – it can help, for sure. If you try to find work in a place that at least somewhat relates to your passions, that can make work much nicer. But it’s a complete lie to tell people that passion actually relates to other people’s willingness to pay you.

By: jim

jim — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 21:23:19 +0000

“mansplain” ?