Pursuing Your Passions as an Entrepreneur

God has given each of us unique talents, passions and spiritual gifts. God has a plan for you and will provide the venue for you to use your gifts for His glory. When we use our God-given talents and passions in our life, we can feel peace and are living in our “sweet spot.”

How to Identify Your Passions

What are your passions? Ask yourself, What activities and subjects 'bring you to life' and make you 'light up' when you participate in them or discuss them?" What do you love to do and what were you meant to do? If you could pursue any career and money was not an issue, what would it be? Would you teach, mentor and assist underprivileged children, or start a business and pursue a passion like cooking, graphic design or photography?

Why You Should Pursue Your Passions

You’ve probably heard the saying, “When you do what you love, it isn’t work.” Incorporating your gifts and passions in your daily life is an incredible feeling and brings peace because you are doing what God designed you to do. For example, my wife Amelia is absolutely passionate about cooking. She loves writing recipes, planning out meals, shopping for ingredients, prepping meals, cooking meals, creating menus, plating meals and sharing her masterpiece with family and friends. I’m extremely passionate about baseball cards. I used to stay up all night memorizing statistics on the back of the cards and didn’t want to sleep because I enjoyed what I was doing so much. Sleeping and eating was work for me while spending time with my baseball cards was pure joy.

Display of baseball bats, balls and photos

Pursuing Your Passions as an Entrepreneur

By using our gifts and pursuing our passions, we ultimately glorify God. One way to pursue your passion(s) is through entrepreneurship. You may spend time on a hobby or apply your gifts and talents to develop a new service or product, and things naturally transition to a business. Both my wife and I started businesses in order to spend more time on our passions. We pursued our passions in the evening and on weekends while having corporate jobs. Eventually we reached a point where our ventures were profitable enough where we pursued them full-time. In my case, a passion for baseball cards evolved into the startup of a baseball card brokerage business, which I operated for several years full-time until my passion for films led to a career in the entertainment industry. Amelia’s passion for cooking and service evolved into a part-time personal chef business that she managed for several years until our daughter was born. God then opened the door for her to manage the test kitchen for a major consumer packaged goods company.
Before pursuing your passion as an entrepreneur, it is important to develop a comprehensive business plan and to believe in your plan. Start with the end in mind and define and visualize success. Testing your business part-time is an excellent way to determine if you should eventually transition it to a full-time business. You will want to build a professional team (lawyer, banker, accountant, etc.) and find a mentor who can provide Godly counsel and walk alongside you in your journey.

Eliminating “Limiting Beliefs”

A “limiting belief” is anything that prevents you from moving yourself forward, often in the form of fear. You may feel stymied from starting a business because of your age, education, skills, or financial wherewithal. Remember that God has not given you a spirit of fear (2 Timothy 7). Having these feelings can hold you back as you wait for perfect conditions to launch your new business. A way to move forward is to prayerfully take steps toward a certain direction and ask God to open and close doors as He sees fit. As you progress in your journey, you will see God working in your plans.

Yankee baseball player at Yankee Stadium

For the Love of Business

The decision to be an entrepreneur is larger than having a business opportunity. A key question to ask yourself is whether you feel “called” by God to start and run a business. You may love eating frozen yogurt, but that doesn’t mean you should open a frozen yogurt shop. Owning a business can involve managing employees, payroll, ordering supplies, marketing your business, working long hours and everything else that is involved with running a business. You can certainly build a team to manage some of these activities, but having the desire to be an entrepreneur is essential.

Money May Follow

When your work is your passion, money may follow. Money should never be the goal of following our passions (it is all God’s money). Serving God should be our goal. That said, we are more likely to do well financially when we do what we love than when we are not satisfied in our career.

Other Ways to Pursue Your Passions

Entrepreneurship is not the only way to pursue your passions. You can also be involved with your passions as a hobby, through volunteer work, integrating tasks into your current job that are in line with your passions, or other activities.

Final Thoughts

Doing what God made you to do can bring an incredible sense of peace. God wants us to trust Him, and the more you get out of your “comfort zone” the closer you get to Jesus. God wants you to be the best at what He called you to do whether that is being an entrepreneur, an employee, or both. If you use your talents and pursue your passions in any of these venues, you will feel a sense of peace and fulfillment knowing that you are using your God-given gifts and doing what you love and were meant to do.