how to turn your passion into a business
The economy is shifting in the direction of passion.
Big corporations that survive on a workforce of employees who perform routine, repetitive tasks for 40 hours a week in exchange for a paycheck… those corporations are losing power by the day.
I used to be an employee at some of these corporations.
For almost a decade, I woke up Monday through Friday (and most weekends) to perform robotic tasks in exchange for a paycheck that I was never satisfied with.
I've since realized the money never satisfied me because I was engaging with "work" that did not align with my true self.
I managed to accumulate a sizeable amount of cash, but as my bank balance grew, my mental health declined.
My mental health (or lack thereof) became the first signal in my career after an 8-year marathon of noise.
In the summer of 2020, mental health care facilities around the US started to overflow (because… pandemic) and I started to realize how "not alone" I was in in my own experiences of anxiety and depression.
This energized me. I had a problem. I had a desire to solve it.
I had a desire to solve it and contribute in a purposeful way to helping other people solve theirs.
While I didn't have any formal training in clinical psychology, I didn't let that stop me from being helpful.
I intuitively decided to become a "curator" of mental health information and began sharing resources online by creating content for Instagram, during a time where there was a collective need.
This signal back in 2020 eventually snowballed into my path of pursuing Human Design as my full-time career.
Probably 2% of this community knows this, but Expanded Flow, in its first iteration, was actually an Instagram handle called @sliceofmentalhealth.
It brings a smile to my face to recall this.
Since then, and true to my Generator nature, I have iterated my way from creating @sliceofmentalhealth over into building a successful Human Design education business and writing this newsletter to you today.
Together, we're going to outline the process for how YOU can turn your passion into a business.
1) identify your signal
You have a unique process for identifying the "signal" to move in a particular direction.
In Human Design, we call this process your strategy.
Your strategy is what you leverage to create new opportunities and contribute your value to the world on the most purposeful, productive, and empowering path available.
Your strategy is determined by your energy type.
If you don’t know what your energy type is yet, you can look up your chart here.
Strategy for Generators and Manifesting Generators:
"Respond before Engaging"
Strategy for Projectors:
"Wait for Recognition, Invitation, before Engaging"
Strategy for Reflectors:
"Reflect, Assess, and Discuss"
Strategy for Manifestors:
"Inform and Initiate"
Your strategy leads you to your signal.
Your signal is what becomes your passion.
Each type is meant to follow their passions, in their own unique way.
Let's explore what this looks like for each type, at a high level.
Generators and Manifesting Generators identify their passions through responding to external stimuli in their environment.
Stimulus is anything that energizes you.
Examples include: the topics covered in your favorite book, the latest podcast episode you're obsessed with, the content you like to engage with.
For me, that stimulus was mental health. Which led me to studying Human Design.
Projectors discover their passions in a slightly different way.
They are designed to pay attention to the interactions they have with others that bring them recognition and invitations.
These are clues to what expertise are already innate within the Projector, and are a signal to take these topics and run with them in the form of self-study and strengthening their perspective.
Reflectors learn about their passions through reflecting on their experiences over the course of their life and discussing these with trusted sounding boards.
These discussions will reveal where a Reflector's true interests reside.
Manifestors are the only type that don't require external inputs to identify their passions. They produce their passion entirely from within through what we call a 'creative urge', which propels them out into the world to initiate new and innovative projects into the world.
You can learn more about the power of your Human Design strategy in our business blueprints.
Add your name here to be included in our next launch.
For the purpose of today's newsletter, your invitation is to begin experimenting with your Human Design strategy to help you identify your unique signal.
Once you've identified your signal, you are ready to start building.
2) build momentum on social media
Passion is only valuable to the extent that you breathe life into the passion.
The best place to breathe life into your passions is on social media.
It's 2024. The average person is spending 4.5 hours per day on their phone.
And about 50% of that time is being spent on social media.
Social media is where the attention is.
It's generally smart to be where the attention is, if you have the desire to turn your passion into a business.
Attention is what gets eyes on your business.
Social media has now made it easier (truly ever in human history) to get eyes on your business with $0 startup costs.
The traditional routes of advertising become less attractive by the day.
The cost of a TV commercial is $100K minimum but the number of people watching TV has significantly decreased.
Which means barrier to entry is high while ROI continues to decline.
Companies see this and are beginning to divest from "old paradigm" business strategies like cold outreach, radio advertisements, and TV commercials and into social media where all of today's attention is.
Social media is the future of advertising.
Companies see the money in social media.
Individuals with a sense of purpose, passion, and drive see this too.
If you are someone who feels compelled to make a positive impact in the world (at scale), then becoming skillful at using social media is one the most unselfish things you can do this year.
We will cover more on how to develop this skillset in future newsletters.
Right now, let's assume you're committed to learning how to use social media to benefit your future and continue on the path of turning your passion into a business.
3) create a passion project
If social media is the platform you will share about your passions on, your next step is to create a project.
Projects are simply goals.
Goals represent an evolution from point A to point B.
Humans are designed to evolve.
If you can successfully set a goal and get results for yourself, in the domain of your passion… then other people will be interested in your results (because they want to evolve too), and therefore, your passion.
I like to consider these as passion projects with profit potential.
Thanks to social media, any passion project can make you money.
If your passion is knitting, and you have produced some kind of tangible result from knitting like: increased happiness, better sleep, or more creativity — then you have grounds for creating an offer that helps other people achieve their goal of happiness, good sleep, and creativity, through knitting.
I encourage you to set goals and create passion projects that are highly relevant for others.
Approaching goals with this mindset enables you to cast a wider net with your social media presence and therefore your customer base.
4) start free. then paid.
The easiest way to start providing value to others, in relation to your passion project, is to offer people some sort of free product.
Many business people call these lead magnets.
I call them free product.
Free product is the easiest route to turn your passion into a business for two reasons —
1️⃣ You don't have to navigate any of the internal challenges (yet) regarding how to price your offers which enables you to get in the swing of attracting people to your offers while you build up the confidence to begin charging money for the value you provide.
This is a skill in and of itself. Don't underestimate the longterm value of you cultivating the skillset of attracting people to a free offer.
2️⃣ People love free stuff. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.
Just think about any recent experience you've had grocery shopping.
Can you not help but notice when there's someone serving up free samples?
Do you feel your body being pulled in that direction, even if you are not particularly interested in the food, per se?
Even more, when you notice a small crowd of people gathering around the free samples, does the pull get stronger?
We're wired for this behavior.
As you start building your business, you can leverage the principles of human behavior to attract people to your passion project and educate them on the benefits of them caring about the transformation that your passion project provides.
Remember, humans want to grow and evolve.
To move from Point A to Point B.
You want your free product to do more than provide information.
Information doesn't hold much value to people these days, given how readily available most of it is online.
Create your free product with the intention of demonstrating the transformation your passion project provides (ie: knitting for better sleep), which primes people to become interested in the next thing you offer… which is paid.
5) when money is exchanged, you're in business
People like to overcomplicate business.
I don't do that here.
Business is the act of providing product or service in exchange for money.
If you can successfully create an offer that other people want, provide a payment link, and deliver a transformative experience for your customer, you have a business.
Looping back to Step 3 — your passion project. You identified a project that gets you results. And now you have those results.
Now it's time for you to help other people get results through a paid offer.
This part of starting a business tends to trip people up the most.
To help you avoid this, my suggestion is that you create an offer (either a product or service) that is the EXACT thing that you needed in your life when you started your passion project however many days ago.
The thing you wish you had before getting the results you have now.
The thing that would've helped you achieve your goal faster or provided an even more effective outcome.
This is how I approached my first product, the Your Design in Business™ blueprint, which helps you grow your business in alignment with your design.
Meaning that you don't have to sacrifice your health, authenticity, or creative freedom in the process.
I created the product I wish I had when I started my business back in 2021.
Since launching 8 months ago, the product now generates enough revenue for me to sustain a full-time income from it.
You are capable of achieving the same.
It all starts with identifying your signal.
Your passion. Your passion is your fuel for building.
With passion, you build a project.
From project, you create a free offer.
From free offer to paid offer.
Paid offers = business
I hope this newsletter becomes a resource to help you build a business that enables you to get paid for all of that passion inside of you.
Happy building,
Kalei
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