Working in Your Zone of Genius

Sometimes it’s not about the money. Sometimes it can’t be.

“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.” – Maya Angelou

Strangely, I run into more pushback from folks when they hear me say, “it’s not about the money” than one might think.

But I have my reasons for believing the way I do.

I love working on Association Chat.

It isn’t the thing I do that makes me big money, but I love the Chat like it’s my child.

Because you might not know exactly where Association Chat fits into my overall career path, these are the efforts I make in my career that help me most in paying my bills:

I am a consultant for my company, Amplified Growth, working with association clients who need help with online community management, social media campaigns, and video image training.

I am also a senior consultant for Tecker International where I have the good fortune to work with and learn from some of the best minds in the industry!

Along with all of that, I am a paid speaker and trainer who teaches others about establishing trust-based communities and better communication using video.

It is work I enjoy and I feel fortunate to do. I am lucky in that way and I know it.

Although it’s not all about the money, let’s be honest…money matters.

Look, this all takes time and time is an expensive commodity. The Patreon patrons who support Association Chat are heroes in my life. They are the people who say, “I like this thing that you’re doing…keep doing it” and then commit some dollars to the Chat each month so that I can.

My advertisers and sponsors are my partners. I have been happy to work with excellent companies and teams. Fonteva, Trust Bridge, Boldr, Avodigy, Knucklepuck, Map Dynamics, and Empowered Margins (along with several others) have been supporters of the community. I love figuring out new ways to collaborate and do more with these companies and I am always happy to work with someone to try something new! (Seriously, let me know if you have some ideas! Exploration is fun!)

Association Chat is something different. It is a different kind of work in many ways.

First, no one tells me what to do with it or when or how. But I have worked away at it – trying new things, testing new platforms and channels, inviting new guests and conversations – for years now and it just keeps making me feel happier and happier.

Sometimes I love it so much I feel guilty.

At times, it feels like I’m doing something bad if I am enjoying it so much in front of so many people.

For a while, I was afraid working on the Chat had more to do with my ego than it should. Was all of this really about my visibility or marketing myself?

But I have strong rules about promotion within the group and even limit how often I promote my own business. I also realized that even when no one showed up for a live video, I still loved doing it. So I knew it wasn’t really about my own ego (even though my ego is a part of what happens with the group).

After I realized all of that, I found another way to feel bad.

I felt guilty that Association Chat wasn’t more successful! So for about seven or eight months I purposefully tried to make it more profitable, looking at ways to expand it for money.

That was an absolute disaster, by the way. It drained all the fun out of the work and sucked the creative life out of it.

I started to believe that I had to craft it into something specific because people kept asking me about the business model and that made me think I had to have one.

But sometimes we need things to just be what they need to be, whether they fit conveniently into a use case or don’t.

“Yes, I’ve made a great deal of dough from my fiction, but I never set a single word down on paper with the thought of being paid for it … I have written because it fulfilled me. Maybe it paid off the mortgage on the house and got the kids through college, but those things were on the side—I did it for the buzz. I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for the joy, you can do it forever.” – Stephen King

My happiest years with Association Chat have been the most recent.

This was following my decision to cut ties with any focus on making it my most profitable line of business and decided, instead, to let my heart guide me on what I wanted to do with it. Some people spend time at the gym for fun. Some people enjoy birding. I find pleasure in creating content for a particular audience…this type of thing is fun for me.

So, once again, I made decisions based on what felt good and right for the group and for me:

Did I want to start a book club to talk about books I was reading? Yes!

Did I want to interview someone who wrote about zombies for the podcast? Yes!

Did I want to discuss the magic of one member’s search for the right notebook? Yes!

Did I want to try hosting live events? Yes! (And then COVID-19 came along, but whatever…)

Did I want to talk with Mo Rocca about the role that comedy plays with the backdrop of cultural unrest? Absolutely!

And guess what? I did.

Not all of my content on Association Chat exactly matches up with the CAE Exams. And what is my argument for that?

1. It’s my group…my rules! I can share what I think is fun or intriguing or important to know – and that’s great!
2. Only my Patreon patrons and advertisers fund any of this work…and even so, this is not an effort about making money.
3. If it’s not fun, why would I do it?!?
4. You’re not going to only learn from what everyone already teaches on the CAE exam. Some of the most important lessons might come from the people and ideas you haven’t come across before – and that is where Association Chat comes in.

Also, here is a secret I’ve discovered…

Just because we work in the association industry doesn’t mean we aren’t still human and have other interests!

That means I can talk about swarm AI, new ways to use text for learning, and all sorts of other delightful topics and it still works.

Understanding the people. Who is this for?

The people who are drawn to support Association Chat 12 years into its existence are people who like to discover new things.

They are people who delight in learning. If you are reading this, most likely I am describing YOU right now…and YOU are probably someone who also enjoys being a part of a community of other people who enjoy learning and discovering new and surprising things.

Community isn’t always fun.

As much as I love the community, I’ve also come to a difficult realization about what it means to have responsibility for one. It’s a little different than when I used to help start chapters online and in-person for associations back in the day.

I feel like Association Chat is my house and whatever is going on in it is my responsibility. But because it is not owned or run by a company or an association – and maybe, probably, because I’ve been checking in and building onto it for almost 12 years (it will be 12 years in March) – I never really check out from it. It’s a living thing that needs tending to, which is why I’ve called it a garden before.

Or maybe it’s more like a house or a party that never stops:

• Association Chat is an open house with its door always open to people who care about the association industry and who want to meet others who do, as well.
• The Patreon patrons and advertisers are helping buy the snacks so I can keep the doors open.
• My podcast guests are the visitors who I bring into the house to entertain or provoke interesting conversations.
• The moderators are my trusted friends who make sure that no one is cornered in a bad conversation, unsafe conditions, and they help let me know if we’ve run out of chips in the other room.

(I could carry this metaphor further, but I’ll spare you.)

The point is this: When I receive credit from people for being good a creating a brand for myself, I hope they come to understand that while Association Chat has brought me visibility, that has never been its purpose or my purpose.

To borrow from Maya Angelou’s quote at the start of this post,

“…pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.”

Visibility has been the result of my love for doing the thing I love doing. But it hasn’t ever been the goal.

It’s taken me a while to find the beauty and strength in that.

 

*What would you do if money was not the object or deterrent? How can you add more of that thing to your life? Please share in the comments (and thanks for being a part of this project that I love).