Good advice from Mike Rowe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVEuPmVAb8o

Thanks Scotty.... I like Mike Rowe.... KuuuuL DuuuuDe

Very wise words I didn't realise how smart he actually is/seems

Twice I tried following my passion, and twice I ended up not liking what my passion was

I left New Zealand because I wanted a motorbike and, even tho I was working, my father wouldn't guarantor a loan.... so, I left the country, worked assembling bikes, worked in bike shops, became a motorbike courier.... ended up, lost my passion for bikes...

Then, I discovered gyros... loved them, built them for myself and others, once building for others, didn't get as much time flying/enjoying my own machine and the passion waned

Unfortunately tho... it didn't wane enough.... once you have been bitten by the gyro bug.... it is a life sentence

But, I will say... if you really like something and enjoy doing it.... enjoy doing it.... don't try to get involved with it in any way other than enjoying it....

trying to make a business out of it normally seems to only make it that you cant be bothered with what was your passion any more

The only person I have heard of successfully making a business out of their passion and still enjoying their passion, is Stan (Heli) .... he has been building crooked stairs for ever .... and still likes it?

But.... as with his very nice toenails.... this is not common and doesn't always happen

Yes! Sometimes turning your passion into a job, makes it a job, and takes the fun out of it.
Not always, but many times it does. I treid that with painting and airbrushing. Maybe i should have tried body painting.

I think would have made a great body painter...

I could really get into finger painting them for sure

I could really sink my teeth into that.... absolutely!! Sign me up !!

All I can say is follow your passion and go for it. .I always quit no later than 4:00 and never worked week ends.

I refused to hire anyone, as I want all the blame as well as all the credit.

If I were able to work till I was 150....there is plenty of new ideas I haven't had time to try.

When you stop learning, then you are in danger of getting stagnant, and then bored.

I never will be bored as I am hard wired to explore new ideas.

Muz? What is it with all the colored dots?

Its the general forum

I put them there without the dots

Then realise which part of forum it was and our beloved wants the general forum to be kept respectable

so, I added the dots aaannnd........ voila..... instant respectable almost

might have to ask Nabs for a locked room for 'dot free pics' that people have to ask for the password to get in the room?

Stan, I am not saying to follow and enjoy ones passion...

My point is, say someone is right into doing crossword puzzles.... it is their favorite thing to do....

Don't get a job doing crossword puzzles for people for $$ or start writing crossword puzzles.... because it will end up being just a job than ones enjoyable pastime. Sooner or later that person cant stand crossword puzzles.

Whereas, if they enjoy crossword puzzles, and work as a plumber during the week.... they continue to look forward to doing crossword puzzles whenever they can..... do you know what I mean?

As in.... keep one's passion, their passion.... and their job, their job.... rarely do the two mix (for ever)

Starting from the ground up,building and owning my own gunshop has lretty much killed my passion for guns.
I still have the knokwledge but not the desire.
Just now starting to rekindle my love of high grade airguns.

Ben- It worked just the opposite for me. I still get goose bumps over stair projects.
Even the stupid small two step stoops I am building right now. I made them interesting by building them a different way.

If I had listened to fellow co-workers advice that I wouldn't make it, would burn out, ..I would still be working by the hour, hanging doors, nailing base board and casing on. Probably would have been a l-o-n-g life for me.

My head still cant grasp how fast my life flew doing what truly is my passion.

Now that I am semi retired at it.....I plan on building stairways way into my 70's. I could easily not work another day of my life....but I would be miserable.

My dad had a true passion for farming....and he could have retired at 50 easily. But he would have lost his "fire". Instead dad was still out following his passion till he was 93.5 years old..

Maybe I am really the odd duck here. But in my case, that phrase "If you love what you are doing, you never will work another day in your life"...has a lot of truth to it. Of course there are days where you do work, ....but after 30 years, I refuse to call my job "work", but instead my occupation.

The only time in my career that I did not enjoy building stairways was when I needed to stay home for Barbara off and on the last 6 months. My commitment to her trumped my commitments to my stair clients...That's when my occupation became WORK as I could not keep on schedule. My clients understood, but that put stress on me.

So realizing that both of us are getting older, I went part time.

Stan is one of the few who have turned his passion into a career, and loves it. Good for you Stan!

I always wanted to be an artist, an airbrush artist, pretty good at it too, but I also had to realize that I had to eat too, so I decided to use my Mechanical aptitude to support myself, and do the creative stuff on the side, it has worked out pretty well for me so far. I wish I was as good of a metal sculptor as Jake is.... but I am honing my skills.

I dunno Heli, it wasnt the guns that turned me off so much as the wlrk environment.
Dealing with John q public in retail you sure do find out how annoyjng and stupid most people can be.
I was really good at customer service until I didnt want to be tbere no more. Thats when i decided to shut her down. No sense taking out my frusgrations on the customerz.
I have always thkught about ways to make money in thegun biz without havingto deal with customers.
Havent come up with one yet.

Exactly right Benry, I am not the extroverted, everyone is a friend type, I tend to be quiet and stay to myself...I do like being around people with the same interests. But when I was painting motorcycles, it was very labor intensive and then when people are calling you every couple days, are you done yet? are you done yet? too much pressure.
I like the way Jake does gyros, He builds what He wants, and then if someone wants to buy it, they can.
He does not build them to order. Sometimes dealing with the public is very frustrating.

One of the bike shops was a small shop and the guy worked on customers bikes from 6:00 am until, 2:00 pm,
Not open for business, just worked in the shop, then He opened for customers from 2-6:00 pm. That way He didn't have to constantly stop working during the day.

I like that last statement: 'Never follow your passion, but always bring it with you'
In my life I've always had different, varied and changing interests - tough to stay fired up about just one thing.

After I built my first gyro, I was flying every weekend and sometimes after work.... even in shitty weather, I was having a blast and improving my machine, then built and test flew Sam's machine and taught him to fly it, it was fun flying with a few others, except their machines couldn't keep up with mine (or, I couldn't fly as slow as them) but it was fun. My first rotorhead pivot bolts (no bushings) flogged (key holed) out after 14 months and tried to work out how many hours the head had done, we worked out I had done around 200 hours in the first year and a bit. I wasn't even in ASRA then and didn't keep a log book and didn't fit an hour meter until about 3 years later when I joined ASRA and registered the machine.

I had a guy want me to build one for him, then another, then another.... then that 2 seater I bought back... but as I got building them, I had less and less time to actually go and enjoy mine I was getting other peoples machines ready and they were keen to get it.... then I would test fly theirs and onto the next one.... so no time for flying mine and I would begin cursing that I had to be working full time on someone elses machine

Then I made that dumb mistake and let that guy take his before he finished paying for it..... which stopped progress and caused my divorce.... naturally I had to sell all of my equipment.

So, I ended up just keeping my machine and flew it alone like the old days.... but not as often as before I tried to make a business out of it....

Anyway, I know you Stan, came across your stairmaking ability and enjoy that to this day.... that is fantastic.... but had you, for example, started building helicycles for others.... I bet after a while, you would get fed up with helicycles.... watching yours sit in the corner whilst working on them for other people.

That is why I say, if you like/enjoy surfing as an example.... starting to build surfboards or wetsuits for others.... so you end up having to work and miss surfing yourself.... surfing just becomes work and 'the job'

If you like surfing.... work as a plumber or something during the week.... surf all weekend.... then, working a shitty job (pun intended) makes your surfing on the weekend so much more fun....

It also happened to me before the gyros too... I was totally addicted to motorbikes,,,, rode everywhere.... so I became a motorcycle courier....for a few years, I would ride to work (45 minutes),then ride all day for work, then ride home.... have dinner and then go for a ride On the weekends, I flag marshalled at motorcycle racing or rode my dirt bikes.... but eventually, the courier work became a drag and I went from my motorcycle phase, into my rotary (mazda) phase and sort of got out of bikes.

So, I totally agree with Mike Rowe.... if you enjoy something, make what you do for work something different.... so when you get to do your 'fun hobby' on the weekends, it is even more enjoyable

Just my opinion, from my experience

Like I said....I am an odd duck.

Independent as hell.

I left a silver spoon farming operation in 1986....everyone thought I was crazy.

Dad said..."He will be back".

It took dad around 5 years to admit I was doing fine. I don't need anyone to tell me if I am doing fine or not.

No one told me I was miserable while farming. It was NOT my passion...just like most people could not stand building curved stairways.

I am also a loner when it comes to working for myself.

You cant let the public own you. My shop is wired to blow up at 4:00 mon-Fri.

My cellphone is muted at that time. Someone wants to talk stairways , just will have to catch me during the day.

Maybe its that silver spoon job that I felt obligated to take,...even though I HATED it! Maybe it was the 15 years of doing something I had no passion for....that caused a catalyst in my gut to FIND that passion. .By God..I found that passion and 30 years its burning hot as ever.

Barbara mentioned one time that I wasted those 15 years....and I use to think the same. But once I found my TRUE passion, and could make a good living at it with normal hours...I realized that it took me 15 years of misery to build that catalyst in me to seek out what truly satisfies me. My hobby then was making handcrafted Kentucky long rifles. No money in that, but I could build 2 curved stairways in the same amount of time, and easily make $20,000 instead of $2000....and that was 25 years ago.

The rest is history ....and just a month ago.....

I had a serious look at myself while Barbara was sick. I decided that at my age of 62 and in good health,if I went part time, I might be able to keep building these stairways way into my 70's.

I would miss what I do to an extreme high level.

I am so glad I followed my gut feelings and not friends, family and co-workers. I would have had a long boring life.