Is It Realistic to Believe ‘Chase Your Passion and Money Will Follow’? (The Passion, Market, Skills Framework)

It’s definitely realistic to believe that you can chase your passion and earn money from it.
However, how this works is probably not what most people imagine it to be.
• Firstly, it’s NOT realistic to think that one can just quit their job, pursue their passion, and earn big bucks right away. Many don’t succeed. Those who do only start seeing real results after a few years.
• Secondly, it’s not realistic to think that one can earn money from pursuing their passion in a random way, without considering market needs.
• Thirdly, it’s also not realistic to think that one can generate money from their passion right away with no related experience/skills. Just like you can’t expect to get a job right away when switching to a completely unrelated field, you can’t expect to take off in your passion career by “boldly” pursuing it, without any plan or strategy.
The reality is it’s not easy. BUT it’s not impossible. As long as you are ready to put in the hard work, are prepared for the possibility of no returns for the first few years, and are versatile enough to turn challenges into solutions, then I say you have a good chance of success.
Today I want to share a different model which is the PMS framework (nothing to do with what some of you may be thinking by the way!).

The PMS Framework: Passion, Market, and Skills

What is “PMS”? It stands for “Passion,” “Market,” and “Skills.” Here’s how it looks like:

The 3 circles represent the different components of an ideal career.

1. Passion stands for what you’re passionate about; what excites you, energizes you
2. Market stands for what the market needs, wants
3. Skills stands for the skills you have; what you’re able to do

Let’s look at common scenarios in the job market today (or self-employment for that matter):

1. People with Market & Skills, but no Passion. These are people with marketable skills, which gets them a job that pays well. Miss B is in this category. However, without passion for their work, work becomes a dread. Even though someone can theoretically keep working their way up in such a career path, the job will eventually hollow them out.
2. People with Passion & Skills, but no Market. These people have a passion for their work and are very skilled in what they do, but there is little market demand to make a good living. A good analogy is the “starving artist” archetype, where you see talented artists who are not able to make ends meet because there isn’t a big (job) market for their work. Because of that, there is a limit to how much they can earn. Money is constantly a constraint in their decision making and life.
3. People with Passion & Market, but no Skills. These people are better off than people in the first 2 categories in that they love what they do and they are in an industry with lots of opportunities. However, they don’t have the skills to land these opportunities. Note that by skills, I mean (1) skills relative to other players in the market, meaning you can be skilled but if there are plenty more skilled alternatives than you, the market will favor them, and (2) any skill required to succeed in your passion, such as skills in your craft (e.g., public speaking if you’re a speaker), skills in self-promoting, skills in networking, etc. Without competitive skills, these people struggle to land opportunities, sales, and good job offers.
   
   Clearly, all 3 scenarios are not optimal.
   While some may rationalize that having a job they hate is better than having no job (which is true), in the long run they’ll only be miserable as they get hollowed out from doing something they hate each day.
   While some may rationalize that they’d rather pursue a passion and earn little money than be in a job they hate with lots of money (which is true for people with no heavy financial needs), in the long run they’ll find themselves restricted in how they live their life and how they can pursue their goals.
   As for the last scenario, people in this scenario start off happy and excited, but are clueless at what’s about to hit them. An example would be someone who quit their job to start their blog business or to create apps (both of which are supposedly thriving industries now), but they have no idea how competitive the field is and are forced to quit later on when they fail to get any sales, despite months of hard work.
   To you,

1. Can you spot where you are in this diagram right now?
2. Which is the ideal spot?
   If you answered that the ideal spot is the intersection between all 3 circles, you’re right! This is a career (1) you’re Passionate about; (2) where there’s a Market demand for it; and (3) which you have the Skills to thrive in. That’s the career you want to be in.
   

#How To Achieve Passion-Market-Skills

So how do you get into this sweet spot?
First off, I want to highlight that getting to this spot is a process that can take years, especially if you’re starting from scratch.
For example, if you have no idea what your passion is and you’re just entering the workforce, then it’s obviously going to take a while before you get a career with all PMS criteria. That’s because not only do you need time to figure out your passion, but you also need time to build your skills in it later — if it’s different from what you’ve been doing.
On the other hand, if you’ve been working for years in various highly skilled jobs, then all things being equal, even if you don’t know your passion right now, you already have some reference on what you may like / don’t like. Hence, you can better pinpoint what you want to do later. Not only that, working for so long would have given you some hard/soft skills that you can use for your passion journey later on vs. starting from scratch.

So how do you achieve your Passion-Market-Skills career? I have 5 tips for you. 🙂
Step 1: Know your passion
The first thing you should understand about the PMS framework is that these 3 circles are like moving parts of a whole — they can be nudged, to some extent, to form your ideal career. For example, if you’re in a job you’re not passionate about, you can always try to find something good about it. If you have a passion that doesn’t have a big market, you can look for ways to adapt your passion to the market. If you have no skills in what you’re pursuing, you can always build them.
However, the circle that’s least “nudgeable” is “Passion.” With “Market,” there are practically no limits in who you can reach today, thanks to the internet and globalization. With “Skills,” there’s nothing you can’t learn as long as you are willing to put in the time and effort, since human potential is basically limitless. However, you can’t make yourself love something if you dislike, or even hate it.
Hence, “Passion” is actually the most definitive part of our ideal career, and the first thing you should work on uncovering. Even if you turn out to have zero skills in your passion and you have no idea how to pursue it, you can, at that point, start taking baby steps to build your ideal career. Without knowing your passion though, you would be building random skills and building yourself up a particular career to earn more money, but you could well be leading your life to the wrong place.
As Stephen Covey said before, “If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”
Now the question comes to, “How exactly do I find my passion?”
Finding your passion comes as a result of having gone through several worthy goal pursuits. You can’t possibly know your real passion unless you’ve taken the step to get out of your comfort zone, worked on goals with meaning to you, and experienced the ups and downs of a serious goal pursuit.
Thus, I recommend to give yourself time to explore and experiment. Identify 2-3 things that you like (or you think you may like), and then spend 3-6 months dipping your toes in them. Take courses, start something on the side, read up, etc. (This can all happen while you are in a day job by the way!) Then, take stock. How do you feel about them after these few months? Are you still excited? If yes, great! Continue. If no, repeat with 2-3 different things for another 3-6 months. During this time, take note of what you like and don’t like.

Step 2: Study the market related to your passion

After you identify your passion or a potential passion area, the next step is to study the market related to your passion. This is where we look at the second circle, “Market.” There are 2 goals here. Firstly, you want to know exactly what you’re getting into, as opposed to jumping in half-cocked. Secondly, you want to know what’s happening in the market so that you craft your best plans later on.

What is the market like for your passion? You want to research it in this step
During your research, you should answer these 5 questions:

1. What are the typical career options in this field?
2. What does each option entail? What are the requirements to enter this field? What are the criteria for success?
3. Do any of these career options interest you? (Or are there any aspects of a particular path that interest you?) What are they? What do you like about them?
4. Look beyond standard career paths. Who are the people thriving in this field today? What exactly do they do? Why are they so successful?
5. Is there anything you like about what they’re doing, that you’d like to emulate in your own path? What is it and why?
   What if you don’t know anyone in this field? Well, with the internet and meetup groups, you can get lots of information even without knowing anyone… yet. For example, say you want to be a trainer, but you don’t know anyone in training. What can you do?
   • Firstly, research online. There are many trainers with online presences today, so you can easily google for trainer blogs to read up. Be sure to read from varied sources so that you get different perspectives.
   • Secondly, meet up with people who have been living and breathing training as their job. Not people who are just talking about it, but people who are out there doing it.
   o Toastmasters is a great place to meet professional public speakers quickly, especially those serving as mentors or judges.
   o Meetup.com has so many meetups including on public speaking and training. With 550,000 monthly meetups in 180 countries, it practically has meetups on all kinds of topics in every corner of the world! Chances are, it has something where you live too.
   o Attend talks and workshops by professional trainers — it’s hard to meet trainers 1-1, but through these events you can easily meet them.
   o When attending these events, don’t just watch in the background. Approach these people and mingle. Understand how they got started and ask them for advice as someone starting out. They’ll be able to give you some ideas, even if briefly. Brief ideas from many people will give you a good overall picture.
   • Thirdly, study world experts. You want to get both a global and local view of the industry. Who are the most renowned people in training today? What exactly do they do? Why are they so successful? While you probably won’t know these people personally, you can study their bios, interviews, and books to learn from them.
   The general steps above pretty much apply to any career field. Simply replace “trainer/training” with the name of your field and follow the tips.
   As you’re researching, take notes of what you like, don’t like. Understand what works, what doesn’t work in this field. This information will be crucial as you craft your passion plan in Step 3.
   One watch out during your research
   So if you happen to realize that what you thought was your passion isn’t your passion, don’t worry. It’s part of the learning process. 🙂 Simply return to Step 1 to explore and find a new passion area. Then, return to Step 2 when you’re ready.

Step 3: Adapt your passion to serve the market
Once you do your research, let’s look at Step 3: adapt your passion to serve the market.
What does it mean to “adapt” your passion?
“Adapting” means to craft your passion in a way that’s relevant to the market. Even though you can pursue your passion without considering the world at large and be extremely happy doing so, you should convey your passion in a way that relates to others and adds value to their lives. Otherwise you are essentially pursuing your passion for your own benefit, independent of what others want, which is no different from pursuing it as a hobby. If your goal is to turn your passion into a sustainable career, you need to think beyond yourself and consider what the world wants, needs.
There are exceptions to this though, such as lifestyle bloggers and YouTube personalities who seem to make a good living just by living their lives and talking about themselves. Like I said, this is an exception, not the norm. Additionally, these individuals are actually giving value — knowingly or unknowingly — by what they do. This value can be entertainment value (bringing laughter to people), social value (making you feel emotionally rewarded by being connected with them), or educational value (helping you learn something).
This value can be a hit or miss though depending on what the market is looking for — for example, you could start a personal YouTube channel in hopes that people would be interested about you and your videos, but if your topics of interest aren’t things that people want to see, you’d be basically wasting your time (in terms of your career). Hence, it’s important to be deliberate about how you give value to others, because it ensures that you’ll definitely deliver the value your audience needs.
So how do you adapt your passion in a way that serves the market? 5 steps:

1. Start by identifying the message of your passion. This is the essence of your passion. Most people get confused with their message and medium, when it’s their message that’s the most important. For example, maybe your passion is in stand-up comedy, but your real passion is “to bring laughter to the world.” Maybe your passion is to start your organic restaurant, but your real passion is “to improve health and nutrition of people, through wholefoods and diet.” The former is a medium while the latter is your message. Being clear of your message will subsequently widen your career options.
   Your message should both be (1) something you enjoy and (2) something that will bring a positive impact to others. Other examples of messages are, “To inspire people and help them step into their light,” “To empower women and help them succeed in dating, work, and life,” and “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (this is actually Google’s mission statement).
2. Identify who you want to reach out to with your passion. Next, identify your target audience (TA). This is the group you are going to reach out to, to impact through your passion. Your TA should be a group that (1) you are passionate about reaching and (2) isn’t too narrow (otherwise you’ll end up in a Passion, Skills, but no Market scenario).While your TA should not be too broad, it should not be too narrow. For example, wanting to reach out to only people of a certain race+age group+gender is probably too narrow, especially if they make up a very small number. Know that when you restrict your audience, you prevent more people from benefiting from your stuff. Target as many people as you can while not diluting your messaging.
3. Identify career mediums to best reach them. A medium is your vehicle to express your passion message and reach your TA. You should pick mediums that (1) you’re passionate about and (2) are readily used by your TA (you should have gotten some ideas during your research phase).
   I recommend identifying at least 3 mediums so you have a variety of ways to reach out to your audience. Even if you are looking for a salaried job (not a business), you can still have different mediums, basically different career roles like a counselor, therapist, social worker, psychiatrist, trainer, and coach if your message is in self-help, personal growth. Even if you don’t have the right skills yet (which is normal), you can build your skills later if you decide that this is indeed the path you want to pursue.
4. Identify the change you’re going to make in their lives. What is the change, the difference, your TA is going to experience when they come in touch with your work? This change can be anything, from an improvement in your audience’s happiness level, to an increase in their knowledge, to an improvement in their lifestyle. This should be a change that your TA is looking for and is relevant to their lives.
   As opposed to sitting and hypothesizing what your audience wants, I recommend getting out there to talk to them directly. Get to know your TA. Understand them in person. Understand what they need and what will most benefit them. This way, there will be no guesswork.
5. Create your ideal career vision. Last but not least, create your ideal career vision. Based on all the info above, what is your ideal career like? Who would you be serving? Who would you be working with daily? How would you be reaching out to them? What would you be doing every day?
   Notice how in each step, I kept asking you to think about what’s relevant to your TA, the market? That’s what it means to adapt your passion to the market. You want to ensure that you are doing something that will create an impact in others’ lives, while staying true to your passion.
   Even if your passion is supposedly very niche, you can still create a relevant passion career — by detaching yourself from its form and focusing on your message. For example, maybe you love drawing but the industry for drawing is not big. Understand your motivation behind your passion in drawing: what is it? Perhaps it’s to express your creativity and yourself, and to help others do the same (so here, drawing is the medium to achieve this message). By being clear of your message, this suddenly opens up a new host of mediums (drawing, writing, music, graphic design, public speaking) for you to pursue this passion.
   That said, there is a block you can face at this stage. This block is if you are only interested in salaried work vs. starting your business or venture. That’s because when you only look for jobs in employment, you limit yourself to the job vacancies in your country, which may or may not fit what you want. Not only that, you are subject to assessment of your potential employers (perhaps you are skilled enough but you lack formal qualifications, and because of that your employers pass up on your application). Even if you broaden your search to the region or entire WORLD, it may still be difficult to find something that matches what you want entirely.
   If you’re looking for a salaried job, I’ve these suggestions:
6. Study all the job openings in the market right now. Research job portals, talk to headhunters, and seek out job agencies.
7. Research each job. Is there any that resonates with you, that may be a fit with your career vision? Consider all aspects, from the job scope, to the company’s message and values, to the pay, to career development prospects.
8. If yes, that’s great! What do you need to do to considered for these positions? (Move to the next section on skills.)
9. If no, consider broadening your search criteria (expand your geography or check out related jobs) and continue your search for another 2 months. Are there any new job options that fit you?
   If the answer is still no, the answer to your ideal career may well not lie in the employment world. This is where you either heavily revise your career vision to be more reflective of current market options, or consider freelancing / starting your business.

Step 4: Equip yourself with the skills to succeed
Now that you have your vision in mind, it’s now time to build the skills to succeed in your passion career! This is where the third circle, “Skills,” comes in.

Depending on your past experience and education, you may be starting from scratch. Or perhaps you have direct experience in what you want to do next, in which case you can simply pursue your passion career right away. For most of you though, you probably don’t have much related experience in your passion career. If you’re starting as a complete newbie, start with these simple steps:

1. Identify all the skills you need to excel in your ideal career.
2. Order them by priority. Out of these skills, which should you be working on first?
3. Do you have any transferable skills, past experience that you can draw on in your ideal career? Think about how to use them in your new passion career.
4. Create a plan to start addressing your skill gaps, and take action.
   I recommend tracking your progress as you’re working on your skills. Have a regular skill-audit to evaluate how you’re doing (you can use some self-created metrics, such as rating yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 in your skill, using meaningful attributes to track your progress, and so on). If you have the bandwidth, work on building 2-3 skills in one go, which can be helpful in drawing learning points across the board.

Step 5: Execute and Fine Tune
Even though I label this as Step 5, it’s actually a step that can happen alongside Step 4 or even 3. As you’re building your skills, start to execute your ideal career plan. You shouldn’t wait until you feel 100% ready before you act. Why?

1. It’s very unlikely that you can take action and see perfect results right away. There’s usually a big gap between our plans and reality. This is where it’s better to take lousy, imperfect action now and fine tune along the way, such that your plan is more accurate to reality. On the other hand, fantasizing in a dream world of perfect conditions and executing right at the end will usually lead to a horrifying situation where you realize your plans do not match reality at all, which then leads to lots of rework and time wasted. I’ve seen so many people fail because they refuse to test their ideas right away, instead hiding in an impenetrable cave where they assume everything they’re doing is perfect and right — in the end wasting months and years of their life working on an idea or direction that the market doesn’t want.
2. You need time for the market to react. I call this the “lead time” for the market to respond to your efforts. For example, rarely do people get jobs right after sending their resume; usually they need to wait for companies to review the resumes, have internal discussions, and then arrange for an interview if they find you suitable. Rarely do businesses get customers right after launch; usually they need to market themselves, improve on their offering, and build trust before they get a solid customer base. For you, things like networking, marketing, researching, improvising, and engagement should happen earlier than later.
3. Growth is supposed to be ongoing. It’s not possible to be 10/10 in a skill. Why? Because every time you reach 10/10, you’ll notice something else to improve on! By waiting only until you feel everything is perfect before taking action, you may well never be able to take action.
   Hence, no matter how far you’re from your ideal state, you can act on your plan NOW. Say you’re starting a business or freelancing. Look for opportunities. Network. Get your name out. Create a basic version of your product/service and test that with some people, for free. Get their feedback. Improve based on their feedback. Do this for a few iterations. Start charging a small fee when you feel your work is decent enough, and keep improving as you go along.

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