Income Skills

Create a List of Things Where You Have 10,000+ Hours of Experience

Before I made my own thing, I tried various ways to make money online. I was looking for the thing that would click.

Here are some of the things I experimented with:

Design and music gigs on Fiverr.
Selling an automated financial spreadsheet.
Creating a Canva ebook and trying to sell it on Etsy.
Running Facebook ads to affiliate offers.
Building WordPress sites for people.
Trying to land gigs on Upwork.
Flipping second-hand stuff: buy, fix, resell.
Creating a Shopify store focused on dropshipping.
Day trading.
Making YouTube videos.

I was looking for the thing I could be successful with and earn money from relatively easily. I trusted that something had to click with me.

But every time I started something new, I had to go through the Valley of Despair. This is a period during your startup phase where you want to give up, quit, or put the idea on the shelf.

I gave up every time, distracted by a new idea. None of those ideas really stuck. I did not have the persistence to continue after ending up in the Valley of Despair.

Then I wondered: would it be easier to go through the Valley of Despair if you are already somewhat experienced in something?

What if I chose something I already had 10,000+ hours of experience in? Stuff I had been doing for years without even thinking about it.

The List

I made a list of things where I have deep experience:

🎹 Piano, started at 7.
⚽ Soccer, started at 5.
👨‍👧 Parenting, my daughter is 3.
😤 Breathing.
🎮 Gaming, especially GTA.
🚲 Biking, because I am Dutch.

I chose piano.

Now, every challenge I face is at least 1% easier compared to challenges with my other ideas where I had low experience.

Rather than looking for something new, I chose a topic I have experience with and that I am passionate about.

Looking back, it now feels inevitable that I would choose this topic. A bit weird maybe, but it took me years to come to that realization.

Make a list, then choose the one you are passionate about. Then work on your income skills if you have not already.

The Valley of Despair will be there, but without experience you are nowhere.

🎯 I would like to invite you to create a list of random things you have 10,000 hours of experience in.

PS. This is not necessarily related to the 10,000 hour rule. I am simply using a large number of hours to emphasize experience.