Enjoy this week’s installment featuring a British blogger who spends every day of her life writing about…weddings, romance and true, everlasting love! Introducing…Kat Williams!

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Question:

You took a topic that you’re obsessed with — weddings! — and you turned your obsession into a blog & profitable online business. What’s your biggest piece of advice for someone who is saying, “I know what I love to do… but I have no idea how to make money, doing it?”

[Kat]: My biggest piece of advice would be… to just start!

Stop procrastinating and waiting until everything is “perfect.”

The big secret is that nothing is ever perfect, and that nobody knows what they are doing, at first. All of those bloggers and business owners who seem to “have it all together” are probably fumbling and experimenting just as much as you!

So, if you’re trying to make a living doing something that you love, just have fun with it in the beginning and see where things take you.

Don’t quit your day job (yet!). Just start playing around. Put things out there. Release products. Throw parties. Hold events. Write. Blog. Share photos.

See what resonates with people and keep experimenting. In time, you will slowly attract an audience of people who are curious about what you’re doing. Things will naturally evolve.

With one of my projects, The Blogcademy — a training program for bloggers who want to “go pro” — my business partners and I never could have imagined that it would take the direction it’s currently taking.

Today, The Blogcademy is a live workshop series with events in cities all over the world. We’ve trained over 700 students and we’ve created an online “home school” version, too.

But this didn’t just explode out of nowhere.

First? We had to just START.

We had to put that first workshop out there and see if people bought tickets…once the first one went well, we added another, and then another.

We started small… and simple.

So, if you’ve got a big passion, and want to make money doing it…just get going.

Don’t be irresponsible and invest your life savings — or go into debt — to get it off the ground.

Start, but start small.

Put things out there that are easy and inexpensive for you to make, and that make you happy, and see what happens!

If you start, you’ll have a shot at turning your passion into a business or career.

If you don’t start, you won’t have any shot at all.

That may sound blunt, but it’s the truth!

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Images: Shell de Mar.

Ever wish you could sit down with a super-accomplished person and ask, “What does it take to break into your industry? What’s it like to be you?”

With Pick My Brain, that’s exactly what we do.

Enjoy this week’s installment featuring my dear friend Heidi Rose Robbins… a woman who makes her living through the mystical & creative arts, as an astrologer & poet.

Heidi is a true inspiration to me, and she is living proof that you can make a living doing what you love… no matter how “wild” or “out there” your passion may be.

Question:

So many people write poetry in secret, never sharing their words with others.
But you’ve found the courage to share your poems in front of huge audiences, as a public speaker. You’ve also self-published a collection of poetry. You even have videos of you reciting poems on your website. What’s your biggest piece of advice for a “shy poet” who wants to start sharing poems in public?

[Heidi]: Start with you and the page.

Scribble in your favorite notebook. Don’t stop.

Tell yourself you can scratch it all out.

Be playful.

Give yourself time and space to play with the words.

And then….

When you begin to feel happy with what is forming on the page,
read it out loud to YOURSELF.

Lock yourself in a room and read it in your closet, but read it out loud.

That which is in you must be expressed outside of you.

Listen to how the words land. You’ll hear what wants to stay, what needs to change.

Change it up.

Be willing to cross out everything but one stanza and dive in again.

Read it out loud again.

Then, invite your best friend over.

Or get her on the phone.

Read it.

Out loud.

Don’t start talking when it’s done.

Let her talk.

Let him talk.

Tell your friend you want to hear what they liked.

Leave it at that.

Then, have a poetry night.

Invite 4 or 5 people.

Make a cheese plate.

Pour some wine.

Let everyone bring a poem they love or have written themselves.

Then, read YOUR poem.

Let this night be about celebration — not criticism.

Do this again and again.

Practice it.

Practice sharing.

Then, one day,

Share your poetry with the world.

Put it on Facebook, Pinterest or Google+.

Send it to your whole mailing list. (Even if that mailing list is your parents and your two friends from college).

Make a video of yourself reading it.

Post that.

Just share your gift.

Let your heart lead the way.

Be crazy bold.

Offer it up.

Press the send, submit, publish now button.

One by one, send your babies into the world.

Breathe deeply as you do so.

Then, collect them all and put them under one roof.

Self-publish a book.

That’s the easy part.

The hard part is just taking all the first baby steps to share your light

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Images: Heidi Rose Robbins.