Like most typical 7-year-olds, my passions were crystal clear. These preferences were not taught, but sought. Nature, baby, not nurture. The nurture part is what we’re looking at here.

I loved being a leader, teaching or performing for anyone who would listen to me. As the oldest of four, I often made my siblings a captive audience.

I also loved animals, and my greatest animal love was horses. I was determined to find a way to be with horses as much as possible. Unfortunately, although I was horse-crazy from a very young age, my parents just didn’t have the money to support a “horse habit.”

Around age 12, I earned money for horseback riding lessons by taking over most of the household chores. I got my mom to fire the cleaning lady so I could do all the cleaning myself. I also did pet sitting, babysitting, and odd chores like copying my Dad’s faxes onto regular paper so they wouldn’t fade.

Even after years of earning money doing odd jobs, I just couldn’t see how it would ever be possible for me to get my own horse; I kept hearing my mom’s words in my head, “That’s a king’s sport,”... so in high school and college, I stuffed down the dream.

In grad school I was required to create a Master’s thesis project, so I decided to make a documentary for the PBS station where I was a work-study student.

After years of stuffing down my “horsey dreams,” I took advantage of the opportunity to choose my own topic, and selected a local horse farm. This farm was causing a lot of fuss in the region, and I wanted to see why… while also reconnecting to horses again.

Six months later, I’d created an international award-winning documentary called… (drumroll, please…) “Life With Passion.” Yes, that’s right. This short documentary that started my adult life, later came back to inspire the name of my dream business.

---

How about you? What’s one thing that you loved when you were young? Or a dream that you stuffed down but you still remember?

If you want to know what to do next, grab the 1st chapter of my book, “The Income Replacement Formula: 7 Simple Steps To Doing What You Love & Making 6 Figures From Anywhere” (from which this is an excerpt) for FREE here.

Already read the first chapter and want more? Grab the whole book (or Audible audiobook) here.