Q: Today's question is from Marian and Marian writes:

"I'm trying to build a bridge from a good job that doesn't feed my soul to a full-time

business following my passion. What steps do you recommend I take to start building

a bridge while still committed to my full-time job?

A: Marian, this is a fantastic question and so many people are in situation. So, thank

you for asking it. Step one is to commit to love the crap out of your job while you're

there and here's why I say that. One of the things I've learned in my life is how you

do one thing is how you do everything. And, I've seen so many people make a huge mistake

where they're trying to transition out of a job into a business that they love and they

wind up going to work everyday, and they're miserable.

They're totally resenting being there. They're like surfing the web, they're complaining

and when they get home at night, they have absolutely zero energy to devote to their

passion business. Why is that? It's because they're miserable and complaining all day

long. So you can't be in that mode for eight hours and then come home and think you're

going to be, "Ahh, I'm going to work on my passion business."

Ain't going to happen. So commit to really love being there for the time that you're

there. As Ms. Oprah says, "Doing the best in this moment puts you in the best place

for the next moment." One more reason if you need it to love your job while you're at it

is I want you to build a financial cushion. When you start making that transition to your

new business, you're going to eventually need some things like a website and some other

business stuff.

Plus as you're making a transition, it's really important to have a financial cushion to lean

on while you're getting things going. So, step two is all about profit clarity. Profit

clarity is so important. So we want to know, what exactly is your business? What's your

business model? Are you selling goods? Are you selling services?

Are they digital? Is it software? Is it a membership site? All kinds of choices to make.

We also want to know, who are you serving? So who are your ideal clients and what exact

problems are you solving for them? How are you helping them to lead better lives and

what exactly are they giving you money for?

Step number three is you want to take that profit clarity. Take those ideas that you

came up with and now we need to go out into the marketplace, and validate your ideas.

That means talking to some real people. Going out and finding people that are in your target

market and talking to them about the exact problems that you want to help them solve.

Here's an example, if I was considering starting a personal styling business and my target

market was women between their 30's and 50's, and they were entrepreneurial.

I would go out and find as many of those women as I possibly could find. Then I would have

conversations with them about what frustrates them about their clothes, about their closets,

their wardrobes, about getting dressed for speaking engagements; and, all the things

that I could possibly come up with that I could help them solve. Then I would ask them,

would they actually pay me money for that?

You know, really get down to the nitty-gritty and find out, is this a viable service? Would

people actually give me money for these ideas? And after I spoke to enough of these ladies,

I would know whether or not my idea was on track and if it was, I would start making

these ladies some offers and get my business off the ground. Now of course, there's many

more steps to crack this nut but these are three that will get you started.

Alright so that was my A for the Q of the day! If you like it, like it and please share

it with your friends. I would so appreciate it. Of course if you're not yet on the newsletter

list, come on over to marieforleo.com and jump on it. Thank you so much for watching

and I'll catch you next time!