Making a Living in Natural Health

I’m going to say something a little shocking today. Here it goes:

“I think one of the stupidest all-encompassing statements I’ve heard pushed over and over again in personal development fields is the notion that you have to make a living with your passion!”

Okay… I’ve said it. Let’s all take a deep breathe in!
Now the reason I’m bringing this up is because I recently got an email from a reader. He says:

“Really, it sounds stupid but, for the life of me I cant really say I have a passion. I’ve read books, taken tests, I look at what I like and I just cant see that others would need to know some of the things that I know. My biggest question is just – how do I know what Im really passionate about?”

I know you’re going to say… Fred, don’t you talk about making a living  with your passion?

For some reason, people sometimes get the notion that my course is about “Making a Living With Your Passion” when it’s actually titled “How to Make a Living in the Natural Health Movement.”

I talk about doing what you love a lot, in fact my website is dowhatyoulove.com, and that may sound similar.

I know you hear it all over the place… “Live With Passion,” that’s even something that Tony Robbins used to say a lot.

People torture themselves with this concept of “passion” and never get anything done.

When we think of passion, we think of Mozart, we think of rock stars, maybe  charismatic CEOs like Steve Jobs, of amazing thinkers of all ages.

Then we look at ourselves and think… wow, I can’t compete with that!

Then the worst thing of all is these tests that help you determine what  your “passion” is.

In reality, nobody is born on the Earth with a passion. A passion may be something that you develop, or something that grows with you with time.

For example, I can’t say that the field of “raw foods” or health is my “passion.”

I can’t say that “Internet marketing” is my passion.

I can’t even say that I have a “passion” for traveling.

Of course, I’ve experienced “passion,” well, in various ways… But specifically when it comes to work, I think passion should instead be called “determination.”

You’re Passionate About What You’re Good At

Have you noticed that if you’re good at something, you have fun doing it? For example, I just found out I love watching hockey games, but I couldn’t skate to save my life. Throw me in a hockey game, and I would hate it.

However, I tend to enjoy certain activities with which I earn a living, such as writing, speaking foreign languages, or running my Internet business. I consider myself fairly “good” at these things and therefore I enjoy them.

When I’m good at something… I tend to enjoy doing it more.

When you first get started making a living on the Internet, it’s likely that you will suck at everything, including:

- Copywriting

- Web design

- Outsourcing

- Writing

- Brainstorming

As you work on these things more and more, you’ll get better and have more fun doing it. You’ll even develop “passion” for these things, as you spend more time learning about them.

Pick Something You’re Interested In

When you get started making a living, you shouldn’t be blindly be looking for your “passion.”

It’s actually okay to not feel that throbbing feeling of passion for any specific topic.

It’s even okay to be interested in multiple topics!

However, ultimately you have to pick one for your website and your business.

I suggest to my students to pick the thing they feel they have the most knowledge in, instead of just looking at their feelings, trying to see if they have any “passion.”

If I were to force you, right now, to sit down and write me a 2000 word essay on a topic, any topic that you could talk a lot about, which one would you choose?

You see, you don’t have to be “passionate” about something. You just need to have knowledge and be interested in something.

Jim Rohn once said that if you read just one hour a day on a particular topic, you’ll become an internationally reknowned expert in that topic in only 5 to 7 years.

By reading one hour a day, you can probably read a book per week, or close to it. Multiply that by several years and you’ll have read hundreds of books.

I think that if you read hundreds of books on ANY topic you might not be a Ph.D. but you’ll know enough to call yourself an expert.

Passion is something you develop. It’s something that can strike you all at once, something that can leave you, and something that can come back.

Don’t worry if you’re not clear about your passion. Just get started!

PS: If you can’t wait to get started, I recommend joining the Do What You Love Success Group and get your $1697 package for just $9.95. Go to:

Do WHat You Love University

Everyone who’s involved in the natural health movement eventually entertains the idea of organizing some kind of health retreat.

You know what I’m talking about?

Go to Hawaii or the Bahamas… rent a hotel for a week, get a few guest speakers to come, feed everybody raw foods and fresh juices, organize fitness classes every day and give entertaining and interesting lectures.

When the economy is great, people might sign up for your health retreat. But in most cases, you’re not going to make a profit.

The vast majority of health retreats are either in the red or barely manage to scrape by a few meager dollars for the hundreds of hours of hard work they put into it.

In the cases where people have made a decent amount with a health retreat, if you were to divide the profits by all the hours of work they put into it, most people are shocked that they worked all this time for much below minimum wage.

It’s extremely difficult to convince anyone to leave the country nowadays.
It’s even more difficult to get them to spend a few thousand dollars on a health retreat.

Even when you think you’ve charged enough for a health retreat, you will have so many unexpected expenses that in the end, you will find out that you did not charge enough.

My recommendation is to not attempt to organize a health retreat.

If you won’t listen to my advice and do it anyway, I recommend positioning it as a high-end health retreat and charge at least $4000 for one week. 

I know it sounds like a lot, but believe me, this is the strict minimum you’ll need to charge to make it worth your while.

The only other option is to organize a “cheapo” retreat in a cheap country like Thailand or Bali…, but even then you’ll run into similar problems.

What’s a better option?

Make your living online!
Every hour you spend on writing an eBook and selling it to your list is worth your time! When you calculate the time you spend on an eBook project, and how much you’ll get out of it in the years to come, you will be shocked by how profitable it can be.
Check out my course “How to Write and Sell Your Own eBooks in 24 Hours or Less” for the details. Go to:

http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/writeyourebook.html

Sometimes people ask me, “Fred, when are you going to open your own restaurant.”

My first immediate reaction is the urge to drop on the floor and start laughing uncontrollably. “Hahah ahahaha ahahah ahahahah!”

But I value my freedom, so to avoid being locked up in a mental hospital, I simply respond: “That’s not going to happen.”

People are usually puzzled… “Why? I’m sure you could design a super healthy menu that would attract a lot of people!”

The reality is this:

Opening a raw food restaurant — or any restaurant for that matter — would be a complete waste of my time.

Most people don’t realize that if you want to open a successful restaurant, you usually have to invest at least a quarter million dollars and work non-stop for almost nothing for about 5 years. Then after that, your business still has 70% chance of failing.

No thanks… I’ll keep typing on my Macbook.

The “health” or “raw” restaurant business is also a dead-end for many reasons:

1- People don’t eat out because they want to be healthy. They eat out to indulge. Unless your restaurant features the evil axis of salt-fat-sugar in most of its recipes, you’re not going to attract many people.

2- If you make your menu too healthy, most likely the grass-grazing health food enthusiasts won’t even come that often because they can make “better” food at home… and much cheaper!

3- In a typical vegetarian restaurant, 90% of the customers are non-vegetarians. They go there to feel better about themselves or to try something different. Designing a menu based on what someone like you would enjoy would be a giant mistake.

Why would you want to open a restaurant and work like a maniac for years for almost nothing, while being tied down to a physical location, when you could do what you love on the Internet, working three hours a day anywhere in the world?

I’ve noticed that over the years I’ve become immune to criticism. If you start writing books about health, there’s no doubt that people are going to start seeing you as some kind of guru.

They will judge you, make comment, discuss your appearance.

They’re going to analyze your every move!

The question is: is your skin thick enough to take the heat?

Most people will be extremely positive. However, once in a while, you’ll come across some rude comments.

For example, recently someone made a comment on my blog, saying “Oh my Frederic. When I look at your picture on your blog, I’m shocked by how much you’ve aged!”

In the past, I would have felt offended by this. Now, this doesn’t affect me at all.

Why? I know that some people tend to have unrealistic expectations and be very judgmental.
The comment was made in one article where I posted pictures of me when I was 21. I’m 34 now, so 13 years have passed. Some people in the natural health movement think you’re somehow supposed to show no sign of aging for the rest of your life!

I don’t know a single raw food guru that’s not being criticized for his appearance by some people.

For example, the low-fat people are criticizing the other gurus for looking fat.

The other camp is criticizing the low-fat gurus for looking old or being bald.

Then if you make it to a respectable age, like 85, you might be criticized for not looking like you’re 60 anymore.

Sometimes, when a natural health guru dies at a relatively old age, like 90, there’s a group of people who will criticize him saying, “How come he died so young?” Even though the average life expectancy for men is only 75!

My advice?

Don’t pay attention to the negativity.

Someone said that the great thing about the Internet is that it gives everyone a voice, and the worst thing about the Internet is that it gives everyone a voice, including the naysayers.

Many online newspapers are having a real problem trying to eliminate all of this negativity in comments from people who have nothing better to do than criticize people, hiding behind the anonymity of their computer.

As long as I bring value to people, I don’t care if there’s a 5% that don’t like me.
In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that if you don’t get some negative comments on a regular basis, you’re probably doing something wrong.

Getting some negative comments, as well as positive ones, means that people are paying attention to what you have to say. They hold you in high regard, and that’s why they’re going to scrutinize you.

If that can console you, think of what politicians have to endure on a daily basis!

I say go for it, and don’t worry what people are going to say.

Yours for health and success,

Frederic

PS: Can’t wait to get started making a living doing what you love? Sign up for the Do What You Love Success Group and get a complete education and coaching on doing what you love online.
Join our community at: http://www.dowhatyouloveuniversity.com/new.html

I’ve noticed that people tend to be ruder and less polite and considerate when they’re behind a computer than when they are in person.

If you decide to start your own website and online venture, you’re bound to meet some pretty nasty, rude and “know-it-all” types of people.

This includes people who leave comments on your blog, comments on your social media sites (YouTube, Facebook etc.), customer service requests, etc.

Over the 10 years I’ve had my own website, I’ve seen pretty much everything, and let me tell you: it’s not pretty!

If you put yourself out there — especially in the natural health field — people will analyze your *every move*.

At times, you will be criticized for your appearance (even if you look healthy, some people will say you look “terrible”).

If you release any type of product, some people will return it because they don’t like it.

If it’s a book, some people would rather have it as an eBook.

If it’s an eBook, you’ll get angry comments from people who don’t like eBooks, and would rather have it as a book.

No matter what you do, some people will not like it, and will make it a point to let you know!

One recent example in our business comes from a very rude person who has left comments and questions everywhere they could to criticize the fact that our videos are not transcribed for hearing impaired people.

But that person didn’t make that request in a very nice way. He or she did it in an extremely rude, aggressive way.

We tried to explain to that person that our YouTube videos are NOT transcribed (like the vast majority of videos on the Internet) because we don’t have the time or resources to do so. But, most of our PAID audio products are transcribed.

I told that person that if she knows someone who’d be willing to transcribe them for us, we’d be happy to include the transcript. But at the moment, we simply cannot do that.

Yet, the same person went on to post nasty comments in every single video, she left multiple comments on our support site, wasting the valuable time of our customer service people…

And to top it off they went all over the web in various discussion forums to complain about the fact that Frederic is “inconsiderate” to the poor hearing impaired people who cannot watch his videos, and that he has “ignored” their multiple requests.

I don’t know about you, but to me this kind of behavior is not only aggressive but completely unacceptable.

The fact that someone has a special need does NOT entitle them to be nasty and request the rest of the world to accommodate to them, especially when what this person was complaining about was free information we put out for everybody on the Internet.

If they had asked in a nicer way, we would certainly have considered the request. But with this kind of behavior she certainly did not help her cause.

The bottom line is that if you’re going to have an online business, you have to be willing to take the heat.

Unfortunately, it seems that as soon as some people get behind a computer, they forget the basic rules of social interactions.

By the way, if you have a website and you’re NOT getting any nasty comments, then it is not a good sign either. It means you need to be more active and draw more attention.

If there’s one thing you want to avoid all the time online, it’s to be boring!

I’ve got the last two parts of my live presentation “How to Make a Living in the Natural Health Movement” here for you! I’m including: How to start a mail order business from anywhere, how to build a website on a tight budget, and more! If you missed the first parts, click here for part one, and here for part two.

Part 3:

Part 4:

Update!

The course “How to Make a Living in the Natural Health Movement” is going to be released on Thursday! This is our 4th edition — most complete to date, featuring the detailed 10 modules PLUS hands-on webinars and exclusive bonuses for the first people who sign up. One bonus we’re all excited about is the DVD series by Terry Dean “Blogging for Fun and Profits” — which is already sold for $97 on this page.

Past students are welcome to join, and because of the live webinars, I’m limiting space for new students to a maximum of 15! The course starts next week.

There will NOT be enough space for everybody to sign up and especially to get the bonuses. Terry Dean gave us a total of 10 DVD sets to give away, so we’re going to limit it at that.

Please watch for my announcement around 11 p.m. Eastern on Thursday if you want to sign up and get all the bonuses.

This is the video of a live conference I did last summer at the Vibrant Living Expo in Fort Bragg, California.  In this first part I talk about common excuses people have for not starting their own business.  I’ll be posting the next parts soon!