OK, so here’s the payoff. In Step 1, I listed things that I’m good at. In Step 2, I came up with things that I enjoy and feel useful doing. Refer back to those two lists when necessary. The last step involves a little more thought:

NOW: think of ways or activities that involves SEVERAL of your talents, gifts, passions, and unique characteristics at the same time. We want to kill two (or more) birds with one stone OR, better put, hug two or more birds with one embrace. The more passions and gifts that you can intersect at one point the better. If, for some reason, that intersection of passions does not have a commercial component, modify it with more passions or talents until it does. At the intersection of many passions and talents, there should emerge a service, or a product, or an artwork, or a body of information that can be spun off commercially. This way you get to pursue your passions, grow your talents, give of yourself to others, contribute to a greater good, and, as a by-product of all this playing around, generate wealth.

Without further ado, here are the “intersections” I came up with.

• Novelist (that one’s easy)
• Tech writer (web copy? manuals? help books?)
• Professional researcher (is there such a thing?)
• Blogger (wouldn’t that be fun?)
• Columnist; more specifically…
• Tech pundit, a la some of these guys
• Product evangelist (I don’t think I can be smarmy enough)
• PR (see above; plus, public speaking has never been a forte)
• Combining the previous five, we get this guy or this woman.
• Translator
• Tutor
• Producer (music)
• Editor (literary and/or web)
• Corporate pilot (I love travel, but this might be taking it a bit too far)

My first thoughts on this list: if there’s one thing all these jobs have in common, it’s that none of them appear easy to just break into. I’ll probably have to do a few more passes through step three, until I find one that will instantly pay off with no effort I can bootstrap without killing myself or going flat broke.

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