It's 2 a.m. I'm staring at my Razerpay dashboard 7 lakh 20,000 in revenue, thousands of happy customers, and still I feel empty. You know why? Because I had confused excitement with passion. I had confused making money with building a business. And if you have ever felt that hollow feeling of success without satisfaction, yeah, it's not killing. Because today, we are going to decode the passion paradox. Why 93% of Indian entrepreneurs are building hobbies? Not important, how to fix it before you face it next to it like I did. Hi, this is Ranvijay Bhaskar, and you're listening to Passion Business Podcast where I talked about business, mindset, and how to drive your passion into business. Alright, so let us start. We are going to understand the passion paradox. I will start with the confusion, then help you understand what real passion is. And finally, towards the end of this podcast, I'm also going to give a transformation framework where you are going to learn how to really transform your passion into business that is going to benefit you without wasting your next two years. Okay, so with that said, let's start. So the very important thing is that uh the confusion, what most people think passion is. Take an example, people say I love photography, and what they are really doing is they are taking photos on weekends via their phones, right? People say I am passionate about fitness. What they are doing is they are just going to gym regularly, or maybe they love to do push-ups, right? People say I love cooking, and all they are doing is uh making uh food for their family and receiving a feedback that hey they are uh doing really good. So the trap here is uh you enjoy doing what you do and you feel like hey the market is ready, right? So this is not what the case is. See the hobby indicators, the red flag, are you know you haven't tested uh the money flow. It means if you say that you are passionate about taking photographs, you didn't make any money, no one paid you back for taking photos, and these are red flags. And if you say you love photography and you are only consuming and consuming and consuming, you're uh rolling out on YouTube, on Instagram, learning how to do photography, it means you consume content, you're not creating. Have you created uh some real some content out there? Uh you know, which which people are coming back with the feedback, hey, I learned something, right? If that's not the case, that's a red flag. You are still at a zone where you think it is passion, but you have not tested the market viability, then mood dependency, you know. Uh you say that hey, I'm good at it, only when you are inspired, you saw some inspiration video, and now you're saying that hey, I'm passionate about it and I'm going to do a business. See, this is not how it works, right? Or you haven't done any market research, you never asked who will pay for this. You love something, but you don't have a funnel, you don't have any uh point of sales. How are you going to do it? So these are clear confusions, you know. If if you're thinking this way, you are being confused. So let me also help you and guide you what real passion actually looks like. See, uh, if I talk about uh you know the business passion definition, it is uh you are obsessed about problem, not obsessed about you know you enjoying few things. Uh you see, take an example if I say that hey, I'm a funnel expert, it is not that I want to design fancy funnels, it is actually I'm passionate about solving a problem that someone is facing and how to build and craft real funnel for them so that it brings results on the table. Is that making sense? So instead of saying that, hey, I'm I'm passionate about photography, uh, you must be obsessed about the problems people face in photography, right? You need to think about customers' pain daily, and you need to learn, you need to educate, you need to uh brainstorm, right? So that is how you need to uh really validate, and you you will have an understanding that what you are really passionate about is actually being obsessed around you know solving and bringing that solution on the table. The second thing is also to understand what your real passion is, if the market validation is in place, it means if someone is ready to pay you or someone has uh paid you back, you know, certain amount of money, uh, and and you know, for the service that you are catering to, right? So that is the second point that is going to validate you if you have the real passion or it is just a fun time. The third point could be around sustainability. Do you see that wherever you are heading, uh you can continuously keep doing it for more than five plus years? If not, it is just the excitement you know that took you on, maybe just watching some YouTube video from some guru or something. You need to be consistent, right? And finally, skills alignment. If you are not having the right skills or if you are not willing to learn re relentlessly, you know, you will have to keep learning, you will come through some stoppers, but you need to keep doing it. You know, so if these four things are with you, it means uh you know you are you're really passionate about it. Take an example, people say that hey, I like helping people. So instead of doing that, you will have to transform it, you know. I solve, you know, the specific problem, you know, and for a specific audience, right? Uh take an example instead of uh saying that hey I love e-commerce, uh you can basically say that I systematically solve inventory anxiety for first-time sellers, right? Because a lot of people who are starting on e-commerce, uh they feel inventory anxiety, and that is how you place yourself as a solutioner instead of just having uh fancy passion about e-commerce, right? So yeah, so that is how you really understand what the real passion is, and you pick up those pain points because you know only a person who wants to build business around their passion will invest time in learning the pain points of their customers, right? So now you understand uh you know what the real passion is. Let us look at the transformation framework, right? So I call it uh transformation framework because it is going to transform your passion into business. So you need to ask three questions to start with, right? The first is uh the problem clarity test. Okay, so what you're going to do is um can you describe your customer pain point in 30 seconds? Right? It could be anything, maybe Indian coaches struggle to convert Instagram followers to paying clients. This is one of the pain points of Indian coaches, right? So instead of having a vague I help people, that is still a hobby, now you are coming up with the pain point and you know your target audience much better, right? So that is the first question. The second question you need to ask yourself is has someone paid in the last 30 days? Right? If the answer is no, have you asked ten people to pay for? Right? If you never tried, you know, let me tell you, my friend, this is a hard true. If no money, there is no validation. And if there's no validation, this is not a business you are in. Right? So uh if you haven't asked people to pay, go ahead and ask them. They are going to come up with uh a lot of resistances. You need to fight it through, right? And after that, the third question you need to ask is uh the system sustainability test. It means can you build process around this? Right? Or it requires you to be 24-7 working on it, or can a system run it? Take an example if I have a funnel, people are going to put on their details uh you know on top of the funnel, and the funnel takes care of itself, it will automatically come into my CRM and I can check on who my leads are and I can follow up them uh differently, right? But my system is working 24-7, I don't have to uh keep uh working towards it, rather the systems work for me, right? So if you are working, it is not a scalable passion, it means there is a threshold to it, right? So look for building systems around whatever work you are doing. But yeah, to start with, you will have to, you know, when the rubber meets the road, right? You will have to do a lot of uh you will have to take a lot of efforts to really understand your customers to do the first few initial conversions. But yeah, as you grow, you will have to somewhere build process and systems around it, right? So these three questions, if you answer correctly, it is going to tell you where you stand. Now from hobby to business passion, right? So for this, how you really convert, right? So first three questions give you understanding of where you stand. Now, the second level of questionnaire, I call it the four-step conversion. How you really do it is suppose you are saying that hey, I am passionate about health, right? So you can say that if health is my niche, then I'm going to say that I am passionate about health, but that is not going to help. You will have to niche down to market pain. What is it that market is uh struggling for? So it's so instead of saying I am passionate about health, you need to say that I help working professional reverse pre-diabetes without gym. Right now, this is market pain. No one wants to go to gym, and pre-diabetics is because you know diabetes has taken a toll and it is growing like anything. So you are niching down to market pain. Look at where you stand. This is just an example, and you need to work accordingly and find uh your niche to market pain. Now, after you have done that, the second step is to build your minimum digital ecosystem. Yeah, you need to have a landing page problem focused. Uh, you need to put on all the things around what kind of problem people are having, and then you need to put on a solutioning, right? On a landing page, you can put on a lead magnet that is uh value first approach. So your lead magnet should be something called I call it as value bomb. So people could feel that test of it. It is just like a mini chocolate. As soon as people, you know, consume it, they should feel the flavors of it at the same time, they want more of it, right? So lead magnet, they feel that hey, you are the one who is giving us this really sweet and inspiring things, and I I can feel it, right? But they need to land into your funnel, they need to come back to you to have uh the full meal, right? So that is where I call it. So build your minimum digital ecosystem with landing page, lead magnet, and a simple funnel. So that was the step two, and then step three is uh test with minimum 10 conversions, right? Actively outreach people, uh, do not wait for them to come uh rather uh actively outreach. You can simply say that here's what I solve. Are you interested? Let me help you, right? Track who is engaged, who paid you, and what objections came up, right? And finally, uh the last stage is uh iterate based on psychology and not guesses. See, understand why three people or four people said yes to it, and what maybe 30 other people uh you know you approached said no. What made them say no? And refine on your messaging uh, you know, using your customer's language, and when you do it correctly, uh the funnel is going to work, the sales is going to come through. Right? And let me also tell you uh the brutal truth, right? You don't have a passion problem, you have a positioning problem, right? So instead of saying I am a life coach, you can say that I am career transition coach for tech professionals, right? You need to move it towards and align it towards the market. The second brutal truth is uh you are addicted to learning, not earning. You will keep on consuming, consuming, consuming. See if I made 20 lakhs in revenue, it didn't come from learning, it came from doing. So instead of watching videos and consuming content, start creating it. The third truth is you confuse passion with perfection. You're waiting for a perfect website, you are procrastinating. If you need a client, get into networking. You don't need a perfect portfolio. You see, uh, your 50k or 70k client is going to come from networking, not perfect portfolio. What you have in them comes from the energy that you hold, and that can be showcased over a one-to-one call when you interact with them instead of waiting for a perfect website and procrastination altogether, right? Uh, the four truth is you lack sales funnel rooted in psychology. You see, you want to have a pretty Instagram channel, you want to show them fancy videos. That's not business. The business is when you approach it towards a funnel strategy from awareness converting it to interest to decision and to action flow. So, all these types of content need to be flowing. You need to have that sales funnel rooted in psychology and ready to deliver. And finally, fifth point that you might be doing wrong is you are building it for yourself, not your customers. You are building a website color-coded and designed based on your perception, right? You want a red button, you are putting a red button, but understand it, you are not building it for yourself, you are building it for your customers, right? So you must be passionate about solving their problem, and then based on what your customers need, you need to uh you know build your website and the entire ecosystem, right? So these are the three things, guys, and I'm going to leave you with uh homework if you do it correctly. Uh, you should be able to uh get your perfect funnel from your passion, okay? So answer the three questions which I asked earlier, right? That helps you define what your your real passionate, and then have five conversations with your potential customers, whoever is your customer, talk to them, they will either say yes or no, and both of their responses is going to teach you back how to deal with your next future customers, right? And finally, number three is create one simple funnel. Even if it is imperfect, that is fine. If you do three things, you should be good. Remember, hobbies make you happy, but businesses make you happy and profitable. The difference is a funnel that converts your passion into someone else's solution. That's what we learned to build together in this podcast. Follow me for more such videos around passion and business. And yeah, see you in the next episode. Thank you so much, guys.