Do you dabble or commit? Not to get too personal — you can just think about it, you don’t have to reply — but I’m betting that you fit both profiles.
Not in every aspect of life, but across the spectrum.
In love, I’m committed.
But I dabble in a whole lot of other things: languages, music, sports.
I can’t speak Spanish above a first grade level. I can’t play any piece of music that has too many flats or sharps. I’m athletic, but I’ve never stuck with any one sport consistently enough to get really good.
What got me thinking about this stuff?
Well, we found this receipt recently.
Commitment.
Wayyyyy back in n 2006, after dabbling for a year or so, we made a commitment to our photography business.
Which wasn’t a business at all. It was a beloved hobby. We’d landed a couple of low-paying gigs (extra-curricular to our “real” jobs), and to photograph them, Brett used the battered camera we’d hauled around the world with us for thirteen months while backpacking around the world.
But after some headshots, an event or two, the bug burrowed deeper. And we committed.
We’d shopped at Adorama — more window-shopping than anything else. This time, it was for realz. Professional camera gear. Not the very best, but a significant step up.
This receipt lists the very first assets of Deutsch Photography (which was neither an LLC nor an “Inc.” at that time).
Two cameras, pretty decent ones! Lights! Batteries!
We were scared to commit, but the pull was too irresistible. Dabbling was easier, but not nearly as rewarding.
We hunted for jobs on Craig’s List. We moved ourselves and our dogs into a tiny home office and made the master bedroom our “studio.”
Don’t laugh, that’s not nice.
Just kidding.
We bought “how to” books on how to run a business and joined business networks and printed (really poorly designed) business cards.
No more dabbling. Committed.
And that commitment changed our lives.
Now our photography business supports us completely. No more working as a lawyer. No more humping as an advertising executive.
Took a while, but we got there.
We never would have if we had chosen to dabble instead of commit.
When is a time in your life that you decided to cross the line?
