When You Love What You Do. Definitely NOT a rant. By Kristine
Regular HumbleDollar readers are likely familiar with my passion for dogs. I adore dogs and find I generally prefer their company to that of many humans.
Three years ago I retired. I had spent thirty years working in laboratories. I generally enjoyed the work but I was never particularly passionate about it. I spent my weekdays working in order to support my dog hobby on the weekends.
Right after I retired, my husband and I toyed with the idea of starting a dog training business. When we looked into the cost of leasing a building and paying for the various associated expenses, we decided against it. It seemed to me like I’d need to work at least forty hours a week just to make a small profit.
Two years ago I met another dog trainer in the Phoenix area who leased her own space. I started teaching a couple of classes for her and found it really sparked my love of helping people train their dogs. It was a nice way to bring home a little bit of money and I looked forward to teaching more classes at her facility. Unfortunately she decided owning a dog training business was too much work and not enough fun and closed the business down a year after I began teaching there.
In February of this year, I was ready to give up on my dog training business dreams. I’d already decided not to renew my website domain and my business insurance policy when they came due in April. I was disappointed, but figured it just wasn’t meant to be.
In March I happened to be on Facebook when a page for a local dog club popped up in my feed. The 55+ community we live in has over 100 chartered clubs, but I wasn’t aware there was one devoted to dog owners. I wrote a quick introduction–mentioning I loved to teach dog training classes–and walked away from my computer. Within an hour, I had a message from one of the club members saying they needed to talk to me.
As it turns out, the club had recently decided they wanted to begin to offer dog training classes. The only problem was that they didn’t have anyone to instruct them. They agreed to let my husband and I teach two classes in April and see what the response was. As it turns out, it was overwhelmingly positive.
I’m happy to say we will be teaching at least five classes this coming fall. It’s a three minute commute from our house to the training location. We get to keep all of the money the classes bring in. Most importantly, we get to share our love of dogs and dog training with other residents. It did my heart good to see our first class participants–dogs and humans alike–having fun while learning a variety of useful skills.
When you love what you do, it truly doesn’t seem like work.
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