How Following Your Passion Can Lead to Time Freedom (A Golfing Entrepreneur’s Guide)

Imagine having complete control over your schedule—spending more time on the golf course, with your family, or traveling—without sacrificing financial stability. For many, this feels like an impossible dream. But for those who turn their passions into businesses, time freedom becomes a reality.

In this post, we’ll explore how following your passion can lead to financial independence and time freedom. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or looking for ways to break free from the 9-to-5 grind, you’ll discover practical strategies to turn what you love into a profitable business.

Let’s turn your passion into a lifestyle!

Following Your Passion Leads To Time Freedom

Going from being an employee to becoming an entrepreneur is not for everyone, but investing in yourself and following your passions can lead to greater personal fulfillment and time freedom than you thought possible. By prioritizing your interests, you create opportunities for family adventures, secure financial independence, find your purpose in life, and enjoy the lifestyle you want. Remember, life is about creating memories with your children while building a brighter future. Isn’t that why you had kids in the first place? Well, that can be nearly impossible if you are stuck building someone else’s dreams or even worse wallowing in a business you do not have any passion for. You probably already possess many skills needed to be successful in business, and the others can certainly be developed. But, without passion, or a burning desire as Napoleon Hill called it, finding success in anything is going to be hard. “When your desires are strong enough, you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve.” ~Napeloen Hill, Think & Grow Rich 

Think back to when you first learned to golf and compare that with where you are today. Did you already know everything you do today, or did you start and acquire better skills along the way? Just like learning to play golf, through repeating the proper steps, you can develop any skill you put your mind to. If you already are an entrepreneur, then I am sure you know the importance of having a process you can repeat and refine over time. Having a coach or a mentor is also useful in both endeavors, as it allows you to learn from and leverage somebody else knowledge and experience. As humans, our capacity to learn can be inhibited by our knowledge of a subject, and an outside point of view can help point out flaws in our reasoning that are otherwise being overlooked. I’m talking about an honest, qualified point of view. Not like taking advice from your buddy out on the course even though they shoot 10+ strokes higher than you, but real guidance from someone who has accomplished things you want to accomplish. The bottom line is, don’t be afraid to ask for help or advice. Take some golf lessons if you want to shoot lower scores. I recommend taking in-person ones at your local course, but there are several reputable online companies out there that offer everything from training courses you can use on your phone at the range, to video swing analysis. I prefer performancegolf.com (not an affiliate link) I have taken a bunch of their online courses. All great golfers need and have coaches guiding them and helping them get better. “No matter how good you are, you can always get better, and that’s the exciting part.” ~Tiger Woods

Likewise, if you want to get better at business find business owners who have the kind of success you want and learn from them. Start within your network, maybe it’s a friend you’ve known for years or someone you casually know through golf. But, you probably have someone in mind that fits the description. Start by thinking of 3-5 meaningful questions for the person you want to talk with regarding business. Remember to make the questions relevant to their business, then you can use follow-up questions (not part of the 3-5) about implementing the concepts into your business, as needed. After you know what your questions will be: 1- approach the person and let them know that you are fascinated, interested, admire, etc. something about their business or them; 2- let them know you have a business or want to, and you value their opinion; 3- ask if they’d be open to sitting down for coffee so you could ask a few questions and learn more about their business. It would sound something like this: 

“Hey Larry, do you mind if I ask you a Favor?” (typically they’ll say yes, wait for it) “Great, let me just start by saying I’ve always admired the way you make running a business look so easy, I’ve overheard you talking on the phone and you always sound so smooth and ready with solutions. I really value your opinion and wanted to see if I could buy you a cup of coffee sometime soon to ask you a few questions about your business. I am looking for a different point of view to help me with my business. What day works best for you this week?” 

Most of the time the other person will be receptive to sitting down with you, if not, don’t press the issue. Just be sure to practice it a little bit beforehand, but let it flow, and don’t worry about following an exact script when talking with them, keep it conversational. Sometimes, they’ll want to talk right then and there, which is why you should know your questions ahead of time. (TIP: Keep the list in your phone as a “note”.) Make sure you take notes (again you can use your phone or bring a notepad to your meeting) and let the person know you want to take notes and make sure they are OK with that. Creating the right connections and cultivating relationships can make a huge difference in your life. There’s a lot of validity to the statement that “your network determines your net worth.” 

You can also attend your local Chamber of Commerce meeting or other similar business networking events in your area to meet other business owners. I know, everybody says that and it sounds boring, but oftentimes it’s the boring things that make us the most money. You never know who you’re going to meet if you put yourself out there, after all, business is all about building connections. And, I have seen with my own eyes how the Universe seems to conspire with you when you go forth in the world with a burning desire to create something and a genuine interest towards others, the right people (or opportunity) are naturally drawn to you at the right time. For networking events, you can modify the script above to sound more like this: 

“Wow, I’ve always wanted to know more about that kind of business and would like to talk with you about it. I know there are a lot of other people here, so I don’t want to take up all your time. I’d like to see if I could buy you a cup of coffee sometime soon so I could ask you a few questions about your business. Maybe we could even collaborate in some way. What day works best for you this week?”

Again, make it conversational and keep it light-hearted. Have fun with it, too. Business, like life and golf, is supposed to be fun. If you are not having fun on the golf course, you might need a new hobby. It can be frustrating enough for me while I’m out there having fun with friends, family, or random strangers; I could only imagine how horrible it would be if I wasn’t having fun, probably would have quit decades ago, haha. I look at business the same way. Sure, there are times when you need to be serious and make important decisions, but if entrepreneurship isn’t fun for you, you should figure out something else to do. The trials and tribulations certainly are not for everybody, and you will quit at the first roadblock if you are not truly committed to achieving your goals while enjoying the process. Maintaining a positive mental attitude especially when things aren’t going your way is a key to lasting success in anything. “A bad attitude is worse than a bad swing.”~ Payne Stewart 

As a construction worker, I relied on my physical skills to get things built, and these were skills I acquired along the way. I didn’t know how to build anything before I started doing the work. Now, think about your line of work, did you already know everything you need to know or did you learn new skills as you went? I’m guessing it’s the latter, and you are probably still learning new skills today. It works the same for starting and running a business, you can learn enough to get started then the rest as you go. The important thing is you get started and give 100% effort. Find something you’re passionate about and research ideas in your spare time, you can easily replace your time spent scrolling with time used to generate income. Think about skills you have or something your friends or co-workers ask you for advice on, those are good starting points. After all, an entrepreneur is just a great problem solver, so if you can figure out one problem and solve it well you are on to something BIG. Think about the famous ones you know of and I can almost guarantee you that the roots of their business involved solving a problem well, then they branched out into solving other problems.

I decided to use my communication skills (something I’ve been told I’m good at). And, started in Remote sales helping people who wanted to become successful at stock trading using AI driven algorithms, aka trading bots (I have a passion for trading & these things work great!). If you are good at talking to people and don’t mind being rejected a lot, this could be good for you, too. There are a lot of companies out there that teach the techniques and offer placement services to get you started, they range between $2,000 and $10,000+. But, there are 10’s of thousands of companies out there that utilize the services of both remote closers or appointment setters(entry-level position if you have no sales experience). If you don’t believe me, go to an employment website like Indeed and search for “sales closers” with a location of Remote and see how many openings there are! You can easily narrow all these opportunities down to a niche you enjoy and make great money by helping a company and an individual solve a problem. Before deciding which company I wanted to use to learn the needed skills to get into remote sales I researched many of them, and even tried out more than one program. Here is a link to the company I recommend if this sounds interesting to you: Digital Closers University  (paid ad.) This is something I was able to do part-time while still working 50 or more hours per week doing construction work, most companies will work with your schedule since you are being paid on a commission-only basis. While technically you are not the owner of the business whose products you are selling, you better treat this as a business if you want to have success. Salespeople are traditionally some of the highest-paid professionals in most industries because sales are vital to a business succeeding. Sales equals revenue, and no revenue equals no business. Just like in golf, in sales, it helps to have a short memory. This quote from Ben Hogan sums it up nicely, “The most important shot in golf is the next one.”

If the thought of talking with people all day long and hearing a no 4 out of 5 times doesn’t excite you, not to worry there are tons of other ways out there to create an income. If you have ever Googled terms like “make money online”, “legit online businesses” or “how to make money from anywhere” then you know what I mean. If you have done this type of search you have likely come across solutions such as “affiliate marketing” or “getting paid to do product reviews”. You have probably seen people talking about these business ideas on your Instagram feed. I realize we’ve all been conditioned into believing that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. But you seriously can make money by recommending your favorite golf clubs and providing someone else with a link so you get credit for the sale, or by simply making some social media posts about products you already use and love, aka user generated content or UGC for short. This certainly isn’t a get rich quick ploy as it will take time and effort to get everything setup. You can use a site like ClickBank (not a paid ad) which has thousands of products all ready to be delivered to customers you find. I prefer offers with high commission rates and reoccurring commissions. You don’t need a website, since can just put the affiliate link straight into your social media bio, create posts, and tell people to see the link in your bio for more info (you can even automate this). I know there are other sites besides ClickBank, I used it as a reference as it is the easiest and most reputable in my opinion. The other route you can take if you are interested in affiliate marketing is finding companies directly, many already offer programs and have that info listed in the footer of their website. Typically it will say something like “Become an Affiliate”, then you can apply to their program. Many ask for you to have a valid website and social media handles to get approved, another reason to start on ClickBank, they don’t require approval and this will help establish your portfolio. I know Amazon has similar requirements for being approved as an affiliate. These are small hurdles to get over and you can start a business like this for a couple hundred dollars. You can get a high quality website for under $20, setup a storefront with a site like SamCart for $80, then another $100 for some ads and you are in business. For building a website I would recommend Hostinger.com (affiliate link). That is seriously all you need to start. If you use a blog or other website to promote your affiliate links on it, make sure you disclose that affiliate relationship on the webpage or blog, it’s the law. Most people put a disclaimer at the bottom, but I prefer to disclose the info as I go to eliminate any confusion. I will do a deeper dive into the topic of affiliate marketing and UGC in further posts, I really believe that anybody could do well with these business models and they certainly provide the time freedom I want. To get started with UGC it’s similar to the longer route I discussed earlier where you will need to reach out to companies directly to find opportunities, and again most will want to see that you have already been creating some type of social media content. So, get out there and create instead of just consuming! “I always missed 100% of the shots I didn’t take.” ~ Wayne Gretzky 

Ready to start following your passions and create more time freedom? I encourage you to read my book Teeing Up Success: 7 Lessons from the Golf Course for Business & Life and get started today with pursuing the life you and your family deserve.