Grace Tan, winner of the Best Individual Blog award at the recent Singapore Blog Awards 2013, is a familiar personality in the competitive Singapore blogosphere. She’s the blogger behind “Working With Grace“. Despite being less than three years old, her blog won the prestigious award which was organised by Omy.sg/SPH.

Grace Tan ~ Vivocity Shot

Grace started her blog in October 2010 as a hobby while still in full-time sales job. Her personality and drive enabled her to surpass her sales targets and at a relatively young age of 24, she earned $114K. Unfortunately, instead of motivating her, the company’s management raised her sales target with the intent of reigning in Grace’s earnings. So it is my sincere advice for you to prepare yourself early before you have to face this question ‘Retire – Do What?’ Now over to Grace in her own words…

Grace and Hello Kitty

I quit my S$114K job at age 24 to become a blogger and haven’t looked back since. I have published a book titled ‘Blogging For A Living’ (on the Kinokuniya bestsellers’ list) to answer the questions that people have about blogging, bloggers and the blogosphere. I also conduct blogging workshops and courses for people who would like to have as much fun as I do with blogging, and perhaps, make a living from it as well. 🙂 Check out http://workingwithgrace.wordpress.com/blogging-workshops/ for workshop dates.

 Q 1 .1 What advice would you give to people who are now employed, but who *are not finding satisfaction in what they are doing?

Always remember that Life is short. If you spend even 1 minute being miserable, that already means you have lost 60 seconds of happiness. Either rediscover joy in what you are doing, or look for something else to do.

Q 1.2 What advice would you give to people who are now employed, but who *are worried about the loss of their jobs.

There is no point in being unduly worried about something that may or may not happen. But always have a contingency plan. What if you go to the office tomorrow and find the shutters down, and that your boss has run off with all the money and the company is in debt? Would that be absolutely devastating? Or what if you are told that you are on the retrenchment list and despite your contributions, the company can no longer afford to have you on its payroll? There is no need to be unnecessarily worried, but at the same time, don’t get too comfortable either. “Job security” is ultimately a false sense of security.

Q 1.3 What advice would you give to people who are now employed, but who *believe that they have skills and talents that are not being used.

It is POSSIBLE to have a hobby (outside of your job) that allows you to utilize your skills and talents, even if your job does not. I love to write (and think I write pretty well) but previously, mine was a sales job and writing was not a main part of the job. So I started a blog. And it turned out pretty well.

Q 2. Why did you choose what you are doing now to make a living?

I’m an accidental full-time blogger. I chose to start my blog WorkingWithGrace.wordpress.com because I wanted to interview inspiring people and needed a platform/excuse for me to do so. Later on, I realized that it is possible to make money from my blog, and hence, quit my job and turned to blogging. 🙂

Q 3. How did you manage yourself from being employed to being your own boss and making your own income? I started off pretty badly. I relished the new-found freedom and began sleeping in every single day. I was awake only around noontime. I later learnt self-discipline, and can now safely say that I am up by about 9am. Why is self-discipline important? Because it determines your income. The early bird catches the worm. Many people are uncomfortable with the idea of not having a monthly paycheque, but they hate their jobs at the same time. Not for me. Like any other entrepreneur, I am comfortable with being uncomfortable, and I love every single day of “work” (even if I have to “work” on weekends!)

Q 4. What were the challenges that you had to overcome in making the change? And please tell us what does it take to reach your success now? As mentioned earlier, learning self-discipline is one. Pick up my book ‘Blogging For A Living‘ to find out more about the other challenges I faced.

You have a passion, Blog it…

Yes indeed,  as Grace says to go pick up a copy of her book. I have read it cover-to-cover and it is full of tips and resources to help you start blogging about your hobbies, your pets, your ideas and passions to change the world. Whatever. Don’t give yourself unnecessary pressure to think about making money from it – at least not until you have done all the hard work, share and give out things of value and have dedicated subscribers. I’ve said in my introduction to this series of interviews, and it’s worthwhile to repeat here, that my sincere advice is to prepare yourself early before you have to face this question ‘Retire – Do What?’

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this interview….. {Click here for Part 2, posted on 10 Nov 2013}

Notes :

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