Many businesses are inspired by the hobby of the entrepreneur. If you’re passionate about your hobby, transforming your interest into a business venture seems like the natural, logical step.
Entrepreneurs who turned their passion into profit include Jim Koch of Boston Beer Company, Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss of Rent the Runway, Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia, and Debbi Fields of Mrs. Fields.
Of course, Bill Gates (programming), Walt Disney (animation), and Howard Schultz (coffee) parlayed their hobbies and interests into Microsoft, Walt Disney, and Starbucks – iconic pillars of big business.
But from another perspective, to become a successful entrepreneur, you don’t have to transform your hobby into a business venture. Instead, to become a successful entrepreneur, you must have a hobby!
5 Benefits Of Having A Hobby
If you believe 24 hours in a day is never enough, then you must be stressed out. You’re living to work not working to live and there’s more to life than just work.
Studies have shown time and time again that you can’t just have a healthy body without a healthy mind. And one of the most effective ways to develop a healthy mind is to spend time on a hobby.
What are the other benefits of having a hobby?
1. Stress Relief
The Law of Diminishing Returns applies to work. The more time spent at work, the lower your productivity. If you’re getting stressed out by long days at work, it’s time to back off and recharge.
Stress has long been regarded as the number one killer because it’s been traced as the number one cause of fatal illnesses such as heart attacks, strokes, and certain types of cancer.
Stress will also affect you mentally and emotionally. You won’t be effective at work if you’re affected by stress on all fronts.
A hobby will help you destress in so many ways:
- Provides a physical outlet to release stress;
- Relaxes your mind;
- Improves your mood.
Remember, a hobby can be anything that you enjoy doing. It doesn’t have to be a physical skill like boxing or cooking. Travel, collecting special interest items, and reading are considered more as activities but they can be hobbies as well.
2. Improve Overall Health
Overall health covers the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. If you’re in the right spaces in these areas, your overall health will improve.
How does a hobby improve overall health? Let’s take for example, taking some time off to play a game of pickup basketball with friends.
You don’t have to be LeBron James to reap the benefits of a basketball game. You get a good workout, you’re out there with friends, and best of all, you’re having fun.
No one talks about work on the court. The only talking that’s happening on the court is trash-talking – and that can be fun! You end the afternoon, happier and healthier.
3. Encourage Positive Mindset
A hobby will declutter all the information and problems in your head. You’ll realize that spending as few as 30 minutes on a hobby will help you organize your thoughts.
With a clearer head, you’ll be able to think through problems and come up with the best solutions.
Also, if your hobby requires a certain level of skill, progressing in it will give you a feeling of accomplishment and encourage a positive mindset.
For example, you decided to learn Niccolo Paganini’s “Caprice No. 24” on classical guitar. If you finally got to play the piece after months of learning it, you’ll feel like reaching the top of Mount Everest and shouting “I did it!”
And that feeling of accomplishment will stay. You’ll feel like there’s nothing you can’t do – even at work.
4. Boost Creativity
You’ll learn in the next section why successful entrepreneurs enjoy playing games such as chess and bridge or a musical instrument. This is because these hobbies can boost creativity.
As the song goes, “the times they are a-changin’” and the times are changing more in this day and age because of innovations in technology. The last thing you want as an entrepreneur is to have a rigid mindset. You must learn how to be creative and think outside the box.
Hobbies like chess, bridge, and playing musical instruments boost creativity because they’ll put you into situations that force you to find the best options to accomplish your goals.
5. Develop Skills
The skills that you hone in your hobby will carry over to your success at work. These aren’t just the hard or technical skills but also the soft skills of behavioral traits that you develop in pursuit of your hobbies.
For example:
- Discipline
- Patience
- Attention to Detail
- Commitment
- Results-driven
- Team Work
- Self-belief
For this reason, many successful athletes like Michael Jordan, Roger Federer, George Foreman, Todd Stottlemyre, and Tony Hawk have transitioned to a profitable career as entrepreneurs.
5 Successful Entrepreneurs And Their Hobbies
When a video of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg vigorously engaging in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) went viral, the Internet lost it.
Who would have thought the man behind the world’s biggest social media platform can actually throw hands, launch high kicks, go for takedowns, and choke you in multiple ways?
In an attempt to show the world that his interest in MMA is for real, shortly after the video made the rounds on the Internet, Zuckerberg showed up in Joe Rogan’s podcast and rented an entire arena for a UFC event.
For employees of Facebook, this wasn’t a surprise.
If you’re applying for a job at Facebook, Zuckerberg will ask you about your hobbies. For the billionaire entrepreneur, hobbies are a way to show your passion and develop the necessary skills to become a good leader.
The Facebook founder isn’t alone in dedicating time in the day to his hobby. Other successful entrepreneurs pursue hobbies that help them in their pursuit of profits.
1. Sir Richard Branson – Chess
The Chairman of the Virgin Group of Companies has been known to engage in a variety of hobbies including swimming, tennis, hot air ballooning, flying, and skydiving.
But eternal adventurist Sir Richard Branson cites the sublime game of chess as his favorite hobby. No surprise that this Knight prefers the Game of Kings.
2. Bill Gates – Bridge
According to Bill Gates, fellow billionaire Warren Buffet introduced him to the game of Bridge.
Gates said he immediately developed a liking for the game because it requires strategy, purposeful thinking, and clarity of mind in order to win. These are the same components needed to become successful in business.
3. Warren Buffet – Ukelele
Warren Buffet would say that to clear his mind he would take long walks at night. Little did people know that the Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway has a hidden musical skill – playing the ukelele!
Learning music stimulates the artistic side of the brain which gives the analytical/intellectual side a rest. But don’t think for once that studying a piece of music doesn’t require analysis!
If your fingers can’t stretch out for more than 5 frets on a guitar, you have to find the right note on the next string to make it easier to play the part.
4. Jack Dorsey – Hiking
Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, is known to be a man who loves the great outdoors. Hiking is one of his favorite hobbies because it helps him clear his head of problems like Elon Musk!
Of course, hiking builds your leg muscles, strengthens your heart and lungs, and burns body fat.
5. Sergey Brin – Gymnastics, ultimate frisbee, and skydiving
Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google is described by friends as an “adrenaline junkie”.
He loves participating in fast-paced activities like Ultimate Frisbee and those that defy death such as skydiving and… gymnastics?
Yes, Sergey Brin wants to become an acrobat and has been seen practicing with the world-famous troupe of acrobats/gymnasts “Cirque du Soleil”.
10 Types Of Hobbies That Can Make You A Successful Entrepreneur
If you don’t have a hobby, it’s never too late to start one. Contrary to popular opinion, you don’t have to be born with the right skill set to be good at a hobby. Besides, no one starts out “good” from the get-go.
There’s a learning curve to be respected in all hobbies. Even in activities like travel and wine-tasting. The most important thing is to start!
Here are 10 types of hobbies that you can take up in your spare time.
1. Games and Puzzles
- Chess
- Bridge
- Crossword Puzzles
- Rubik’s Cube
- Scrabble
2. Music
- Guitar
- Piano
- Violin
- Drums
- Saxophone
3. Sporting Activity
- Biking
- Golf
- Fishing
- Swimming
- Weight-training
4. Cooking
- Grilling
- Baking
- Sushi-making
- Farm to Table – growing herbs, raising fish, and livestock
- Pickling foods
5. Arts and Crafts
- Painting
- Charcoal Drawing
- Graphic Design
- Pottery
- Embroidery
6. Collecting
- Stamps
- Comic Books
- Trading Cards
- Vinyl Records
- Vintage Toys
7. Gardening
- Horticulture
- Landscaping
- Growing Succulent Plants
- Growing Herbs and Spices
- Propagating Plants from Offsets
8. Traveling
- Backpacking via Train
- Crossing Out Must-see Places on a Bucket List
- Visiting Each of the 8 Wonders of the World
- Learning a new language
9. Food and Drink
- Trying out new restaurants
- Visiting vineyards
- Wine-tasting
- Wine collecting
10. Wellness Activities
- Yoga
- Pilates
- Meditation and Breathing
And there are thousands of other hobbies you can choose from! Find one that you can do on your own or better yet, with a friend. It will make the hobby more interesting, relaxing, and much more fun.
Conclusion
Did you ever wonder why we call our company “Mountaintop Web Design”? It’s because we love climbing mountains!
To successfully climb a mountain, it’s not only a matter of physical strength. Sure, you have to be fit and well-conditioned but mountain climbing also requires strategy, planning, and teamwork.
When we’ve targeted a mountain in Denver to climb, we work on the strategy as a team – much like how we approach designing a website for clients. We have each other’s backs and make sure everything – our climbing gear and equipment – is in order.
After hours of climbing the mountain and dealing with the high altitude of Colorado, the experience of arriving at the top is exhilarating! It makes all of the effort worth it.
Setting aside specific dates on the calendar for our hobby has definitely contributed to the success of the company.
Don’t just allocate time in a day for work. Spend time working on your hobby. Your customers will thank you for it.
And while you’re at it, blog about your adventures or a new hobby. Give us a call or drop us an email and we’ll help you get started with your new blogging website. Feel free to share this article with your friends who are thinking of starting a hobby.
