A Short List of Ways to Find Your Grind

You can make a great income and enjoy doing it. You just need to pick the right career. Here you'll find a short list of ways to find your grind.

Love Lists and Internet Searches

1. Make a list of things you do well.

2. Make a list of things you enjoy doing.

3. Compare those two lists. The items that appear on both form the short list of what you should do for a living (so long as it's legal).

4. Conduct an Internet search for the career/industry. Pay special attention to what is legal. (Really.)

5. If you did not have anything appear on both lists, choose one thing from what you enjoy doing to make a career out of and conduct the Internet search for it.

6. Go study how to do it properly. Take classes online, at a community college, at the vo/tech or attend Job Corps.

7. Decide if you want to work for a company or run your own company.

a) Apply for jobs with a wickedly complete resume and rocking cover letter, if you want to work for someone else.

OR

b) Research the competition and a million other aspects. Write a business plan. Buy proper equipment. Qualify and obtain the proper licenses. Advertise legally. Open your business. Be ready to - and do - work from sun up to sun down and then some because there are no (legal) shortcuts.

8. As Rhianna sings, "Work, work, work, work." The point of choosing what you love and rock at is simple - your work will not seem like work.

But Remember...

Two caveats:

• Don't start before you know what you are doing because if you mess up you could end up industry black balled, or worse, in legal trouble or jail. (Nope. Not kidding.)
• Don't choose an illegal enterprise or turn a legal enterprise into an illegal one. How, you ask?

It Would Have Been Legal Except

Running a security or private investigations firm is legal - so long as you obtain the appropriate licenses and don't violate the law. For example, you must vet your clients - investigate them before taking their case. Your client may be a woman's stalker and you conducting surveillance or investigating her makes you an accessory to stalking. Using hacking or spy applications to remotely view a person's computer or cell phone or tablet is also illegal. It's hacking. (Among those things they teach you in the coursework to become a private investigator are those things that you cannot do because they are illegal.) Wire tap of any kind by any entity, but genuine law enforcement, is illegal. Law enforcement must obtain a warrant for a wire tap to be legal.

Similarly, if a virtual assistant impedes their bosses work, fails to pass along correspondence or purposefully misrepresents their brand, company or person, they can (and should) be fired and sued civilly. If they imitated their employer, rather than signing for them appropriately as (using the facetious example) "Sally Secretary for Jane Doe," they can be sued civilly for misappropriation of name or likeness, plus arrested. It is a crime to pretend to be another person. It is a crime to use another person's state or federal identification. You'll run into really serious issues if your boss is/was law enforcement or military.

You might find my examples amusing but, they are, in fact, actual occurrences I have come across in the past few months. They're up there in illegality with the real estate firm that created a Facebook page with stolen photos of a gorgeous multi-million dollar subdivision The real estate firm represents a trailer park. The firm counted on online sales, either not realizing or caring that fraud is illegal and so is false advertising.

Earning a good income can be enjoyable. Remember to limit it to legal activities though. A bevy of agencies watch businesses - the BBB, DHS, FINCEN, FBI, IRS and local law enforcement. Do what you love - so long as it's legal.

Carlie Lawson writes about tech, mobile and online video, entertainment, sports and fashion. She wrote for JollyJo.tv, Keysian and Movitly for a combined seven years. A former newspaper journalist, she now mostly ghost writes for her clients via her company, Powell Lawson Creatives. Invalid Inputs is her first independent, formal blog. She earned BAs in Journalism and Film & Video Studies from the University of Oklahoma. She also earned her Master of Regional & City Planning at OU. She has worked as a model since she was 17.