Which currency to use when you have no marketing budget

Here are three words you’ve heard before.

Follow the money.

Hollywood first popularized this catchphrase in the seventies. Since then, numerous movie characters have suggested that corruption could always be brought to light by examining the financial transfers between parties.

Follow the money has become a popular saying in business and government. Particularly when it comes to investigating scandals.

But money isn’t the only thing worth following. One of my theories is, time, money, love and creativity are the same thing. They’re all forms of energy. Fuels of life. Currencies that flow to us, flow through us, and flow from us, all day.

Which means they’re interchangeable. Instead of following the money, we can follow the love.

Now, this may sound like bumper sticker wisdom, but it’s actually a powerful directive for how to approach our work.

Graham, the billionaire founder of the top startup accelerator, says love is a key predictor of company success.

Finding work you love is very difficult, he observes, and most people fail. But if you know that you can love the work, you’re in the home stretch, and if you know what work you love, you’re practically there.

Everyone should consider his advice before starting anything. Because if you don’t follow the love, then the likelihood of failure increases by an order of magnitude.

It doesn’t mean you can’t succeed without this form of energy, but because there will be so many hours of hardship along the way, you may as well tap into the strongest fuel source there is.

If you’re hatching an evil plan for your next creative piece of mischief, here are several questions to help you hone in on what you love. What do you love so much that you don’t have to force yourself to do?

*What is your favorite activity that is immune to the procrastination bug?

*What would you be doing anyway that doesn’t require determination to continue?

*What gives you both elation to do and admiration to complete?

Notice how each of these questions centers around the tool of energetic capital. Reminding you that when you treat energy as the primary organizing principle of your work, it’s a powerful multiplier.

In both of my careers as an entrepreneur and as employee, I’ve launched a number of projects, initiatives, brands and enterprises. And looking back, all the ones that failed can almost certainly be attributed to a lack of love.

That was not the sole cause of failure, but it’s a core reason why getting them off the ground was so difficult.

Is there a project in your life right now that’s fading because you’re not using the energy of love as its organizing principle?

If so, then consider the possibility that you’re following the wrong thing. In my experience, love is a primal force like gravity. It’s the flower that ignores the fence.

Love it focuses our attention, guides our direction, overcomes rationality and helps us adapt to solve the problems of survival.

That’s the kind of currency you need when you’re doing creative work. Especially if you have no marketing budget.

Love is an investment with a disproportionate return.

Does business growth create love, or is it the other way around?