I rejoined Axios this year as a "boomerang" employee with a clear mission: I'm making videos to grow an Axios YouTube audience that we can build a business around, Axios' Jimmy Shelton writes.

🚀 We launched two this week: a virtual interview with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei by Axios co-founders Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, and a blunt take from Jim on why everyone should dive deep into AI.

• Subscribe, if you're into that sort of thing.

🎥 I've been making videos professionally for nearly two decades. It's a path young me could never have foreseen.

• Why it matters: I didn't know, or care, about what my career could be. I worked to make money to socialize. A job was a means to a beer.

🎓 Last year, Jim, now my boss, advised the graduating class of his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin—Oshkosh: Find a job you'd do for free. Maniacally pursue something you'd do just for fun.

Great advice, but I'd like to add my own spin to Jim's wise words:

• 💡 Find the people who will pay you for the things you're already doing for free.

I graduated in 2008 from Penn State with a degree in corporate communications and media studies.

• 🚗 My first job post-graduation: washing cars.
• Work to live, right?

But in college I had developed a hobby that would change the course of my life: I had become obsessed with editing video.

• 🎮 I was making useless videos of me beating kids in the video game Halo, but I poured hundreds, sometimes thousands, of hours into these videos.
• I wrote about this for the video game website Polygon (where I worked) in 2014.

I wasn't getting paid or trying to build a career. I was doing it because I couldn't not do it. And one day, while washing cars, a thought popped up: Will someone pay me to do this thing I already do for free?

🎬 A family friend owned a small production company outside of Philadelphia near where I grew up.

• I asked if I could help out in the afternoons to see if I had any talent. I told them I'd work for free.
• They started paying me a month later.

All of a sudden, I was living to work and I couldn't get enough of it. Early mornings, late nights, incredibly stressful situations.

• I loved every second.

Between the lines: "Doing what you love" does eventually start to feel like work. That isn't a sign of failure. It's a sign that it's time to find the next thing you'd do for free and integrate it into your role.

💼 My career has moved in 3-4 year phases. For me, it's gone something like this:

• The craft. I became obsessed with the technical skills (shooting, editing).
• The story. I focused on telling stories that move people (my own videos have made me cry).
• The strategy. I applied my skills for brands (creative constraints are a gift!).
• The scale. I advanced to leading teams and building sustainable businesses.

🛠️ If you are starting from scratch or feeling stuck, perform a radical self-audit:

• Identify the "boredom factor." What do you think about when you're bored?
• Assess the value. Are you good at it, or could you be? If you care enough, you can become an expert. Experts get paid.
• The bridge. Stop asking for a job. Ask for a chance to solve a problem using the thing you love.

💰People will pay for what you care about if you take the time to figure out how to make it useful to them.

Or, as Hank Green, a science communicator and YouTube creator explains: Don't follow your dreams, follow your tools.

Also great advice.

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Low clouds hang over Browning Passage near Tofino, British Columbia, on Sunday. Finish Line reader Ralph Tieleman snapped this shot on an iPhone 15.