STREET-SIDE CONVOS: Making a living from your hobby with Chess Expert Rafi Chowdhury

Ever heard that business and pleasure don’t mix? What if mixing business with pleasure is exactly what we need to do to find our sweet spot- the perfect mix of happiness and work?

I recently spoke with Rafi Chowdhury, a chess expert on  turning your hobby into a career. Rafi was born and raised in Bangladesh and moved to the USA with his family at 12. Since then he has graduated college with a degree in experimental psychology, started a intelligent tutoring system to help chess layers improve their skills and created his own chocolate chess pieces called “Chowdhury’s Chocolate Checkmates”.

Rafi also created a Chess Leadership Program to teach students about leadership, entrepreneurship and psychology using the game of chess as the primary platform. Most recently, he is the founder of  myCampusHacks.com a social networking website for college students to share tips about their college experience.

I really enjoyed learning about Rafi’s approach to being creative i.e. taking his passion for chess and love for psychology and recombining them into all sorts of cool products, services and experiences. I thought this was really ingenious.

Throughout the interview you will see how his best ideas come out of his desire to do something fun which makes one remember that creating can be that simple- it can be following what delights you and growing through the process.

I also loved his systems approach to making things. Instead of seeing one product as the final one for him, he sees it all as a process of experimentation where he tries something new, learns from it, improves and moves on to the next venture.

How many of us would be less afraid to start using our skills if we saw it all as a search and not a destination?

We talked about how to turn what you love into a career even in a niche market like chess, how to put a different spin on your gifts so you can make a living from them and what chess can teach us about leadership, life and success.

I really enjoyed my time with Rafi and I am sure you will too. Visit him here: www.RafiChowdhury.com

*Ebele Mogo of Street Side Convos