Earlier this year, I mentioned that I was hoping to grow Crazy Enough To Try, and incorporate a few new things. Well, in working to keep my word, I’ve got three new items I’m really excited to share with you.
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I'm always advocating for people to "do something". If you have a goal in mind, get started. I can't tell you how many people I've met who have dreams and aspirations of things they want to get done, and yet never seem to gain much ground on them.
People get caught up in the planning stage. In the "I need to know everything first" stage. Most people will tell you from experience that your plans will immediately be rearranged. No amount of planning will prepare you for the real deal.
While I don't advocate for just jumping into something without giving it a second though, waiting forever won't do much for you either.
At some point you need to stop adding to your list of "I should do this" and start adding to the "I did this" list.
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This post is the last in a three-part series about achieving success in professional careers. While incorporating your passions into your career is a great way to build fulfillment, this series is applicable to anyone looking to succeed. The first post focused on defining goals, read that one here. The second was dedicated to the importance of learning from others, so check that one out here. This post dives into the most important part of creating a successful career.
Regardless of how you define success, we all want some form of success for ourselves. Whether it’s building a successful company, starting a loving family, or helping as many people as possible, we want to accomplish goals. There are numerous books, seminars, videos, and other materials about achieving success in life, many of which are great resources.
However, what I think is the most important element is simply this:
Do what you say you’re going to do.
It’s such a simple concept, but it’s so uncommon that people celebrate when we actually do it.
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This post is the second in a three-part series about achieving success in professional careers. While incorporating your passions into your career is a great way to build fulfillment, this series is applicable to anyone looking to succeed. The first post focused on defining goals, read that one here. This post will focus on connecting with people who will help you to reach those goals.
Do you spend time learning about your passion from others? I’ve mentioned before how important this is, but I realized that even for myself I wasn’t doing this nearly as much as I should have. This became clear to me when I took a look at how many people I had contacted directly about starting businesses. Given that this is what I plan to do for the better part of my life, this should be a high-priority task. And yet the list was pitifully small compared to where I thought I should be. It was also a sign that I hadn’t progressed in building my passions as much as I planned.
Learning from others is a great way to learn more about your passions. The simplest method is to read books and articles from experienced people in your field, but there’s so much more you can do than just read. Books are one-way avenues, and don’t give you the opportunity to pose questions, discuss specific situations, or even just see the way a writer’s eyes light up when they speak. So let’s look at three easy ways to make more connections, build meaningful relationships with others in your field, and learn a ton along the way.
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Over the next three weeks, I’ll be discussing some of the best practices for achieving success in your professional careers. While I don’t think that incorporating your passions into your career is necessary, I know that a lot of us (myself included) do want to do just that. So to that end, I’m going to share some of the key elements to make that happen, preparing you to reach your goals, whatever they may be.
Success. It's what we’re all supposed to strive for, and yet there are countless definitions of what that means. It could be related to financial, status, impact, happiness, or any number of other goals. Even if you ask two people what financial success looks like, one might say a million dollars in the bank and another might say a billion. There’s no one definition and there shouldn’t be.
Regardless of what you consider being successful means, the truth is we all want to reach it. We all want our lives to have meant something and to have moved at least some version of our dreams outside of our heads and into the real world. But if we want to do that, to bring our dreams to fruition, to build our careers to new heights, it’s incredibly important to ask yourself this question: “What does success mean to me?”
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In your quest to incorporate your passions into your life, you may realize that you’ll need to change career paths. This transition happened for myself not too long ago and I’m hoping that discussing some of my experiences might help you get a feeling about what challenges you might face and how to prepare for them.
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Hey everyone,
It’s been a few months since my last update here at Crazy Enough To Try and lots has changed since then.
First off, Crazy Enough To Try is not going away. I’ll talk more in a bit about some upcoming changes, but I do love writing and sharing the stories of others doing amazing things, so that will continue.
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Conversations on Passion is an interview series with those who have found and are living their passions in some form. If you'd like to be profiled or know someone who would be a great fit, send me a note at ryan@crazyenoughtotry.com.
I'm very excited to share this next interview. You may not have heard about Doug Menuez, but he is a fantastic photojournalist and storyteller. From the minute I read the first few words of one of his stories, I was captivated. Below is just a snippet of his amazing background:
"His early work as a photojournalist began in 1981 as an intern for The Washington Post, and from there began a career as freelance photojournalist for Time, Newsweek, Life, USA Today, Fortune and many other publications worldwide.
His subjects included the Ethiopian famine, the Olympics, and the AIDS crisis. He gained exclusive, unprecedented access to record the rise of Silicon Valley and daily lives of its most brilliant innovators, including Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Bill Joy and John Doerr during an era when more jobs and wealth were created than at any time in human history. His many portrait assignments range from Mother Tereza to Robert Redford and President Bill Clinton.
Menuez’ work has won numerous awards, been exhibited in solo and group shows and been featured in nine of the bestselling Day in the Life books. His advertising clients include global brands such as Chevrolet, Emirates Airlines, McDonald’s, Allstate, Coca Cola, Microsoft, Citibank, Nokia, GE and Samsung. Menuez’ books include the bestseller co-produced with David Elliott Cohen, 15 Seconds: The Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1989, which generated more than five hundred thousand dollars in relief money for earthquake victims."
Check out his work at his website www.menuez.com and take a look at the slideshow at the end of the post for some more of his great shots. Read on to learn about his passions, thoughts on passion, and how they influence and govern his work.
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I took the last few weeks to take a step back and look at passion from the eyes of someone who really feels lost in their search. After writing about passion for over a year, I sometimes take for granted where people are in their journey. And for a lot of people, their search begins with the phrase, "Follow Your Passion."
When it comes to your passion, there are a number of things you can do to use it, but with the vague advice of “Follow Your Passion” floating around, it's easy to feel disappointed and lacking in ability.
"If it's that easy to live a wonderful life, how come I can't do it?"
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Conversations on Passion is an interview series with those who have found and are living their passions in some form. If you'd like to be profiled or know someone who would be a great fit, send me a note at ryan@crazyenoughtotry.com.
I had the pleasure of meeting Miranda at TEDxBoston 2013. We each stood awkwardly looking around at all of the people who seemed to be involved in epic projects like solving world hunger through refrigeration, visualizing information to influence national elections, or designing new living spaces for Boston residents. I felt woefully outclassed. In an effort to bridge the gap, we struck up a conversation and found that we both shared similar goals. She had recently published a book (which I quoted in this early post) and was looking to build a community. I've since been heavily involved in her efforts and have seen the fruits of her labor blossoming. With a slightly unorthodox path through her education and an uncanny ability to connect people, Miranda is well on her way to building her dream. Read on to learn more about Miranda, her passions, and the projects she's working on.
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We can get so wrapped up in our work, our passions consume us, that we forget to stop and take a look around. We forget that there is more to life than what we love doing.
Come up for air. Breathe a little. Take a break from driving at your passions, building success, and looking towards making your dreams a reality.
As counter intuitive as this might sound, it's actually a great way to get ahead, to make progress.
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A few days ago, I had the opportunity to address some of the best students at my old high school as the keynote speaker at the National Honor Society Induction Ceremony. It was a great honor and I spent a lot of time planning and thinking about what I was going to say. I came up with different ideas about what passion really means, or how to incorporate it into a life, or what great potential these students had. As the event drew near though, I felt compelled to speak on something a little different.
In the end, I decided to focus on 3 points: Challenges, Mistakes and Support.
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