I'm in San Francisco for the winter break to meet a lot of friends. Guess who is based a half mile from where I'm putting up? =D I had lunch with the Posterous bunch, helped assemble some new furniture, followed by this great Christmas cake. These guys are just awesome. I'm going to be in town for a good couple of weeks so multiple visits here are guaranteed. So psyched!
Go to work, if possible, for an organization or an individual that you admire. I mean I offered to go to work for Ben Graham because there was nobody I admired more in the business than him. I didn't care what he paid me.But I knew I wanted to work for Ben Graham. And I knew I would jump out of bed every morning and be excited about what I would do and I would go home at night smarter than I was in the morning.
Agreed.
The question he was originally answering was "What should we do if we don't know what we want to do with our lives?", which was posed to both, him and Bill Gates. It's interesting how different their answers were. And Buffett's answer speaks volumes to me. I don't say money is insignificant -- I'd be the last person to say that today, given how important it is for me to make and save money at this point in time. But it is equally important to value the learning in an experience than just go where you get the most money. If you think long-term, that knowledge will earn you a lot more than you can imagine making elsewhere. This might be a simple, oft-repeated thought, but it is very powerful.
A selection of students from my MBA class at the Leeds School of Business had the opportunity to apply for a trip to Omaha for a personal meeting with Warren Buffett in January 2010. He's a finance guy and I'm not. I knew he's awesome and all but I have absolutely nothing to do with finance. So I figured the trip may not be completely worth my time and money and hence did not apply. Yes, BAD DECISION.
One observation set me back. There are lots of people who wanted to do one thing but then got "practical" and did something else "first." The idea was that they'd be successful and sock away money doing the practical thing, and after that they could go back to the thing they loved. Bronson was sure that, among the hundreds of people that he interviewed, someone would actually have been successful with this strategy. It sounds so reasonable, after all.
But he encountered exactly zero people who pulled it off. Everyone who tried got sucked into the "practical" career and were never able to extract themselves from it. Too comfortable, too many expectations from friends and family, too easy just to keep doing what you're doing.
I cannot begin to explain how much I needed to read this. It’s like this article was written just for me. This changes perspectives for me. This article addresses the eternal question – “Should I really go for it?” This article is about building the gumption to leave what you’re doing and change your life. Make it what you want it to be. Because if you don’t make it change, it won’t change.
It’s hard. It’s hard to consciously bring yourself to a point where uncertainty rules your life. But you have to look at people around you who’ve done that and take inspiration. Then make that inspiration work for you. Despite all the resistance that will come along the way. That’s what I’m trying to do. This article goes on to say:
There's a quote that appears again and again in various forms: "close one door, another opens." It seems like magical thinking until you see it happen. And it only happens when you don't leave the door partially open, but instead firmly close it. For some reason, being certain that you're ready to move on does cause some kind of magic to happen, and I don't know why.
This doesn’t mean my life will magically change all of a sudden. It will be a long and hard battle – against my mind. And I will need to keep re-reading this article to remind me of my priorities.
I’ve been fortunate to be reading some really inspiring stuff lately, from people that I hugely admire. I intend to share them with you along with my thoughts on them. For now, do yourself a favor and read this amazing piece of text here.
Good luck.
this area has grown from an earthy university town to a true hotbed of innovation. In certain parts of downtown, you can't throw a rock without hitting some startup's offices, and I could barely walk three blocks without bumping into at least one entrepreneur, developer, or designer
I found a link to this article on Brad Feld's blog today and this piece *totally* explains why I came to Boulder, Colorado (more on that in another blog post). As a tech fanatic, startup enthusiast and a budding entrepreneur, it's not hard to see why this place has me so excited. Never mind what I'm saying, just watch this video. No, seriously, watch it!
