It's never too late to learn what you wish you'd known.
by JEFF GOINS
“Just one big idea. One big idea, and we can change the
world.”
I made the mistake of uttering those words in the back
seat of a car many years ago in the companyi of some
older, wiser colleagues. We were racing from one
meeting to the next, and I, the token twentysomething,
was trying to divert attention away from work to a more
exciting subject. Dreams.
Rattling off recent causes and businesses that had
suddenly exploded, I marveled at the power of big ideas.
It was, apparently, all you needed to change the world—
and make a million dollars.
One of my colleagues smiled as I went on and on about
the power of creativity. He eventually burst into laughter
saying, “Really?! You think that’s all it takes? A big
idea? You’ve got a lot to learn.”
At first, the words stung. But years later, after actually
pursuing a dream, I realized how true they were. Finding
your purpose is rarely as easy as we think it is. We tell
millennials to go set fire to the world, that all they need
is a big idea and enough passion to sustain them. But I
have to wonder: are we doing them, and the world, a
disservice?
Looking back, I wish someone would have told me these
things earlier—or if they did, that I would have listened:
Don’t Just Chase Passion, Look for Opportunity
Telling someone to chase their passion is just plain bad
advice. Or at very least, it’s incomplete.
FINDING PURPOSE IS REALLY ABOUT OPPORTUNITY—
THAT PLACE WHERE YOUR PASSION, SKILLS AND THE
NEEDS OF THE WORLD CONNECT.
So many people are wandering from one job to the next,
wasting the best years of their life chasing a dream
instead of mastering a skill. This problem doesn’t apply
to just twentysomethings; it also affects people in their
thirties, forties and even fifties.
Frederick Buechner wrote that vocation is the place
where our deep joy meets the world’s need. I think
that’s true. Finding your purpose isn’t about doing just
what you’re passionate about. Of course, that’s part of
the formula, but it’s only one part.
Finding purpose is really about opportunity—that place
where your passion, skills and the needs of the world
connect. When you find what you’re good at, what you
love and what people want, you’ve found something
special.
I used to think life was all about pursuing your passion.
Now, I understand it’s about identifying opportunities
and going after the ones that align with what makes
you come alive.
Your Best Mentor Is Right in Front of You
In my twenties, I worked for a nonprofit—first as a
copywriter, then as the marketing director. For the most
part, I liked my job, but that didn’t stop me from
wondering what I was missing out on. I spent seven
years dreaming, seven years of longing, frustration and
wondering what was next. Then one day, I met someone
who opened my eyes to everything I was doing wrong.
Who was this mysterious guide? My boss.
The executive director of our organization, Seth, had a
wealth of knowledge I was oblivious to, because I was
blinded by my own ambition and arrogance. Having
earned his MBA years ago, Seth was a smart
entrepreneur, had a sharp marketing mind and was a
great writer. I kept looking outside my circles for the
perfect mentor, while missing out on the one that was
right in front of me.
When I finally began taking Seth’s advice, I realized how
much I had been missing. Years later, when I told him it
was time for me to move on and start my own business,
he said he was proud of me and admitted that I had
outgrown my role. But it was his guidance that had
prepared me for such a transition in the first place.
We all want someone to show us the way, but the truth
is the best mentors are usually right in front of us.
Ideas Are Cheap, Action Is Costly
I used to be a big idea guy. Every few months, I’d tell
my wife about some new project I was going to launch.
This was it, I would tell her. This was the big idea that
was going to make me famous and change the world.
Usually, she would just smile and sometimes sigh
faintly.
And of course, it never happened. I would get bored or
distracted and move on, abandoning the big idea,
moving on to the next thing. For me, it was all about
novelty. The next, new thing was always better than the
old. But after years of doing this, never seeing any of my
ideas take off, I wondered if my approach was all
wrong.
It wasn’t until I read a book by Scott Belsky when I
began to reframe my understanding of creativity,
dreams and what it took to do meaningful work. In
Making Ideas Happen , Belsky writes, “It’s not about
ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.”
After that, I stopped worrying about better ideas and
started focusing on better execution. Sure, it’s great to
have a good idea. And it’s certainly easier to make a
good idea succeed than a bad one. But a decent idea
with good execution is better than a great idea with
zero execution.
It’s Not About You
Recently, I was in the back seat of a truck, driving
through rural Kenya. My business had generated enough
revenue the previous year that we were able to make a
donation to a small nonprofit, and now we were on our
way to see where it had gone. We were driving to the
site of the building we had helped construct in the
middle of a leper colony.
PASSION CAN ONLY GET YOU SO FAR. WHAT IT
REALLY TAKES TO FIND MEANINGFUL WORK IN THIS
WORK IN THIS WORLD IS COMMITMENT.
When we arrived, I was amazed at what I saw: The
building was a one-room workshop, full of mothers with
babies on their backs, furiously sewing handbags and
school uniforms. They would later sell these at the
market, giving a percentage of overhead to keep the
building operational and keeping the net profit for
themselves.
How did we get here? I don’t recall ever having a big
idea. All I did was start a blog, sharing what I knew.
Over time, this slowly grew into a business, which had
brought me halfway around the world to something so
much bigger than I ever could have imagined.
Honestly, I thought it was about me in the beginning,
and standing in that camp just outside of Mombasa,
surrounded by mud huts and red dirt, I realized how so
very little of it had to do with me.
It reminded me of just a few years before when I was
sitting in the back of another car and had made the
mistake of thinking big ideas are what change the
world. Now, I know better. Ideas are just the beginning.
Passion can only get you so far. What it really takes to
find meaningful work in this world is commitment. It
means using the opportunities you have right now,
sometimes sticking with a job longer than you’d like,
understanding how God uses everything but loves to
use our faithfulness.
Chances are, at some point in your life you’ll find
yourself in the backseat of one car or another. The
question is, will it be the one full of dreams, or the one
taking you somewhere you never could have imagined?
Credit : http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/maker/4-things-i-wish-someone-had-told-me-my-twenties
