Who is Living Your Dream?

Last week I continued the process of moving from calling (things you love to do) to career (things that pay you money). I have been using myself as an example for two reasons:

1. I am always rethinking where I am going and based on my earlier post this year I decided to rethink in public.
2. I frequently get asked about how you do this process. People will hear it and get it in theory – but few can do it. They tell me “Can you show me an example?” So here it is.

This started where most of YOU start.

• The dilemma of your career hiding itself in a goal 
• The search for your purpose and calling in life
• Figuring out how to actually get paid by doing what you love

Now what?

Once you have an idea of your calling, you have to figure out who is living your dream!

The next step – who is living my dream? 

The next step in the process is to look back at the list of ideas you came up with about connecting money to career. Look for patterns. From my list I had some patterns:

• Teaching/speaking/writing show up quite a bit  —  Seems I have something I want to say, hence the blog and my speaking engagements.
• People taking control — A lot of what I am talking about is people taking back control of their own lives.
• Consulting shows up a lot — Somewhat like the last point.
• Investing shows up a few times — Some of this might be that I hate to be inside and like to be out and about a lot so real estate shows up.
• Helping people is an overriding theme
• Positive thinking is an overriding theme — May not show up to you, but I guess I know what I mean in several of these better than I wrote it down.

So my question now is who is doing what I have listed, and doing it well. So here is the list.

• Dan Miller, author of 48 Days to the Work You Love
• Jonathan Fields, author of Career Renegade
• Tim Sanders, author of  Today We are Rich
• Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich
• Dale Carnegie, author of many books
• Henry DeVries, author of Marking with a Book
• Pamela Slim, author of Escape from Cubicle Insanity
• Patrick Cash, Internet marketing expert on education
• Dave Ramsey, America’s debt counselor
• Gary York, serial entrepreneur
• Tim Taylor, entrepreneur

The Reverse Interview

Once I know people who are doing work I would love to do, I now need to learn from them. The normal process here would be to contact these people and go learn from them. Alternatively, you can learn from people by their writings and their work. (Especially true of authors). The process is called the Reverse Interview. So here is what I have done, or plan to do.

1. Since several of these people are no longer with us, I can only glean from what they have written. So I have already done this, and continue to do it today.
2. Over a year ago I met with Dan Miller. While we did not do a formal reverse interview, my 90+ minutes with him were invaluable to shaping where I am now. Since then he has provided me guidance and support several times. He has also always been honest with me, even when I did not like what he had to say.
3. While Patrick Cash is not in my direct market, he is an expert at communicating over the web. He is a good friend and invaluable support to what I do.
4. I found Henry when I was researching another book on the Internet. Henry had made a comment on Amazon about the book. I loved what he had to say and contacted him and did a 15-minute reverse interview over the phone. Again, invaluable!
5. Some others are friends I work with closely or know via the internet. While no formal reverse interview has taken place – I have asked them the key questions.
6. Others I have had minimal engagement with to date – at least in terms of me asking for advice. But I have gotten a lot of information from them about their writings and speaking as well as from the times we have talked or emailed.

You and the next step

I will cover some key things I have learned and some directions I am taking next time. But here again, I am talking about me only as an example. What I am doing or will do is not that relevant to you. What is relevant is what YOU will do.

So I challenge you now, if you have not already done it, go back and

• Search out your calling,
• Then search our your career options, and
• Then do what I have done in this post – find who is living your dream and go seek them out.

And please continue to share with me via comments, email, Facebook, etc what you learn!