Deliverable

If you’re looking for some inspiration…

Ze Frank just released his final show:

Click To Play

What an amazing year it’s been. Thanks for all of the positive energy, Ze!

Serendipity is a strange thing. I had just finished updating my 30 day question, and was checking out the recent posts at Lifehack.org.

Here’s one that caught my eye:

How to Find What You Love to Do

I know there are so many people who ask themselves a question: “What do I really love to do?”. And trust me, this question is a million dollar question – and it is tough. Once you have this answer, you will be more satisfied with the work you have done and actually enjoyed it in the process. Brian Kim has shared his useful insight on getting this answer from your deep end of your heart:

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Step 1: You WILL find the answer. No doubt.

You will find the answer. You will find it. No doubt.

Approach the question with this mentality and you are sure to find it. How long will it take? It doesn’t matter. Bottom line, you will find the answer.

By doing this, you automatically instill an anti quitting mechanism within yourself, because you know you will find the answer. If you know what you want to do, then you will do it.

For example, if you know you want to arrive in New York, you’ll find ways to get there. You’ll hop a train, bus, or plane going to New York and will arrive in New York.

If you don’t have the cash, you’ll borrow it, or get a job and save up, or get a job as a flight attendant to get there for free. It doesn’t matter how long it will take or what you need to do because you know you’re going to New York.

All your actions onward from the decision that you want to arrive in New York will revolve around getting to New York.

Read that last sentence again.

All your actions onward from the decision that you want to arrive in New York will revolve around getting to New York.

Finding what you love to do = Deciding to arrive in New York.
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How to Find What You Love to Do – [Brian Kim]

I haven’t finished reading Brian Kim’s article yet, but what initially struck me about this was how closely alligned it was with my “Question Update” and the way my thinking has been evolving on this issue. The obvious next question after “How do I create a million dollars for myself doing the things I love to do?” is “What is it that I love to do?”. (Ok, it wasn’t so obvious initially… thanks M.!)

It’s nice to have the universe step in with further insights.

Just finished watching a really good keynote speech by Guy Kawasaki.

It’s based on his book The Art of the Start. He’s an engaging speaker and has alot of good advice for the budding entrepeneur.

“Just Say No” to brain crack. Well put, Ze…

via The Show, by Ze Frank

Archived copy here.

Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford this past June. I’ve just started reading it, but one thing that jumped out at me immediately was this:

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

Archived copy here.

Something to meditate on for the coming week. From Jim Rohn’s weekly e-zine:

Forging Your Character by Jim Rohn (excerpted from Leading an Inspired Life book)

Personal success is built on the foundation of character, and character is the result of hundreds and hundreds of choices you may make that gradually turn who you are at any given moment into who you want to be. If that decision-making process is not present, you’ll still be somebody—you’ll still be alive—but you may have a personality rather than a character, and to me that’s something very different.

Character isn’t something you were born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you must take responsibility for forming. You build character by how you respond to what happens in your life, whether it’s winning every game, losing every game, getting rich or dealing with hard times.

You build character from certain qualities that you must create and diligently nurture within yourself, just like you would a plant and water a seed or gather wood to build a campfire. You’ve got to look for those things in your heart and in your gut. You’ve got to chisel away in order to find them, just like chiseling away rock to create the sculpture that has previously existed only in the imagination.

But the really amazing thing about character is that, if you’re sincerely committed to making yourself into the person you want to be, you’ll not only create those qualities, you’ll strengthen them and re-create them in abundance, even as your drawing on them everyday of your life. That’s why building your character is vital to becoming all you can be.

There’s a good article over at Lifehack.org: Create Your Kipuka. Especially relevant given my various home improvement projects, and my stated “zen space” goal for 2006. Archived copy here.