Get Angry and Then Get Smart

Image: MichaelLaMartin via Flickr

"You're never going to find your passion."

"You're never going to make the necessary changes in your life to make that passion your reality."

When you hear words like that, you should get angry. Real angry. You may feel frustrated right now in your current situation, but never is a long time, and who is to tell you what your future holds?

Statements like those may float around in your head, or you may hear it coming from people you know and thought had your best interests at heart.

If you're really going to make that change and introduce passion into your life, either as your career or as a hobby, you have to be able to take comments like these and get angry at them. Get angry at the idea that someone (including yourself) has the nerve to say you can't do something.

This anger may even push you to do something irrational, like quit your job with nothing but a small prayer to keep you afloat.

That's why you after you get angry, you need to get smart.

You need to really see what it is that you want and go after it systematically. That could mean giving yourself time to think through as many of the possible consequences you can think of. It may mean coming up with a financial plan to give you a little breathing room when you finally make that leap. It can mean reading up and studying what working your passion entails and where the classic pitfalls are.

I want to work with people to create products, business, or even just flesh out ideas. There are countless books available about how people have succeeded and even more stories of how people have failed. Learning from these would probably help me become a better advisor. Taking my time instead of jumping headfirst will probably give me a chance to make rational decisions.

And if I do fail, I'll have a decent understanding of why, and how to do better next time.

So first I get angry. And then I get smart.

Do you get angry?

- Ryan