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Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Thrive in a Career You Actually Love

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Runnin’ Down a Dream: How to Thrive in a Career You Actually Love

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Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. —Steve Jobs

Consider this: You will likely spend one-third of your life working. That’s at least eighty thousand hours. Wouldn’t you rather spend those hours doing something you love? Or are you comfortable just passing the time, swallowing a regret or two along the way?

Knowledge has never been more accessible. Mobility has never been easier. There are more ways to work than ever—and more chances for that work to genuinely be something you love. The goal should be to find a job where hustle doesn’t feel like hustle. The truth is that today’s system is broken. Because there are more opportunities, more possible pathways, figuring out how to navigate the transition from education into a career has become more complex than ever.

when jobs are scarcer, studies show, job satisfaction is likely to go up).

But you can pursue your career with intention. You can study people who have been successful in different fields. You can learn from those people who are thriving in jobs they love: that great chef, the successful stylist, the rare few who are able to live their dreams. By studying the steps those people took, you can jump off that conveyor belt.

Seven out of every ten people were living with what academics call “career regret.”

Nearly six in ten people would do things differently if they could start over. More than 40 percent of those people said they would choose entirely different occupations. About a third of those who would do something different said they wished they had followed their interests more. Nearly 30 percent said they wished they had picked a different major in college. About one in every six people who said they would target a different career said they wished they had gone to a different school entirely. And of course, a ton of people said they wished they made more money.

Yet another Gallup survey released in early 2025 showed a ten-year low in employee engagement and enthusiasm.

While AI provides unlimited new possibilities in terms of learning and efficiency, it could also eliminate some jobs entirely within a decade or two. Some of the careers that well-intended parents have been pushing the hardest—law and medicine and computer science, specifically—are among those poised to change the most. Suddenly even the “safe” careers do not seem so safe.

there has never been a better time in history to pursue work that you love.

It is also easier than ever to find and communicate with the people who might be able to help you. Today you can email or DM almost anyone. If you ask an interesting enough question, you might just receive a response. And it is easier than ever to find a community of like-minded strangers who share your passions. As artificial intelligence becomes a larger part of our lives, these precious personal relationships—your peer networks and mentors—will become even more important.

This message is not for everyone. Everyone wants to be successful, but thriving isn’t free. It’s a grind. Plenty of people will be content putting in their forty hours every week and finding deeper meaning in other parts of their lives. But if you want to have a long, successful career that satisfies you, you’ll need to put in the time. If you aren’t willing to put in those hours, your chances of success drop precipitously.

“Life is a use-it-or-lose-it proposition.” If you work forty hours a week from age twenty-five to sixty-five, that’s eighty thousand hours spent at work. That’s just too long to be doing something you don’t love. Most of us only have one career path. If you’ve got only one shot, then why not do what makes you most happy?

shape and direction of Danny’s life. “Do you have any idea how long you’re going to be dead?” Uncle Richard asked. “No?” “I don’t know either, but I’ll tell you one thing,” Uncle Richard said. “You’re going to be dead a hell of a lot longer than you’re going to be alive. So why in the world would you do something that you have no passion around?”

Observing the success of others gave him permission to think about this path as a legitimate career.

I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun. —Thomas Edison

“Find fascination,” he told the audience. “Fascination is way better than passion. It’s not so sweaty.”

curiosity. If you are fascinated with something, you yearn to understand every bit of detail about it. And that desire to know more will be endless. So, what are you passionate, fascinated, and curious about? Nothing will make you more successful than loving what you do for a living. If you love what you’re doing, you’re going to work harder than anybody else. You will study harder than anyone else. If you love what you’re doing, it’s not going to feel like work. If it’s truly your own personal deep curiosity—not your parent’s, not your sister’s, not simply a social expectation you feel obligated to meet—most of the work is going to feel like fun.

The greatest athletes of all time echo a similar notion. They don’t just love playing the games. They love practice. They love preparation. This may be the ultimate test for whether you are actually pursuing your dream job: Do you love the work? Do you do it when you do not have to? In your free time?

Working hard, engaging with feedback, practicing tasks we cannot yet do, exhibiting real resilience—all of that, Duckworth says, is easier than knowing what to persevere toward. Plenty of people can run full-speed at a challenge—at least for a while. But it is much rarer for someone to find what Duckworth calls “an obsessive interest,” something in life that inspires a fascination strong enough to keep that drive going for the decades it takes to build a successful career.

It is important to realize that most people will end up doing something outside their college major. And that is perfectly fine. Said another way, the “major” decision need not be as daunting as it seems. I would think of it as one of the first stops of many on the path to finding your eventual career. If you love it, great. If not, there will be ample opportunity in the future to expand your career horizons. And you will still benefit from the journey. It is also important to understand that there are different types of job opportunities in every field. Just because you cannot sing does not mean you are blocked from having a job in the music industry. There are many different roles and responsibilities in each field. You are searching for both an industry and the role you will be thrilled to have within that industry.

along for the ride anyway. Let’s start with a couple of book recommendations. The first is What Color Is Your Parachute?, by Richard Nelson Bolles, which is the definitive resource on career choice. It has been in print since 1970. It’s a practical, encouraging, hands-on guide for people figuring out what to do with their work life.

The second must-read book on this subject is Designing Your Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. This book evolved from an elective class they teach at Stanford under the same name, which is one of the most popular elective courses in the entire university. In the class, Dave and Bill use classic design principles (from product design) but apply them to career and life decisions. It’s about prototyping your way forward rather than agonizing over “finding your passion.”

Myers-Briggs Test with Career Matching

“Loves and Strengths” Career Exercise

Life Design Compass

They recommend you write two short 250-word essays. The first is titled “What is work for?” and the second is titled “What is a good life?” As above, the goal is then to search for careers that create coherence between the two. This exercise is more about identifying your core values and making sure there is alignment with your actual career direction. Odyssey Plan

Here you are asked to build three potential five-year plans for your career, all different. For each of these plans you are asked to create a written report that includes a title, a timeline, the key resources needed, and the key questions that arise. You are also asked to provide an honest assessment of how you feel at the end of working on that particular plan. What is great about this exercise is that it allows you to step outside your current life direction and base plan and to truly think about other alternatives. If you have more ideas than three, I would expand it to four, five, or six.

Reading the right books as a teenager or young adult can absolutely change your life.

like How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It’s the definitive guide to mastering communication and building strong relationships. Pair that with The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey for a deeply structured, principle-based system for becoming more intentional and effective in everything you do. For building lasting behavioral change, Atomic Habits by James Clear is unmatched. It’s easy to understand, actionable, and rooted in science. Tony Robbins’s Awaken the Giant Within brings the fire, offering powerful tools for emotional mastery and massive transformation. And Mindset by Carol Dweck is essential reading for understanding the psychology of success—the difference between fixed and growth mindsets could change the way you approach every challenge. Together, these books form a solid self-development foundation.

“If your work is unfulfilling,” Seinfeld once told fellow comic Neal Brennan on Brennan’s podcast, “then the money will be, too.”

“Looking at a kid’s photo when they’re grown up, you can see the resemblance,” she says. “But when you start with a kid’s photo, you can’t predict what the person’s going to look like later.”

“Be like a paramecium,” she says. “Move in the direction of warmth and nutrients.” Here’s how she broke down her metaphor to me: “If you are around people who make you feel better than you used to, hang around them more. If you’re at a company that makes you feel better about yourself and about the work you’re doing and you feel like you’re learning, that seems good. If you can find a better one, then move in that direction.”

Interest and boredom are both emotional reactions, but sometimes striving toward achievement, especially at a young age, means learning to push through and discard a lot of emotions, including both boredom and what can seem at the time like a distracting fascination. That self-regulation is vital to modern life. But it also means that we have an easier time understanding what we do not like, what we find unpleasant or distasteful. Plenty of adolescents can tell you what they don’t like: They don’t like being laughed at by their peers. They don’t like being rejected. They probably don’t like beets. It is much harder to recognize what we do like. It’s harder to look inside yourself and figure out what it is about your life that you really enjoy, what inspires and motivates and captivates you. It’s harder to pause and contemplate which challenges in life actually feel fulfilling and not just burdensome.

If you are bored and grinding, especially after multiple years, learn how to change direction. If you are intrigued and engaged—and happy—by all means, keep going. To be clear, your fascination is not simply something you were good at early in life. It’s not just something you did that elicited praise. Everyone likes receiving praise, but the fulfilling feeling of a dream job does not come from the outside world. It’s internal, something only you can feel. An obsessive interest also isn’t just something you’re able to make money doing. Duckworth told me that the most successful people in society have an “enduring love” of their chosen field. “It’s not just like, oh my gosh, I was head-over-heels,” she says. “But I’m still head-over-heels or I’m still committed to this pursuit.”

Bobby Knight. “The will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win,” Knight said. “Everyone wants to win, but not everyone wants to prepare to win.” When you are thinking about what fascinates you, run through this in your mind. Does the idea of doing whatever your chosen field requires for an indefinite amount of time sound tedious—or does it sound like fun? To be truly successful, your work needs to feel joyful—the way chess feels to Magnus Carlsen. It must be fulfilling all on its own, not just because of the potential outside rewards. That’s the test. Ask yourself: Am I willing to practice this craft indefinitely? Am I willing to put in more time doing this, honing this craft, longer than someone who might be competing with me—without burning out? When the answer to these questions is “yes,” you have found a fascination. But a “no” is valuable, too. Every time you realize you are not doing something you truly love, you are making headway. These false starts or industry shifts are common in success stories. They happened twice in my own career. So, if you have found the subject matter where you can answer “yes” on the “practice” test—great! If you are not there yet, do not despair.

No matter how old you are, there is still time.

Part of having a lifelong commitment to a career field is believing in what you’re doing. It is the purpose—the why. A surprising amount of research has been done on the topic, and you are much more likely to find your job fulfilling if it feels like a calling, like you are contributing something important to society.

Persistence is a habit, a practice. But without the other part of grit, whatever we want to call it, your chances of a satisfying career—doing the kind of work you love—drop dramatically. “Persistence without passion,” Duckworth says, “is drudgery.”

William Martin, from his collection The Parent’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents,

Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself.

“Information is power” has become an edict Lorrie preaches any chance she gets. “You never know where something interesting is going to come from.”

“Stay ready. You never know when an opportunity will present itself, and in that moment, be excellent. Be consistent. Build your credibility. Let people know who you are, and allow them to understand that they can count on you.” “Celebrate the wins, no matter if they are big or small. Not only your wins, but all of our wins in our community. We know how hard fought they were.” “Send a note. That acknowledgment means more than you realize.” “Analyze the losses. When you don’t get the result you expect or someone throws you a curveball, digest it and move on. But there’s a lesson to be learned. So often the lesson we learn from our perceived failures can be integral to our success.” “Find your people. Create that circle of people who will tell you the truth even when it’s hard. Those people allow you to show your vulnerability and will never use it against you. Those people motivate you when you need it the most.”

It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts. —John Wooden

Today, Picasso is most famous for his avant-garde work that advanced the limits of what visual art can be. As a teenager, however, he had already mastered the dominant style of the time. Before he could break all the rules of visual art, he had to learn—and master—all the existing rules of visual art. Then, he never stopped learning and experimenting, even after decades of unparalleled success.

poet. “It always starts with curiosity,” he told me. “I’m interested in possibilities. I think we know very little, if anything. I’m wildly open-minded. Creativity comes from seeing past the surface.” The reality is: You want learning to be fun. You need it to feel like play.

But sometimes you really want to know something. Studying your field needs to feel like that. You would do it even if it weren’t your job. The knowledge is its own reward. Your curiosity and drive have to come naturally. You cannot force it. By now, I hope you are noticing a pattern: In order to be great, you have to do the work. In order to do the work well enough and for long enough to be great, you have to love it. It can’t feel like work at all. This is an inescapable fact, an immutable truth. If you want to thrive doing something that makes you happy, there is no escaping those two interlocking pieces.

When you find what you love and love what you do, every other step in your career will come so much easier.

Knowledge opens doors. It gives you an exponential advantage over a peer who hasn’t done their homework.

Witnessing someone demonstrate a high level of passion and knowledge of their craft is also awe-inspiring.

Mahatma Gandhi is credited as saying, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” The writer and futurist Alvin Toffler said, “The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Continuous learning is just as important as foundational knowledge.

Seeing what’s on the edge of your industry is critical. If you learn about something new that could disrupt your field, and you’re the first person to bring that information back into your organization—or if you’re the one who has the most knowledge of this particular focus when a company has to adapt—it’s going to do wonders for your career.

Albert Einstein once said, “Once you stop learning, you start dying.”

I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things, you stop doing great and useful things.”

Once you have established a foundation of historic knowledge and you are routinely adding to that base and keeping up with what’s happening in the frontiers of your field, then you’ll be better able to spot unique knowledge: areas where you can go deeper than anyone. You can look for the holes in your industry, places your peers are missing. You can find new ways your early awareness of trends could be more useful.

Far Analogies: Cross-Pollinate Your Mind Charles Darwin had a breakthrough in biology by reading about geology.

Making meaningful, useful connections between seemingly unrelated ideas across a panoply of fields has led to novel discoveries.

the best and brightest are able to borrow ideas from fields totally unrelated to their own craft.

“If genius has any common denominator, I would propose breadth of interest and the ability to construct fruitful analogies between fields.” Think of the way Angela Duckworth could learn about a paramecium and then connect some of those concepts back to her own work in psychology. Steve Jobs studied calligraphy. Magnus Carlsen, the chess player, is also a high-level poker player. When Bobby Knight was a young coach drawing up basketball plays, he also sought out football coaches for their perspective. When you cross-pollinate your mind like this, you are enhancing the capabilities of your thinking process. You’re expanding the well from which you draw ideas.

Plenty of people are born with talent. Plenty of people have drive. There’s nothing you can do about that. You might not be the brightest person in your field. That’s fine. You can still become the most knowledgeable.

There is also a quote on the wall of the Bob Dylan Center that sums up his story well. “Life isn’t about finding yourself, or finding anything,” the quote reads. “Life is about creating yourself and creating things.”

Find someone who has a life that you want and figure out how they got it. Read books, pick your role models wisely, find out what they did, and do it. —Lana Del Rey

but a mentor—or a handful of mentors—can make a huge difference in the way your career develops. A whopping 75 percent of executives say mentoring played a key role in their success, according to one recent study. Sometimes that could mean great advice. Sometimes it could be lining you up with a specific job opportunity. There is a reason that nearly every Fortune 100 company has some sort of mentoring program.

Good judgment comes from experience, which comes from bad judgment. Why relearn things others already learned the hard way? A good mentor will share hard-earned lessons and industry insights, helping you learn in weeks or months what might otherwise take years.

Mentors also expand your network and your opportunities. They can open doors by either introducing you to key people or recommending you for internships, jobs, or promotions. Imagine a reputable mentor sticks their neck out and recommends you for a job. Once again you become a candidate of one, highly differentiated against the field. A great mentor acts as a champion for your growth, and that can become rocket fuel.

twenty. Instead it was, Spielberg said, “the moral urge to be a mentor.” That’s another thing mentors can help with: confidence. Support and encouragement from a mentor can boost your self-confidence and push you to achieve more than you originally thought possible. Knowing that someone powerful and experienced has your back can empower you to stretch your boundaries.

“Mentors are important, and I don’t think anybody makes it in the world without some form of mentorship.” Two Types of Mentors There are two different kinds of mentors you can look for as you begin this journey: aspirational mentors you can learn from at a distance, by soaking in their writing or speeches or what’s been written about them, and more practical local mentors you can meet with regularly.

“The quality of your mentors reflects the quality of your ambition.”

Finally, consider having multiple mentors—or what former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has called a “personal board of advisers.”

Having a few go-to advisers gives you breadth in your guidance and you are not overburdening a single individual.

Ask if there’s anything you can do for them. Maybe you understand TikTok better than they do. Maybe you see peripheral discussions on Reddit that they would not. Give them a reason to want you around by adding value whenever you can.

Don’t be rude, but be fearless. A “no” costs you nothing. A “yes” can dramatically change your life.

“To learn and grow quickly, identify who inspires you, then reach out. The best mentors respond to ambition.” This is a critical insight.

But Chris embraced every task, seeing opportunity in the mundane. He tackled roles no one else wanted, understanding intuitively that building credibility required humility. But volunteering for everything also gave him the chance to familiarize himself with every aspect of athletic operations, from maintenance to logistics to fundraising. Chris was enamored with every part.

“You can’t choose where you came from,” Chris told me. “But you can choose your outcome.”

“When someone believes in you, even when you don’t believe in yourself,” Chris told me, “that’s when breakthroughs happen.”

I asked Chris if they were intentionally networking in an effort to bolster their careers. “No, not at all,” he told me. “It was just, ‘Hey, that’s a good dude,’ and realizing, ‘Hey, we’re all in the same boat.’ ”

“There’s comfort in experiencing life with people who are going through exactly what you’re going through,” Scott told me. “Just in a different place, different flavor.”

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” —C. S. Lewis

In some sense, these fellow YouTubers were Jimmy’s direct competitors. But the group did not see it that way. More than anything, they simply enjoyed sharing their love for this particular emerging platform. They loved discussing what might be possible one day. They loved understanding YouTube together. That’s why the hours ticked by so quickly every day.

Jimmy told me that he grew the most in those years after high school, when he was working with his peers and they were all learning together. His story is an incredible example of why you should embrace peers in your field.

We often hear about the importance of mentors—the senior figures who provide guidance from experience. But what about peers? Peers, the people walking alongside us in our journey, can be just as powerful in shaping our careers and personal development.

the peer relationship is the single most important springboard in a developing career. So, what do I mean by peer? A peer is someone on the same professional track as you. They are equally ambitious, striving for success in a way that mirrors your own aspirations. Unlike mentors or senior leaders, peers provide a different kind of support—one rooted in shared experiences rather than hierarchical and experiential guidance. It’s a different kind of friendship. These relationships are an extension of your desire to learn more about your craft. The result is more collective knowledge, more people to help you navigate challenges, and friends to help “grease the skids” of career progression. Despite all this, though, many professionals are hesitant to open up to their peers. They see peers as competitors rather than collaborators and end up trying to navigate their careers alone. This is a problematic mindset.

the shared joy and camaraderie that comes from discussing something you love with someone else who loves the same thing. You immediately have a bond. You have that foundation of a friendship. You can share in the excitement of learning new things from someone else and the excitement that comes from sharing something your new friend might not know. And because peers do not have authority over you, you don’t have to be your best, most polished self all the time. You can ask the naive questions you might not ask a mentor. This is an incredible way to learn. Have discussions. Have arguments. Share ideas. Hone and innovate concepts the way MrBeast did.

The Underrated Benefits of Active Peers This may very well be the most important principle in this book. Of all the tools available for growth—coaching, courses, connections with mentors—an engaged peer network might be the most powerful and beneficial. It’s one of the most underdiscussed elements in personal and professional development, because embracing the people who might also be in line for a job you want isn’t intuitive. And that is why it’s a secret weapon. Here’s what having active peers can give you: Shared Learning: You are not just growing alone—you’re evolving together. Everyone brings unique experiences, interests, articles, podcasts, solutions, and even failures that serve as real-time learning opportunities. An Extended Network: You are tapping into not only your peers but their connections, too. That’s exponential reach. Potential Mentors: Sometimes a peer introduces you to someone just a step ahead—someone who might turn into a future mentor. Job Opportunities: Peers hear about openings before they are public. And they are willing to refer people they trust. Real Talk, Real Advice: A trustworthy and honest friend will tell you what worked, what flopped, and what they would do differently—without the filter. This is why so many great writers workshop their material before it’s published. Confidence and Validation: Seeing others wrestle with the same problems affirms that you’re not broken. You’re just in progress. Seeing your friends succeed is a good indication that you’re on the right path. Plus an engaged peer can turn into someone else you can impress, someone else who can provide just an extra pinch of motivation. In addition to these six benefits, a peer network can also offer another critically important advantage. Not every day is a good day. Sometimes your boss yells at you. Sometimes you make a mistake that haunts you. Some days you are staring down a problem so large it feels like a personal failure. In those moments, it’s not strategy you need. It’s support. You need someone who says, “That sucks. I’ve been there. You’re not alone.” Peers are uniquely qualified to do this because they are not evaluating you. They are not grading you. They are walking beside you. You can be vulnerable. You can share. That vulnerability opens doors to deeper learning, stronger relationships, and real growth. One good conversation with a peer can shift your whole week. As a side effect, these personal relationships help build useful, real-world skills, like oral communication, self-management, and leadership skills. A good peer network should also expose you to diverse perspectives, which just helps build your understanding of a subject even more. Besides that, peers give you mirrors. You can see what’s possible. Peers can show you how far you’ve come, even when you can’t see it yourself. That builds confidence. They can help shape your professional identity. Peers can also give you a “push.” You can have a form of competition that isn’…

Think of peers as connectors. They are sounding boards. They are future colleagues and future collaborators. They shouldn’t be intimidating: They are career-friends. And that makes all the difference—because when you are on the same journey, it’s easier to be real. Build Strong Peer Relationships: Start Small and Grow from There You are looking for like-minded individuals with shared career goals. You want to find people who are a good personal fit for you. These are peers you can trust, people with whom you can be vulnerable. You also want people who share your joy and passion. That rapport is critical. The more comfortable you feel, the better.

Be open to where you encounter your peers. Reddit, LinkedIn, and professional organizations can be great resources for finding and connecting with people. If you see someone posting thought-provoking or inspiring ideas in an online industry forum, consider reaching out and connecting.

Always share best practices and don’t worry about giving away any proprietary knowledge. It is a good, smart trade. If you worry about what you might be giving away, you’re going to fail to advance. The activity of sharing with mentors and peers will lead to so many positive things that any negative costs aren’t going to come anywhere close.

One more important point: One of the most valuable aspects of a peer group is helping provide support when one of the members inevitably stumbles. You have a responsibility to support your peers. Lift them up. They will return the favor.

This means that when you expand the number and type of people you know and befriend, your reach and the value of that network increase even more. The lesson: Build a tribe. Bring in people with complementary skills and backgrounds. MrBeast was terrible at thumbnails but good at understanding the arc of a story in a video—so everyone in the group had incentive to both learn and share. If you struggle with one particular element of your job, seek out people who specialize in that and see what you can teach each other. The tribe is more powerful than any individual.

Think of a strong peer network as a strategic unlock. If everyone is willing to put in their time and do the work, those connections—and everything that comes with them—raise the tide for the group, and each individual can benefit.

If you want to start a tech company, go to Silicon Valley. If you want to be in movies, go to L.A. Geography still matters. —Brian Chesky, cofounder and CEO of Airbnb

It’s a hard decision and often a hard pursuit, but if you have the chance, put yourself in the center of the action.

As your dream job journey evolves, you may eventually confront a decision with enormous consequences: Should I physically relocate in order to maximize my chance of overall success?

Regardless of the geography, there are at least ten ways relocating can help your career. More jobs—There are just more opportunities where the industry is dense. More networking—You’re greatly increasing the chances you’ll bump into people in your field. More mentors and more peers—The best in the business are often just a coffee shop away. More events—Meetups, panels, workshops—they’re happening much more often in the industry’s epicenter. Exposure to trends—You’re first to see what’s next. Résumé credibility—“She’s based in L.A.” or “He worked in New York” carries weight. Faster advancement—Your chances of moving up go up when you’re where things are happening. Higher pay—It’s more competitive and often more expensive, but these places also come with higher compensation. Serendipity—The breakthrough meeting, the unexpected connection—it’s more likely to happen when you’re immersed. You create your own luck. Fun and energy—You’re surrounded by people who care about the same things. That matters. If you truly love your chosen field, that will excite you.

You want to roll around in it. If the idea of being immersed in your industry doesn’t appeal to you, you might need to go back to the first principle and reconsider whether this is truly your passion. You should want to be so steeped in your craft that large parts of it become second nature. Immersion isn’t passive—it’s transformative. When you’re fully submerged in the culture of your field’s epicenter, learning accelerates. Opportunities multiply. Your network organically expands. Immersion creates a powerful osmosis effect, exponentially accelerating your growth and visibility.

Relocating Is Hard I know this is not easy. Moving is expensive and stressful. Most of us are not nomadic by nature. We crave stability. Relocating is one of the single most disruptive things you can do in life. Maybe your parents live nearby, and you are the one they lean on. Maybe your kids love their school and your weekends are filled with soccer games and birthday parties. Maybe you have built a close-knit community over years, or decades, and the idea of leaving that feels like tearing something sacred. Moving also means facing more intense competition. You might know more about a subject than anyone else in your graduating class, but once you move to an industry hub, you are suddenly the lowest person on the totem pole. But careers are not zero-sum games. Competition is a tide that raises all boats. Sure, for a while everyone you encounter will know more than you, but that just means you will have the opportunity to learn infinitely faster than you would if you stayed at home.

Think of your dream as a seed. The epicenter of your industry is the fertile soil that allows that seed to flourish. Embrace the challenge—not as an end in itself, but as the necessary step toward meaningful growth. If the idea of moving ignites something within you, trust that instinct. You already have your answer. Go where the action is.

His team would come back even stronger and this time finish the job. On the first day of the 1976 season, Knight told his team: “Your goal is not winning the Big Ten championship, not winning the national championship, but going through the entire season from first game to NCAA championship game undefeated.” He made it clear that an undefeated season was a reasonable objective—not an impossible dream.

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. —Pablo Picasso

Everyone knows it is good to give back, to pay it forward.

Too frequently, professionals think of giving back as something reserved for retirement.

Embrace humility at every step. I find that all the greats do it. They send letters. They send gifts.

Careers, contrary to what many believe, are infinite games. There is no single winner. Instead, many participants can—and should—succeed simultaneously.

finite-game mindset is a competitive, zero-sum mentality: “If I win, someone else must lose.” This mindset fosters isolation, anxiety, and shortsighted decisions. By contrast, an infinite-game mindset recognizes abundance. There will always be many, many winners in any field. These winners can coexist, thrive together, and even enhance each other’s success.

Real career success is communal. It’s collaborative, not combative.

The nicer you are as a person, the more people will want to help you, and the more likely you are to be recommended or promoted. The people around you will also be more likely to listen to your ideas with an amenable ear.

More importantly, adopting this generous approach makes your professional journey more purposeful, more meaningful. It aligns with the timeless idea of karma—that the good you put into the world inevitably returns to you. Every act of generosity, kindness, or mentorship enriches your life and career, directly and indirectly. A life full of giving back means more celebrations and more people to celebrate you. It means more joy and more people to share it. That will always beat celebrating your victories alone.

This is what you need to do in your own career. Look for every opportunity to express thankfulness and appreciation. Anytime you achieve a new milestone—a promotion, an award, some significant recognition worth celebrating—pause and explicitly thank those who contributed to your journey. Always give credit freely and generously. It feels good, and, frankly, it makes you look good.

Even a thoughtful meal can leave lasting impressions and make pleasant memories that last a lifetime.

I want to challenge you to send a note of appreciation to someone most people would consider a competitor. Maybe they are at a rival firm. Or maybe they competed for a job you wanted. Make it genuine, earnest. Recognize something that this person has done well. This can be a very powerful exercise.

The act of teaching enriches your own understanding deeply—there’s a famous adage, “You learn the most when you teach.” Sharing knowledge freely not only establishes your generosity but sharpens your mastery.

You should share with your peers. But in today’s landscape, there are many more ways to give back to your community: podcasts, blogs, workshops, even thoughtful social media posts. Think of Warren Buffett’s annual letter: once a year, every year. This will all be part of the legacy you leave.

When you look back on your career, the true measure of your success will be the lives you’ve touched and improved, the people you mentored and inspired along the way. The colleagues you’ve guided, peers you’ve supported, and successors you’ve encouraged will extend your legacy far beyond your personal achievements.

had spent years running from doubt, but now he was running toward a purpose.

It is never too late to be what you might have been. —George Eliot

Daniel Pink, in his book The Power of Regret, calls these “boldness regrets.”

Pink describes boldness regrets as those moments when we chose safety over adventure, stability over passion, comfort over possibility.

The fear of failing at something new pales in comparison to the lifelong ache of never having tried.

The best time to start pursuing the work we love might’ve been twenty years ago—but the second-best time is always right now.

Just because you did not start when you were twenty or twenty-five or thirty-five or forty-five does not mean you can’t start today.

“if kids just got a little bit of personalized help, they could learn a lot.”

“If you give me six hours to cut down a tree, I’ll spend the first four sharpening my axe.”

Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty. —Theodore Roosevelt

always include a two-part warning. First, you really need to make sure the passion is truly deep and not just a passing interest. Second, every successful pursuit requires a tremendous amount of hard work.

It all starts with identifying your key curiosity. James Clear has a simple rule for life that rarely fails: Optimize for enthusiasm. Make as many choices as you can that leave you feeling energetic and interested. Pay attention to when you have the urge to pursue or participate in something and do more of it. After passion comes learning. I want you to become the most voracious learner of anyone in your field, and I want that enthusiasm for learning new things to continue for your entire career. Does that sound exhausting? It will be if you are not truly excited about the field. External learning (learning outside the four walls of your organization) requires true and deep curiosity. Passion and learning are deeply, symbiotically intertwined.

Achieving your dream job may require taking what feels like excessive risks.

“You’re always going to have adversity. You’re always going to have people who tell you that you can’t do something, right? Your job is to show them that what they think doesn’t matter,” Bartlett said. “You’re going to show them by how you behave, what you do, your work ethic, who you are. You’re gonna show them that they’re wrong.”

back. Do not let other people’s words become mental anxiety for you.

A final reminder: You will almost assuredly need to endure failure.

“Good judgment comes from experience, which comes from bad judgment.”

can be different. You can make a career, and even thrive, in a job you truly love. Life is a use-it-or-lose-it proposition—how do you want to use yours?

It appears to me that our society overweights good fortune versus intentional hard work and methodical process.

Do something you really like, and hopefully it pays the rent. As far as I’m concerned, that’s success. —Tom Petty

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, by David Epstein (2019)

The New New Journalism: Conversations with America’s Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft, by Robert S. Boynton (2005)

The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, by Jonathan Gottschall (2012)

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King (2000)

How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie (1936)

Finite and Infinite Games, by James P. Carse (1986)

Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts, by Annie Duke (2018)

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