Until I typed out my Blogging Break post, I didn’t really realize what this blog was about. It hasn’t been about applying Scrum principles to personal development, and then documenting my journey living this philosophy. Although that is how this started, it has moved into publicly scratching an itch.
I am convinced that all the advice we hear about how to live a better, more fulfilling, more ‘successful’, higher functioning life are all facets of the same gem. This is what I’m trying to understand. And then apply. And then share.
So every time a sparkle of this gem catches my eye, I can’t help but share. This past Sunday’s New York Times business section, in the Corner Office column by Adam Bryant, he interviewed Kon Leong, head of ZL Technologies, which archives emails and files. Leong gives advice to those graduating college.
If you experiment in different jobs and functions in those two or three years out of school, you will have a much better shot at finding your sweet spot. And the sweet spot is the intersection between what you’re really good at and what you love to do. If you can find that intersection, you are set. A lot of people would kill for that because, at 65, they’re retiring and never found it.
So don’t put so much emphasis on initial compensation. Don’t listen to all the harping from the family. Try to find your sweet spot and, once you find it, invest in that. You don’t want to get degrees just to do work you don’t really like. If you’re miserable, even if you make a lot of money, that’s still 40 years of your life.
Booyah! That’s powerful stuff, and I don’t think I’ve heard it phrased like that: you can’t get back that time. I like how Abraham Lincoln said it.
In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.