Liz is a 23-year old data scientist, world traveler, and compassionate social innovator. She is a founding member of Own Your Brilliance and the venture that her and the team are working on is launching in the latter half of this year. Stay tuned as we aim to mobilize young minds and empower them to change the world!
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
Steve Jobs
When was the last time you had a conversation about your dream job or career?
A conversation where you enthralled your audience with your unending passion and hunger for the topic? Not just a quick discussion, but an in-depth collaboration of like-minded individuals pushing towards achieving dreams?
Most likely, such conversations are few and far between, but think for a moment about what these conversations can achieve. Discussions where you are truly honest about what you want to do in life and your audience responds to your energy. These are the moments when dreams start to become actions.
Before he was CEO of Space X, Tesla, and numerous other companies, Elon Musk often spoke about the feasibility of odd concepts ranging from going to Mars to creating fully electric sports cars.
Before sparking the evolution of modern technology, Steve Jobs was not celebrated for his enlightened view of computers, but was stigmatized as the man who nonstop went through the yellow pages and annoyed strangers.
To bystanders, these were radical, insane ideas by obsessed men. These men quickly became infamous, known mockingly by titles such as space guy and crazy computer man.
However, this notoriety led to broader recognition and others’ wanting to take part in synergistic conversations about their dreams. By being unafraid to talk about what they loved, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and other highly successful individuals were able to take their first step towards success.
All of us, regardless of our chosen path in life, have that same capacity to follow our dreams and do great, meaningful work. Our dreams and aspirations are often kept as figments of our imagination, just waiting in the back of our mind to be transformed into action. To begin to achieve these goals all we need to do is take one simple first step:
TALK ABOUT YOUR PASSIONS
A very simple first step is to bring up your passion every day. Bring it to the forefront of even your most mundane conversations. You will be surprised about the results of this simple effort.
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Collaborate
Musk and Jobs became known for their inclinations to speak their passion and leveraged that notoriety to meet the right people. You never know what others’ might be passionate about and simply bringing the idea into the conversation could spur an unimaginable outcome. Never be afraid to tell others’ what you are passionate about.
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Set expectations
Setting your own expectations for your life is important, but won’t necessarily encourage you to achieve your goals, because it’s always easy to put off it to another day or make excuses. Having people associate you with your goals brings a level of outside encouragement to achieve them that you may not be able to do by yourself. By making your aspirations public you necessitate a responsibility to yourself and a greater drive to achieve them. This encouragement can be a powerful tool to motivate you to act rather than remain complacent.
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Time is your greatest asset, use it wisely
The choices we make every day are the decisions that determine our future. With every hour that passes we either choose to follow our passions or choose not to. Time is a non-renewable resource. Every second is an opportunity to truly follow what we love to do. Although we live in an imperfect world where we can’t truly spend every second in pursuit of our dreams, by managing your time and making the effort by talking about your passion you can continually work towards them.
Discussing your passions and goals with others can be difficult. It requires you to make yourself vulnerable and people may not always understand you, as I’m sure Steve Jobs and Elon Musk could attest. However, the benefits of openly discussing your dreams greatly outweigh the cons. Discussions facilitate collaboration that inspires, sets expectation a personal incentive to continue working toward your goal, and ensures that we use time as an asset instead of an obstacle.
Remember, we are all capable of greatness, we just have to be bold in our pursuit of it.
Own Your Brilliance 