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He’s not just talking about money, but it reminded me of one of the guest speakers for my class. He said that his goal is to give away a million dollars in his lifetime. One of my students asked him why he set a goal for giving instead of a goal for how much he would keep. He said that he felt that, if he could afford to give away a million dollars, he knew he would be doing just fine!

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Fred also said that a lot of people think you have to work hard to be a success. He disagrees. In fact, he thinks you have to avoid work to be successful.

The definition of work

This is what we found most interesting – how he defines “work”. He says you are working “if you’d rather be doing something else.”

So if you love what you do, it’s not work! You can spend countless hours at it, because you find joy in it.

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We love what we do here at Bigg Success. Sure, we work hard by most people’s standards … it’s definitely not 9 to 5. But we found a way to work together doing what we love for a fantastic community of people. It’s not always easy, but it is fun … it doesn’t feel like work, at least not most of the time!

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Blaze your own trail

A great example of this is a young man we talked with recently – Sean Aiken. His last year of college, Sean’s dad told him to find a career that he was passionate about. Like a lot of young people, Sean didn’t know what that was. So he decided to find out by working 52 jobs in 52 weeks!

Now he’s working on a documentary about the project and he’s writing a book. He found his passion by blazing a new trail.

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My students are usually a pretty money-motivated group. They often go for the jobs that pay the most. The problem is it’s cyclical – the highest paying job now may not be the highest paying job in five years. So I encourage them to think about what they really enjoy doing and find a way to make a career of it. Now they’re set to rise to the top of their profession because it won’t feel like work.

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Don’t accept the terms that the world sets for you. Don’t define yourself by other people’s terms. Use your imagination to create your own world.

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As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “When you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” So make a decision to do what you love! 

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(Image by ilco)

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Sean, you went from being a college graduate to having had more jobs than just about anyone I know. And you did it all in a year!

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Exactly! That was the problem when I graduated … I didn’t know which job I wanted. My dad gave me some advice my last year of college that stuck with me. He said it didn’t matter what I did as long as it was something I was passionate about. So not knowing where those passions lie, I came up with the idea to go out and try out a whole bunch of different jobs to see what I like and don’t like about different careers. Then I could make a better choice. So I started my web site, OneWeekJob.com, and said that anyone anywhere in the world could offer me a job for one week. Then I would go around for a year and do all these different jobs. It worked out pretty well.

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Now, at any point, did your dad say … I told you to find your passion, but this is crazy?

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Definitely! When I first thought up the idea, and I told him, he asked if I was kidding him and said I should get a real job … I told him it was his fault!

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So you basically lived kind of like a vagabond … through the generosity of the people in the town that you were working in, you would have a place to stay?

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Yeah, people following along on the web site would e-mail to offer a place to stay if I came to their town. Oftentimes, I’d stay with my employer. About Week 5 into the project, a job search engine, nicejob.ca, came on board to sponsor the project – they helped out with some travel expenses as well.

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Let’s say you were working a job in Arizona and your next job offer was in San Francisco? How would you make it to your different locations?

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It always changed. Sometimes by bus, sometimes hitchhiking, sometimes flying. That was a bigg aspect to the project – trying to manage all the logistics. There was a period where I was in Denver, Colorado and then I was back in Vancouver for the weekend en route to Hawaii. These are all consecutive weeks. Then on to Los Angeles, then New York, Florida, Wyoming to be a cowboy, and then on to Washington, D.C.

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Out of all the jobs you’ve had, what was your favorite, Sean?

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I have … maybe a top five. When I was in Hawaii, I was a volcano park ranger. A fashion buyer in New York was really cool, and an advertising executive. I also worked with the Canadian Air Force, and I got to fly a helicopter and a military transport plane. That was a great experience as well. Also a cancer fundraiser – I really enjoyed that job.

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So do you think that you’ve found your passion?

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Is dad happy yet … that’s what we really want to know?

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I think that going out and trying to find my passion has almost turned into a job all by itself; it’s kind of turned into a passion all by itself in that, it’s helped and inspired others to go after their passions. Now I’m writing a book about the experience that will be out in the Spring of 2009. So I’ll be doing that for awhile, as well as talks. It actually might become a TV show. I’m working on a documentary, so this is going to keep me busy for the next few years.

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And there’s a way for people to help you get this documentary done?

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My best friend, Ian MacKenzie, came out on the road with me, starting in about Week 19 or so. We started filming video episodes about what I was learning, interviewing my employers, and talking about getting from job to job. So we’re putting it all together into a documentary now. We’re asking for help in raising funds for that. People can become a producer if they’re willing to donate an hour of their wage. Anyway who donates will be a producer of the film and their name will appear in the end credits.

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What I love is that you’ve created your own job, your own role, your own space by doing this. That’s all right, Sean.

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Now tell your dad that! We’re impressed by what you’ve done. It’s so interesting … such a cool story. Thanks so much, Sean, for spending some time with us today!

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(Images from OneWeekJob.com's photostream on Flickr)