This is the end of the year and as I mentioned in the last newsletter, we have completed 2 years since the launch of My Zen Path. I came across a TED talk video that nicely encapsulates what My Zen Path celebrates – being who you are, doing what you love!
Scott Dinsmore quit his job at fortune 500 company that made him miserable, and he spent the next four years wondering how to find work that was joyful and meaningful. Dinsmore shares what he learned in this TEDx talk – How to find work you love from 2012 about finding out what matters to you — and then actually doing it.
In this talk he discusses his disillusionment with his corporate job, his 4-year struggle to find his own work, meeting different people and eventually building a community of people who help each other to do the work they love. Dinsmore emphasizes on knowing yourself and what you love (what he calls self-expert) and this resonates deeply with what I believe as well. This is how he puts it in this talk –
The first part of this three-step passionate work framework is becoming a self-expert and understanding yourself, because if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’re never going to find it. And the thing is that no one is going to do this for us. There’s no major in university on passion and purpose and career.
~ Scott Dinsmore
Dinsmore founded Live Your Legend community and successfully built his work around it. He talks about following 3-step framework for finding and doing the work you love.
- Knowing Yourself & Self-Experimentation – Self knowledge, understanding who you are and what you are passionate about – it may not be just a single thing. Moreover, experimentation, explorations are essential part of this journey.
- Doing the Impossible – Dinsmore says what we think of as impossible, are often just milestones waiting to be accomplished. He explains it quite well in terms of highest records and also in terms of dealing with fear citing his own example.
- Surrounding Yourself with Passionate People – He emphasizes this as an important step – there are going to be apprehensions in your own mind, and doubts from near & dear ones when you consider career transition. That’s why it is important to be surrounded by people who are already doing what you aspire to do. This can actually speed up things as well. Dinsmore’s own story of inspiration after meeting a real-life blogger is worth listening in his own words.
You can watch his talk here –
If you are really interested in Dinsmore’s 3-step framework, you can watch this video in which he explains these 3 steps in more details. He asserts that all these 3 steps are, indeed, completely in our control.
Scott Dinsmore introduced himself as a writer and traveler. He was passionate about physical fitness and adventures, because he believed that overcoming our own perceived physical impossibilities gives us confidence that is directly transferable to the rest of our life. Unfortunately, he passed away after being hit by falling rocks while nearing the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro where he was traveling with his wife, Chelsea.
Dinsmore’s work is close to me because I am doing something similar; though my tools, models and approaches are different. But just like him, I also firmly believe that self-exploration and self-knowledge are the foundation for self-actualization.
While researching for this article I wanted to know more about Scott Dinsmore, I read about his untimely death and recalled what Bronnie Ware explained in her book, Top Five Regrets of the Dying – most people on their death bead regretted that they didn’t have the courage to live a life true to themselves, not the life others expected of them. I’d imagine, Scott Dinsmore had no such regret when the death suddenly hit him, for he was living his dream, and helped others to do the same!
About the featured image:
The featured image for this article is a free wallpaper from QuoteFancy and it features a quote by famous investor, Warren Buffet that Scott Dinsmore has briefly referred in his talk.
“There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don’t like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn’t that a little like saving up sex for your old age?”
― Warren Buffett
