Author: Scott

19 Oct How Steve Jobs Made Me An Entrepreneur: 19 Lessons and Quotes Worth Living

Posted at 05:00h in Career & Purpose, Entrepreneurship by Scott

“I want to put a dent in the universe.”

- Steve Jobs, February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011 [Tweet this quote]

Two weeks ago today, we lost a Legend. Perhaps the most wold-changing Legend of our time. It's quite possible that Steve Jobs had an impact on every single modern day adult across the world. It's hard to believe a statement like that could be possible with any one person. The sad thing, and the thing I find so fascinating, is despite how big of a deal something is at the time - How many headlines an event steals or How many news rooms dive on it. Within a few days or a few weeks, it's often like it never happened. The day Steve Jobs died, Twitter blew up. The whole web blew up. So did every news house around the world. Articles and links were everywhere. This continued for a few days. But sadly, only a couple weeks later, I see hardly any mention. Steve Jobs' death hit me hard. It hit me harder than I thought it would. A lot harder. And I had already been planning on it being a pretty tough blow... The day I heard, I immediately thought about canceling that day's article and pouring out my condolences. But then I remembered how quickly we forget. So I decided to wait a couple weeks. This is my public tribute to one of the biggest Living Legens of our time. I hope it at least slightly reignites the passion for a day or two. Please share and tweet this as much as you feel is appropriate.

12 Oct 10 Proven Actions You Can Take Today to Start Making Money from Your Passion Tomorrow (seriously, tomorrow)

Posted at 04:00h in Career & Purpose, Entrepreneurship, Free Guides by Scott

"Live your passion. Do what you love. Help people. The rest takes care of itself." - Anonymous Important Context Note: The below is a free lesson from Live Your Legend's award-winning Live Off Your Passion Guided-Discovery career course. The lesson is part of one of our more advanced modules on "Profiting...

05 Oct Never Fail Again: 13 Ways to Turn Fear and Doubt Into Fuel for Brillance

Posted at 05:00h in Book Summaries, Career & Purpose, Emotions & Happiness by Scott

"Ninety percent of life is just showing up."

~ Woody Allen

About a year ago I sat down for tea with a friend and mentor of mine, Mary Jaksch, co-founder of A-List Blogging Bootcamps and Good Life Zen. I was ecstatic. Thanks to what I had learned (and diligently applied) from her and Leo Baubauta via their friendship and their blogging club, my business had grown by nearly 1,300% in the previous nine months. I had arranged time to meet with Mary because I wanted to talk about what was next - my big plans for the year to come. This is something I routinely practice with all my models in any space that I'm passionate about improving. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I prefer to seek out the folks that can teach me how to roll the one that already works perfectly well. As we were chatting ideas and next steps, we got to talking about pitfalls and things to watch out for in the business. I wanted to make sure I didn't run into any easily-avoidable brick walls... Then Mary looked over to me and said, "Scott, there is one thing over all others that's the biggest risk to your online career at your stage. Do you know what it is?" I was all ears...

28 Sep How to Make a Living from Your Passion (announcing the definitive guide to doing work you love)

Posted at 05:00h in Announcements, Career & Purpose by Scott

"Living a life of passion and getting paid for it is just that, a way of life. Those who wake up excited aren’t just the lucky ones, they condition themselves to experience and deserve it."

- Scott Dinsmore

Note: If you're reading this post in email I strongly suggest you click to read the online version to get the full effect! ******* I have something really exciting to share with you all today. As most of you know, this site has one purpose: to get you to start doing work you love. I believe this is a fundamental human right and we're all capable of experiencing it. It also happens to be something the world desperately needs. In last month's Ask The Reader post I asked you all one question: "What's the biggest challenge or fear keeping you from doing work you love?" The responses were overwhelming. The majority of your problems came down to two things:

1. I don't know my passion

2. I don't know how to make money from my passion

Between these responses, the surveys I've run, the comments, the emails and the coaching clients, the sticking point always seems to come down to passion. As it turns out, for the past 8 years I’ve run experiments on myself and others to better understand what lights us on fire. I eventually came across a process for making these discoveries. I have good news. Over the past three months I've taken all I've learned and developed a guide to help you all with just that - to find passion and make a living from it.

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Announcing: How to Live Off Your Passion

An unconventional guide to finding passion

and getting paid to do work you LOVE.

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21 Sep How Confused Optimism & Money Disillusions Can Kill Your Dreams (+ A Simple Solution)

Posted at 07:27h in Career & Purpose, Investing & Finance by Scott

"Why risk what you have and need for what you don't have and don't need?"

~Warren Buffett

A few weeks ago I was seduced...

I recently had lunch with a buddy of mine who finished business school and now is about two years into his investment banking career. As we indulged in some Chipotle, he casually mentioned the kinds of salaries some of his buddies were getting and how he was looking forward to his massive year-end payout. Mind you, these are the type of bonuses that can buy homes (or perhaps even small countries). All he had to do was put in the time and he was all but assured the golden check. That's when it hit me. Suddenly I caught myself thinking of how nice it would be to have what he 'had'. The seemingly certain paychecks, the consistency - It all sounded so freaking awesome. For a moment it felt worth trading for. Then I remembered how our lunch started... He explained how out of the last three weeks he'd had dinner with his wife once. He had been at the office for around 12-14 hours a day (except on weekends when he was lucky to only work 9-5). And his workout routine was about as consistent as his family dinner appearances. Many of his friends and co-workers spent 20% more than their monthly take - despite it being enough to buy that small country. The watches, the suits, the status, the dinners, the seemingly 'necessary' luxuries they'd gotten used to. All this added up - to a price I knew I wasn't willing to pay.

14 Sep 27 Questions to Find Your Passion Workbook (free Download)

Posted at 05:00h in Free Guides by Scott

I’ve got a special free bonus for you loyal Live Your Legend readers. I’ve created a PDF workbook of the top 27 questions I've found that will help you find your passion and live on purpose. These come from what I've learned from everyone from Tony Robbins to the Dalai Lama and best-selling authors to business experts. One thing's for sure, Living Legends know how to ask the right questions and I want to share the very best of them with you! If you want immediate access to the free guide, then just click the “Share to Get” button below. This button will ask you to share this page on Twitter or Facebook. After you have shared it, you’ll have immediate access to the comprehensive workbook. (Make sure you click the "Share to Get" button below in order to have access to the link.) (can't see the button? Click here.) For more on the power of these questions, read on...

07 Sep How to Lead a Revolution: 8 Underused Tactics to Build a Massively Loyal Following

Posted at 05:00h in Communication & Rapport, Entrepreneurship, Influence & Negotiating by Scott

"With the right audience, anything's possible."

-Unknown

A few nights ago I had the honor of attending a TEDx event in San Francisco. TED is hands down one of my favorite organizations. The things they've taught me are priceless. The theme of the night was Creating Your Own Government and the speakers blew my mind. More than anything, the biggest takeaway was simple:

We all absolutely have to take it upon ourselves to lead our own revolution.

I don't care whether it's to get your favored candidate elected, to improve nutrition in schools or perhaps change the world by getting people to do work they love, like we're doing here at Live Your Legend. It doesn't matter what topic you choose. What does matter is that you choose something, anything - and start broadcasting your strongest beliefs. The tools have never been easier and cheaper to use. I promise you that if you start saying things that matter to you, there's going to be other folks around the world who care just as much. It's on us to build that community and lead that revolution. With that said, let's get into the action. **********

The Pursuit of 'Ridiculous' Dreams...

Just over ten years ago a young British chef in his mid twenties decided he was going to change the world. He had a powerful message he wanted to share. All he needed was someone to listen. He was crazy about revolutionizing the way kids learned about and consumed food. More specifically he wanted to remove all processed food from kids' plates - a pretty tall order. He'd stop at nothing to do it. Ten years ago no one had heard of Jamie Oliver. Today his YouTube videos alone have gotten millions of views, not to mention his multiple hit TV series and dozens of restaurant chains. In 2003 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire, and recently Jamie won the TED Prize as he told the world his dream to teach every child about food. That video alone has been watched over 1.4 million times. The thing is Jamie isn't much different than any of us. The only difference is simple: Jamie found his voice and stopped at nothing to spread it. He had a passion rooted so deep he nearly brings himself to tears each time to speaks. Everyone has a message to spread. The thing is, a lot of us don't know what it is yet and few of us have taken the steps to get the word out. It's time for that to change.

31 Aug The One Thing You MUST Do the Moment You Quit or Get Fired!

Posted at 06:00h in Career & Purpose, Entrepreneurship, Timeless by Scott

"I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." -Henry David Thoreau I wrote a post about how to know when to quit...

24 Aug Ask the Reader: What’s the Biggest Challenge or Fear Keeping You From Doing Work You Love?

Posted at 06:30h in Ask the Reader by Scott

"Above all else, listen to your audience, understand their fears, solve their problems. Do this and the rest will sort itself out..."

-Anonymous

Welcome to the first edition of Ask The Reader. Your chance to speak up and add direct value to what we're building at Live Your Legend, and get specific help on your biggest challenges in finding work you Love. So here's the questions (pick one and please answer it in the comments):

1. What's the biggest challenge or fear keeping you from doing work you love?

or

2. If you're already doing work you love, what was the one event or realization that made it possible?

**Important Note: Feel free to stop reading right now and go directly to the comments section below to answer one of the above. I will feature the most useful, in-depth answer in our next Ask the Reader post, along with a link to your site! If you're not usually one to comment, I urge you, if you only comment on one post, this is the one. Even if it's only a sentence or two, and feel free to leave it under a fake name if you must. It will dramatically help all of us.

17 Aug Do You Want to Be Your Boss? (or How to Know When It’s Time to Quit…)

Posted at 05:00h in Career & Purpose, Emotions & Happiness by Scott

"Every man must know when it's time to move on."

-Unknown

How do you know when it's time to quit?

More than anything, when I talk to readers, clients and friends about their careers, the biggest challenge they face is figuring out when you know it's time to leave. For many, it's so hard to know when to jump or if you should at all. So much so, they get paralyzed. Do you ever wonder if the work you're doing, the career you have, the way you spend 75% of every day, is worth your time? Ever curious if there's something else that would fire you up a bit more? Well I think I have the answer.

Let's start with a personal story.

Four years ago my wife quit her career in corporate PR to pursue her passion for yoga, fitness and nutrition. She went off and got certified to teach yoga, do personal training and started teaching folks about what to put into their bodies through her classes and blog (for the health nuts out there, you gotta check out here vegetarian/vegan cooking and recipe blog, Food-LifeBalance. I'm her dedicated taste tester and definitely not complaining ;)). She also recently got a sweet gig helping a fellow Living Legend and fitness fanatic manage a chain of workout studios. Last night we went out to celebrate (Congrats Chelsea!). As we drove she remembered back to her couple years in the PR industry. She vividly recalled that she always knew she never wanted to have her boss's life. It was nothing against her superiors (who were actually great people), but for whatever reason, she just never wanted to be in those shoes. Fast forward a couple years, and one massive career shift later, she noticed that from day one teaching at her new fitness studio, she found herself admiring her boss and the role she had - inspired by the responsibility she was given, the way she got to help people and her genuine excitement for what she was doing. Two years later my wife has just about that same role and it's appearing to be everything she imagined. She admired the work her boss did & the life she lived, and it inspired her to operate on an entirely new level. I can't say the results surprise me (of course I'm a tad biased), but this did get me thinking...