Running Down A Dream

How To Succeed In A Career That You Love

Hello everyone. Welcome back! Today I wanted to share a video that I thought was very interesting by Bill Gurley. For some context, Bill Gurley is a venture capitalist investor that has invested in many successful companies (Grubhub, Zillow, Uber, and Glassdoor) that presented to MBA students at the McCombs School at the University of Texas about how to look at having a long successful career journey.

I think this is applicable to everyone because we should all be looking for a “dream job” which is a job that you have immense passion for. I mean we only have one life. One shot to do something you like so our lives should be invested in finding and excelling on that thing.

So the video which I linked below is amazing because it follows the journey of highly successful people in their fields. The interesting aspect is that when Bill guides us through their stories he makes it very relatable. In this pursuit of making their stories so applicable he also shares 5 key points that I want to talk about below on how we can find our dream jobs:

1) Pick a career about which you have immense passion

Finding your passion should be the most important thing that we all should be looking for in our lives. Obviously harder said than done, but I think a lot of people including myself have already chosen their passions. In this day and age we have so many different opportunities to pick from and we are where we are now based on the choices that we made based on all the opportunities presented to us. Think about it.

Another way to find your passion is to find something that you like to do when no one else is looking. This should be something that you have deep interest in and would still be doing it even if status or compensation were not associated with the thing.

Lastly I want to end with this quote, “Everyone has the will to win but not everyone has the will to practice.” Next time you are trying something ask yourself if you really enjoy the day to day operations that you are doing alone. If you do, then it is usually a good indication that you are in the right domain.

2) Be obsessive about learning in your field

To be successful you need to be able to hone your craft constantly. Meaning you have to be able to be obsessively curious in your field by learning the history, asking questions, and learning how to improve. I love when Bill talks about how even if you are not the smartest or brightest person what you can be is the most knowledgeable. You should always strive to know more than everyone else because in most cases you will not be the best but you can put in the work. That is where you can close the gap. 

3) Develop mentors in your field that are successful

Learn everything that you can about them and how they got to where they are today. Everyone had mentors. Even if they did not have a physical person to talk to, a lot of people that are changing our world right now read countless books of other leaders in the past and their stories. That is why reading or learning from biographies is such a high value activity.

If you are able to get in front of one of your mentors ask them all the questions you can once you have done your research. This is extremely valuable because even understanding how someone who has experienced a lot views certain topics is very useful.

In addition, you should be trying to get a mentor interested in your own development and success. I can say personally I have had a conversation with an extremely successful mentor and one of the things that I am most proud of is that they are personally interested in my growth. One of the ways that I keep them interested in my growth is by having inflection point conversations. This means whenever I have to make a decision that may alter the future of my professional development I have a conversation with my mentor about how they would look at it.

4) Embrace peer relationships in your field

Have discussions with people who you can consider friends in similar fields or people as ambitious as you. If you do not have it now, network and find people to connect it.
Do not worry about giving away the best practices to others in your field. This is one of reasons I started my Youtube channel because when you give away your best stuff, people will love the value that you are giving them and it also raises the level of success for everyone around you. One of the most notable aspects of my life that has changed recently is my ability to study better. Learning how to study better has disproportionally allowed me to have more free time to do more things outside of school. Now if every person was able to get back 1-2 hours of studying to do anything else I can only imagine the amazing things other people could work on or create.

Celebrating peer relationships is another important aspect of maintaining relationships. I think there is so much opportunity for everyone to be successful that there is no need to be facetious towards other. I think it is way more beneficial to look at it like a challenge and welcome the competition because their success means that you can attain it as well. Some practical ways that this can be done is being a practitioner on LinkedIn and Twitter which are great platforms for connecting and engaging with others.

5) Always be gracious and pay it forward

Give others their credit for their success as well as your own. Even people I do not know personally, I sometimes just send a quick message saying you inspire me or I really appreciate you for sharing this with me. Me being a content creator I love when I am able to impact even just one person and learn their story of how my content helped them. So I know the value of sending even a small token of appreciation to someone whether they receive it regularly or not.

Lastly as someone that is constantly learning I have always had this constant internal battle of being another person’s mentor even at a young age. But recently I have tried my best to provide for others all the information I am learning. Now that I am basically done with pharmacy school in terms of exams. I love to share how I got here even though I still have a long way to go in terms of my own growth. As I begin my professional career I also look forward to helping the next generation learn what I wish I knew previously so they could avoid even some of the pitfalls I had to get myself out of.