There’s only so much time you can put off following your dreams and passions. For me, that was about 10 years. Since college, I’ve worked in the aerospace sector, and I would say I’ve had a successful and enjoyable career doing it. But I love tinkering on cars a little too much. When I was 21, I had a ’92 Nissan Maxima SE 5 speed, and loved that car. For what it was at the time, it was a pretty quick car. I got it to do a 1/4 mile in 14.8 seconds, which wasn’t bad for a front wheel drive family sedan at the time. But I wanted more, and so I welded up a turbo to the exhaust manifold. While I never got it tuned right, it was a lot of fun, and I’m very proud of that project. After that car, I went off to college, got a good engineering degree, then a great career. I was always under the mistaken impression that my career would be the provision to do the things I really wanted to do when I wasn’t working, like work on cars, help others, go to Africa, etc! But I met this girl (who became my wife) who just loved her career, and I realized then that I was missing out on something. While I did enjoy engineering, I didn’t enjoy the bureaucracy that came with working for a large company. I was an adequate employee, but I knew that I was faking the passion a bit. You try to be enthusiastic about the directions or projects that the company gives you, because after all, they are paying your wages, but I wasn’t completely resonating with it.
Watching Steve Job’s commencement speech to Stanford in 2005, he made it clear that I should absolutely find what I love to do. Not that my career wasn’t enjoyable, but that I should do what I love, and find out a way to make it pay for itself. Given that I’ve only got one life to live, I have purposed to make each day count more.
So with that, I have taken the big step of quitting my great job to work without a net. Last Friday was hopefully my last day working as an employee, and now I’ll learn how to build a business of my own. I expect to fail often, but hopefully learn just as often and get myself back up. I know I have value to add to people’s lives, and some great ideas to share with others. I’m full time here, focusing on perfecting some great stuff for our cars.
I’d encourage you to follow your dreams whereever they lead. God has put things in your heart that you’ve always wanted to do, and don’t wait while life goes by. Take action! Take a step of faith, and see if your dreams start to become reality. Get inspirations and don’t focus on negative things. I haven’t made a cent yet, but I can tell you that my first three days working on this business have been the most life giving days. I’m so excited about what I do in a way that I haven’t felt for a long time, and I know that success will follow. I wish you great success in all that you do as well!
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