The most important question you can ask yourself. 

Everybody wants what feels good. Everyone wants to live a care-free, happy and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when you walk into the room.

Everybody wants that -- it's easy to want that.

If I ask you, "What do you want out of life?" and you say something like, "I want to be happy and have a great family and a job I like," it's so ubiquitous that it doesn't even mean anything.

Everyone wants that. So what's the point?

What's more interesting to me is what pain do you want? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives end up.

Have a passion for your work. If your work is meaningful to you, your work life will be a joy.

If you can’t be passionate about the work itself, be passionate about the reason you do it. Maybe you don’t love your job/company/career, but the money and benefits are good for your family. Be passionate in your choice to do right by your family.

If something needs changing, be the one to lead the change. If you dislike your job but are stuck, work on getting the skills that will get you unstuck. If there’s a problem at your office, work on being the one solve it.

Start small and build from there.

Do the obvious stuff first, then progress to the harder stuff. (Otherwise known as going for the low-hanging fruit.)

If it’s not broke, don’t fix. Do improve it.

The hardest lesson to learn is when to keep going and when to quit. No one can teach you that. At some point, you have to choose.

The definition of crazy is to do the same thing the same way and expect a different result. If the result isn’t good, change something.

No one succeeds alone.

Ask for help. Be specific when asking. Be graceful and grateful when help comes.

Surround yourself with positive people and you’ll have a positive outcome.

Embrace diversity. The best way to compensate for your own weaknesses is to pick teammates who have different strengths.

People experience the world differently. Two people can attend the same meeting and walk away with different impressions. Don’t fight that. Use it.

You don’t have to like someone to treat that person with respect and courtesy.

Don’t “should” all over someone, and don’t let someone else “should” all over you.

No matter what you do or how much you achieve, there are always people who have more.

There will always people who have less, too.

No matter how much you excel at things, you are not a more worthwhile human being than anyone else. No one else is more worthwhile than you, either.

If you spend most of your time using your talents and doing things you are good at, you’re more likely to be happy.

If you spend most of your time struggling to improve your weaknesses, you’re likely to be frustrated.

Practice is the only true way to master a new skill. Be patient with yourself while you learn something new.

The only way to stay fresh is to keep learning new things.

To learn new things means being a beginner, and that means making mistakes.

The more comfortable you grow with making beginner mistakes, the easier it is to learn new things.

You will never have all the resources (time, money, people, etc.) that you want for your project or company. No one ever has all the resources they want.

A lack of resources isn’t an excuse. It’s a blessing in disguise. You’ll have to get creative.

Creativity and innovation are skills that can be learned and practiced by doing your usual things in a new way.

Take calculated risks.

In the early stages of a company, career, or project, you’ll have to say “yes” to a lot of things. In the later stages, you’ll have to say “no.”

Negative feedback is necessary. Don’t automatically reject it. Examine it for the nuggets of truth, and then disregard the rest.

When delivering criticism, talk about the work, not the person.

Think big. Dream big. (The alternative is to think small, dream small.)

Treat your dream as an ultimate roadmap. You don’t have to achieve your dream right away, but the only way to get there is to take many steps toward it.

If you think big, you will hear “no” more than you hear “yes.” They don’t get to decide. You do.

How long it takes you to create something is less important than how valuable and worthwhile it will be once it’s created.

If there is one secret to success, it’s this: communicate your plans with other people and keep communicating those plans.

Grow your network. Make an effort to meet new people and to keep in contact with those you know.

No matter what technology or service you are creating/inventing at your company, it’s not about the product; it’s always about the people and the lives you will improve.

No matter how successful you get, you can still fail and fail big.

Failure isn’t a bad thing. It’s part of the process.

Things always go wrong. The only way to keep that from hurting you is to plan for that.

Learn how to respectfully, but firmly, say “no.”

Say “yes” as much as you can.

In order to say “yes” often, attach boundaries or a scope of work around your “yes.”

No matter how rich, famous, or successful another person is, inside that person is just a human being with hopes, dreams, and fears, the same as you.

Getting what you want doesn’t mean you’ll be happy. Happiness is the art of being satisfied with what you already have.

Working with difficult personalities will be a part of every job. Be respectful, do your job well, and nine times out of 10 that person will move on.

For that one-out-of-10 time, remember you aren’t a victim. Do what you need to get a new job.

As soon as you have something to demonstrate, get an executive champion to back or support your project.

I came across a short article of a corporate lackey turned professional culinary artist.  Here she shares her essential ingredients to doing what you love.  I have been formulating my own, but not quite ready to share them with you just yet.  In meantime it doesn't hurt to get different perspectives. 

1. Treat goals like recipes. Remember to take it one step at a time. It’s easy to get mired in the day-to-day, and though you may be doing something you love broadly speaking, that doesn’t mean you will love it all the time. Segmenting my goals and having a clear vision has allowed me to stay calm and focused on the process. Keep your ultimate objectives in mind, but try to appreciate and not look past where you are today. I often remind myself that I'm always learning and getting a little closer to my dream.

Nothing Fails Like Success

Are you struggling to make changes or respond to changing conditions? I know many people right now are being forced to change the way they work or live because of our turbulent environment. What we might all consider in these times is what the great historian Arnold Toynbee once said:

Nothing fails like success.

What does that mean exactly? Well, if you consider the challenges you’re facing, you might just be using an old approach that isn’t equal to the challenge. In other words, when we have a challenge and the response is equal to the challenge, that’s called success. But once we have a new challenge, the old, once successful response no longer works. That’s why it’s called a failure.

We have to examine our paradigms (our view of things), our tools, our skills to determine if we’re approaching the problem in the right way. As a first step, we may even step back and make sure we’ve correctly defined the problem. Then we need to see if, based on the evidence of results or lack of results, if we need a new approach.

As you ponder your challenges, consider if you need a new mindset, a new skillset or toolset. You may need to adjust your view, try a different perspective or a new way to think about it. Then you may need to acquire some new skills or tools to tackle the problem. What ever the case, you may need to find a new model to drive success. This can be an exciting proposition because you will most likely find new growth and development in the process—this is success!

Remember: nothing fails like success. Be vigilant and be ready to continually learn and adapt to new challenges, which will surely come your way.