“Don’t be the person out there looking for a job. Be the person doing something interesting.” -Lisa Hickey in “Lemonade’
So many of us define who we are by our careers. But that’s exactly backwards. Our careers should be defined by who we are.
Imagine a world based on this concept. Instead of majors we’d have independent studies. Instead of jobs we’d have avocations. Instead of waking up every day looking forward to the weekend, we’d end every weekend looking forward to doing our life’s work.
My friend and founder of LaidOffCamps, Chris Hutchins, recently came back from a world tour where he couch-surfed his way across 18 countries in 8 months for only $8k
Think about that. He spent less money on meaningful time in South Africa, Namibia
Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore than most Americans spend going to Epcot. Plus he used the trip to raise about $2500 for drought victims in Kenya.
He’s 26 years old (25 when he traveled), and has already experienced more than most of us will in a lifetime.
Last year, I attended one of his LaidOffCamps in Phoenix. I saw 250 people figuring out their next move. Strategizing together. Coming to terms with their realities. And leaving with ideas and a fresh resolve to do something new and different.
Hutchins made this exchange possible because he opened up his idea to the world. He is genuinely generous with what he knows, and gave people a forum to be the same way.
Chris is now working full time at SimpleGeo. And I can almost guarantee that his creation of LaidOffCamp and the Hutchins Tour Across the World made him a shoe-in to his new bosses.
He hasn’t made a dime off of the LaidOffCamp brand. But he sure has created a legacy. And he’s proven that it doesn’t take much to make a difference, only passion and the willingness to pursue an idea.
If you’ve got that, you don’t need much more.
This post originally appeared as a guest entry in Becky John’s personal blog.
2 Comments
Couldn’t have put it better myself. Be productive with the time you have, and make sure it is worth your time to your heart cause it only has so much time.
Surround yourself with the kind of person you are and want to be. Be more of who you are and you’ll attract people like yourself.
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