Do what you Love: Fame will follow you.

I happened to watch a short movie on a famous book – The 8th habit by Stephen R. Covey. The summary of the movie can be stated as – “Find Your Voice & Inspire Others to Find Theirs”. This is a great paradigm. I have realized this to be very powerful in whatever we do.

The 8th habit is: Find your Voice & Inspire Others to Find Theirs. The essence of this habit is that you will find your voice, when you can say that you are cent percent involved in what you are doing with your life. By cent percent involvement, what is meant is that your body, mind, heart and spirit are all engaged in the endeavor - whatever that is for you.

I read the convocation speech by Steve Jobs, Apple CEO. I found it thought provoking. The speech is available at the following link:

http://www.lifeofexcellence.com/audio/SteveJobs_StandfordConvocationSpeech.pdf

I am reproducing here an extract from the speech:

“Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm
Convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love?”

One of the aspects the paragraph highlights is “Doing what you Love”. I think both Stephen Covey and Steve Jobs talked about the same concept. The convergence of doing and your Inner Voice makes you successful.

It is often hard to get into doing what you love. We get carried away with social, family, organizational and peer pressures. I do not think “success is copy able” One can achieve new heights in doing what he loves. Today’s society offers tremendous opportunities in each area. First you have to find for your “Inner Voice” before you start helping others to find theirs. Henry Winkler had once quoted: “Your mind knows only some things. Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything. If you listen to what you know instinctively, it will always lead you down the right path.”

I will discuss some of the visible symptoms once you have found your voice. The process is iterative. Just keep on trying till you see some of these symptoms in your daily life:

1. You start feeling very passionate about doing the things you love. PASSION is the key word. You feel a high energy level.
2. Great ideas cross your mind on the subject. You bring or influence big change.
3. You live with the thought; you work with it; you sleep with it.

There could be many more, but I think these three are most important. These will be visible to people around you.

Let us spend few minutes on the timing of finding your voice. I think there is no rule. Someone can find his Inner voice very early in life, someone may find it quite late. One thing I like to mention here is pursuing something you Love is the key. It is never too late. You can find many more examples around you on timing. One thing which is common is the after effects it brings. And they are Success and happiness. Do what you love; fame will follow you.