Fun

Career Nirvana

Career nirvana is achieved when your community, work, and personal life are in harmony. This state of mind comes from happiness, health, and wealth emanating from the freedom to do whatever you’re best at with people you care about.

There is little holding you back from achieving such splendor. Start by doing remarkable work you enjoy. This creativity earns attention and delivers intellectual, human, financial, network, cultural, physical, and institutional capital. As we learn from The Startup Community Way, the Seven Capitals keep you building by using what you have, to attract what you want.

Let passion fuel persistence, then fuse your career portfolio into the entrepreneurial ecosystem. As you connect into community, be generous by accelerating others and use the trust that creates to do it more often. When this becomes routine, your generosity will leave a legacy. For innovators looking to change the world, such a legacy grants enduring satisfaction and furthers the sense of euphoria.

As a fulfilling career is composed, it’s easier to find work-life balance. Remember, we work to live. We don’t live to work. Nobody looks back wishing they had spent more time in the office. Use the freedom you create to embrace those you love while doing more things that make you happy.

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“The peace and satisfaction of building what you truly care about is one of life’s greatest gifts.”  –You Don’t Need This Book

This may sound idealistic, but it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. This approach to work requires creativity, immeasurable time, immense ambition, and advanced efficiency. As discussed in the Side Hustles chapter of YDNTB, an acute awareness of your personal bandwidth is essential to optimizing when and how resources are utilized. It can also be tempting to spend too much time on things that are fun but may not have real potential. Be humble enough to recognize what you have and what it will take to evolve your idea(s) into reality. Managing multiple “hobbies that pay” takes serious effort, but the reward is extraordinary work you love talking about and an inner peace that provides transformative happiness.

If you achieve career nirvana, be thankful, but recognize that things will always change. What you have today may not be the same tomorrow. Keep building to enjoy the moment, then make it last with generosity that recycles a sense of abundance for others along the way.

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Cheers to everyone who made last week’s book launch a huge success! Signed softcovers were shipped nationwide and more orders continue to pour in. As you dig into YDNTB, I’d love to see photos, hear what resonates and explore fresh ways to accelerate your work.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Backstage

You’ve arrived backstage!

If you’re reading this, you’re a VIP and I invite you to stick around for more caffeinated conversations. I’ve written a new book and in 2021, I’m pairing it with a weekly blog called Roasted Reflections. These ruminations will be brewed as innovative energy for entrepreneurs who fuel positive change and the first one drops January 1st!

Feel free to send me an email if you wanna know where this adventure might take us, but you know me…we’re gonna have some fun making a ruckus.

By Ben McDougal, ago

The Holiday Walk

We’ll keep the stories around here focused on entrepreneurship and community-driven economic development, but passionate work is fueled by personal experiences and those we share our lives with. Let’s give these reflections a little heart by sprinkling in some personal experiences and plenty of fun.

I’ll start by sharing an emotional moment I felt today. As our little family got cozy by the fire to finish a magical Christmas day, we enjoyed watching Soul. The ending reminded me that one of the greatest joys in life is the opportunity to infuse the very best of ourselves into those who follow our footsteps. I felt the gravity of such purpose and let my eyes water as I whispered a few loving words to my little startup that pays in love.

As we spend time celebrating the holiday season with family and friends, below is a seasonal cocktail to keep things interesting as well. Eggnog is a seasonal drink that’s too thick to drink by itself, but the trick is adding Diet 7up. Here’s a fun compliment to your next stroll around the neighborhood looking at holiday lights.

The Holiday Walk
  • Full Glass of Ice
  • 1/3 Captain Morgan Private Stock
  • 1/3 Eggnog
  • 1/3 Diet 7up
  • Stir, then add a dash of cinnamon
      By Ben McDougal, ago

      Love Letters

      Relationships with a loving spouse may be the single most impactful element of an entrepreneurial lifestyle.

      Co-founders in life may not fully understand their partner’s ambition, but with trust minted, healthy individuality allows each person to achieve more.

      To visualize how trust creates exponential opportunity, imagine one of your hands is you and the other hand is your partner. First, put your hands together and make the shape of an A. When relationships are built this way, a line of trust is established, but the top point of constant contact limits how far each line can go.

      Now, use your hands and make an H. The center line of trust remains, but now there’s room for individuality. Each of the two horizontal lines can continue to grow beyond what would have been possible alone.

      Individuality can feel apathetic, but when two people trust each other enough to build their own neon future, a brilliant fabric is set free to shine. This fabric becomes unbreakable as threads of intention weave together with boundless love. The result is a home team with exponential potential.

      Even with trust-enabled individuality, a shared appetite for risk depends on current events, the environment, engaged networks, and what resources our partners provide. The quiet truth is that stability is paramount when there is a singular source of financial income. With multiple sources of income, there may be more comfort in the unknowns that come with building something new. Current situations will always present limitations, but love and respect shimmers when we produce more than we consume.

      If creation brings us to life, how do we increase a partner’s appetite for calculated risks? When our art becomes a way of being, life-work balance is seen for what it actually is: a fanciful distraction reserved for the status quo. Harmony then awaits those who encourage the creative seasons of their forever friend. This unselfish support fuels positive momentum that strengthens our partners. Setting this example adds space for our own explorations. As both partners keep their promise while also quitting the right things at the right time, trust thickens and the loving leash is lengthened with even more freedom to flex.

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      Results add up as promises are kept.

      We may all have a creative spirit, but when a shared appetite for risk is applied, the innovative spirit gets stirred into a recipe that’s tasted with endless variety.

      It’s seen as students tinker without permission needed. It’s indispensable intrapreneurs fueling positive change in existing companies. It’s volunteering for a cause, side hustles that evolve a diversified career portfolio, and founders solving problems with pain-killing solutions.

      Humans seek purpose, love, peace, and happiness. Often, the partners we choose have the most direct influence on our ability to coordinate this quadrivium. With a home team advantage tuned in trust, our work can be ambitious. As our communities blend in, full alignment results in career nirvana.

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      I am nothing without the love we share.

      Be kind to yourself by choosing a partner wisely. As you build with co-founders in life, be your best knowing that when the credits roll on a life well-lived, your loved ones will be first, last, and all that’s in between.

      Brewed From Within
      #116 📖 Life & Happiness

      "Dedicated to my co-founder in life and our startup that pays in love."
      By Ben McDougal, ago