How to Uncover and Ignite Your True Inner Passion

In front of you is the door to discovery, but do you know which key unlocks it?

While my college experience was anything but a linear path from start to finish, the end of that chapter of my life opened a new door to a career that I’m thankful for, fortunate to be a part of, and lucky to have broken into at all.

You can read the longer story about my college journey at the end of this post, but the short story is that I am a college dropout turned college graduate… and now a tech startup marketer.

I had always been interested, even infatuated, in technology, but it wasn’t until my last semester of school that I really “lucked” into discovering what I wanted to do career-wise.

As a marketing intern at a budding local tech startup called NanoLumens, it was the first time in my life where I was able to put to good use the formal education I had received, the interests that I loved, and the natural creative talents that I had into one cohesive force.

It is often said that “luck is when effort meets opportunity” and, in my case, I consider myself “lucky” because I graduated college and immediately knew what it was that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. That is something many people don’t find out until years after college — some never — but if you can really dig deep and find the genuine answer to this one question, you too can unearth and ignite your true inner passion.

What is it that sparks your curiosity and excites you?

The answer to this question can be general or highly specific, but the buck starts here because you are who you are: a lifetime of experiences, both good and bad, that shape how you feel, what you believe in, what you love and what you hate… and no one can understand what makes you tick better than you can.

What is it that motivates you to wake up and seize the day?

What do you find yourself getting lost in during your free time?

What are you willing to spend hours, days, and years to learn more about?

Computers? Fashion? Photography?

Whatever it is, there is at least one interest or one hobby that you excel at that you could fill the rest of your life with, be successful at, and then share with the world to provide value.

“Go an inch wide and a mile deep.”

Successful entrepreneurs are told to “niche down” within an industry… and to do this again and again until it starts to hurt their business (usually around the 3x mark). The reason for this is that each time you “niche down,” you drill deeper and deeper into the problems of your target audience/market, and you create a laser-like focus to solve them.

So, what is it that sparks your curiosity?

What is it that excites you?

What are you passionate about?

Be like an entrepreneur and go an inch wide and a mile deep.

Think of that one thing.

And, whatever it is, chase it… and be relentless in your pursuit.

Addendum

In the Fall of 2007, I dropped out of college after my sophomore year when I learned that my brain, unfortunately, isn’t wired like everyone else’s.

As I got diagnosed with Pure Obsessional OCD, or Primarily Obsessional OCD, I thought I was being told that I was cursed.

“Why me, God? …and why now?”

With the help of my psychiatrist, medication, and intensive soul-searching, I learned how to manage the disorder early on in my adult life and went back to school with a renewed vigor. I would go on to graduate college with a B.B.A. and a concentration in Marketing in 2012.

The irony (and point) of this closing story is that, had I continued my journey at UGA undeterred, my coursework and interests would have led me down the career path of Psychologist/Journalist… but both of those careers would have been the wrong ones for me.

This is why I’m incredibly grateful to have experienced the hardships that I faced during those years.

Otherwise, I may still be seeking a purpose and calling in my career.