What I Would Do With My Life If I Couldn’t Fail
Last week, I expanded on a quote that I heard from Lewis Howes’ podcast, The School of Greatness:
“What would you do with your life, if you knew that you could not fail?”
As an unknown writer, I was astounded by the reception it got on Facebook and Medium! Over 100 shares total across both platforms! If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend checking it out here.
With the conclusion of that article, I’m now here with a new post to briefly discuss what I would do if I knew that I couldn’t fail.
Meet Jourdan
I’m a pretty ambitious kid who wants to connect with everybody around the world and live the lifestyle that most dream of, but never get. I wanna be a role model for fellow software developers and especially those who have the same interests as me.
Video games. Anime. Wrestling. Writing. Reading. All those geeky things that others like me enjoy doing in their free time.
But there’s so much more to experience in the world. Sure, I wanna live a lifestyle that involves playing video games and watching anime and wrestling whenever I want. But that’s not everything I want. And spending all my free time with those hobbies won’t get me to where I wanna be, either.
I can’t impact the world that way. I can’t make a difference in people’s lives that way.
Now hold up. I’m just a kid from San Jose, California. I’m 23 years old. I look like a hip hop dancer when I’m actually not that great of a dancer. I’m just the typical 5’10” guy on the basketball court who never realized the NBA dream.
How can a kid, like me, impact the world? How can a kid, like me, make a difference in people’s lives? Who, in the world, would follow me?
Me???
I don’t know.
But what I do know, is that I have a big vision to one day impact the world and live the lifestyle of my dreams. I wanna leave a legacy. I’m not just a dreamer. I’m a doer. The kid from San Jose wants to make a difference, Mom. Whether you realize it or not, you have someone special sharing a room upstairs with Justin.
But that big vision starts with doing the things that I fear the most. No one gets anywhere if they stay in their comfort zone.
The Discomfort Zone
Here are some of the things that come to mind that I would do with my life, if I knew that I could not fail.
- Become a WWE wrestler
- Try out for the NBA D-League
- Become a public speaker
- Organize useful and valuable events for the public
- Start a business
- Become an angel investor and advisor for startups and personal brands
- Create a video game
- Learn to play the piano and sing
- Start a podcast and YouTube show
- Stream video games on Twitch and YouTube gaming
- Constantly promote what I do to make sure I get in front of people
- Create useful and valuable online courses and webinars
- Become a New York Times Best Selling Author
Those are just some of the things that come to mind. Maybe I’ll pursue all of them, maybe I won’t. There’s only so much time that we’re given in our lifetime. What I can do is make sure that I make the most out of that time, and see what happens.
Maybe I’ll start with the podcast first. Maybe I’ll join Toastmasters first. Or perhaps, I’ll write my first book and use it as a platform to launch my personal brand. I’ll figure that out soon, and you’ll be the first to know.
Now, this isn’t just about me. I want you to think about it too, and feel free to let me know what you come up with.
What would you do with your life, if you knew that you could not fail?
Maybe you’ll discover that what you want with your life isn’t so impossible to reach after all.
You just gotta do it. Everyone’s gotta start from somewhere. And that’s one of the things I want you to take away from this.
The most successful people in this world are the ones that actually started.
Just go out there, and just do it.
“If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.” — Zig Ziglar
If you enjoyed or found value in this article, please feel free to recommend it to your followers. I’m sure they’ll like it, too :).
Jourdan is an alumnus from the University of San Francisco, as well as an avid writer and startup software engineer from the San Francisco Bay Area who builds web and iOS applications. He was personally invited by Arianna Huffington to write on the Huffington Post, and his writing has been featured in online publications on LinkedIn Pulse, ThinkApps, and Medium.
