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10 Sep, 2012 – 2 comments
from the vault: how to be happy in business
It’s hard to believe it’s been three years since I posted this.
In that time, the original post has received over 97,000 unique pageviews and still stands as the high water mark for this blog in terms of views and backlinks.
I’ve also sold over a hundred posters of the diagram itself.
I’ve received dozens of emails from people telling me it has given them some means of direction; in their professional lives and some in their personal lives as well. It’s incredibly humbling and reason all by itself to continue blogging.
I’m looking back on it today to remember to take my own advice.
If this has influenced you, I’d love to hear about it. And if you have suggestions or opinions on its helpfulness, please let me know.
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Thanks Bud. I’ve had it up on my wall for three years and in two cities now (first just as a print-off and then in poster form). When I read your original post, there was a part of my work (straight front-end and WordPress development) that I was good enough at to get paid for but that I didn’t want to do forever. It was good work, but it wasn’t where my full passion was. I wanted it to be part of what I did every day, not all of it. Longer-term, I wanted to do more design work. I was firmly in the “Learn to do this better” bucket.
Slowly, I started to turn down paying jobs that wouldn’t really get me toward that long-term goal and began spending this new free time doing things that would (reading, practicing, etc.). Even if it wasn’t a conscious thing, the ideas in this diagram moved me to take an art director role and then a user experience job. I think it’s hard to say we’re ever totally fulfilled, but over the past three years I’ve worked my way into the the “Hooray!” zone. And that feels good.
Wow. Thank you, Ryan, for sharing your story. The ideas are pretty basic, I can’t take too much credit when it’s purely rational thinking, but it does mean a lot to me. My life is pretty busy and like everyone else, I tend to focus on superficial things, but it’s nice knowing maybe I was helpful to a few people.