Yesterday I came across Whitney Johnson’s “Dare to Dream” blog. She had an interesting point on one of her posts that said, “for all your readers know, you may be daring them to dream, without having dreamt yourself.”

This quote frightened me. I’m scared that you, the reader, think that I, the author, am just some 22 year old kid telling you to follow your dreams. I am going to share with you how, and why, I am pursuing the passion so you do not get the wrong impression of this site.

My Story:

I chose accounting when I was deciding what my major should be in college. My step dad told me that accountants made the most money and had the most opportunity out of school, and since I was insecure and money driven at that point, I chose accounting.

I never planned on being accountant, but that was the path I was led down by default. All of my classmates either were continuing their accounting education by obtaining their masters degree, or were accepting offers at Big 4 firms for fifty thousand dollar salaries in the fall semester of 2005. I was stuck in the middle. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.

I had twenty interviews with potential employers that fall semester, and one thing became apparent. Not everyone had it figured out.

But that damn question of “what should I do with my life” lingered over the heads of everyone I talked to in the interview waiting rooms. Even after I accepted an offer with an accounting firm that fall, that question still remained on my mind.

In my very last interview, I got this funny feeling. I was overcome with fear that this would be my last interview. As I watched my interviewer ramble on and on about how much she loved her job, I realized that I liked interviews. I discovered that I liked interviews because I liked people. And what I enjoyed most about people was talking with them about their passion.

I went home that night and thought about what I would do during the summer between graduation day and my official start date in Corporate America. I got out a pen and paper and jotted down the things I wanted to do. I wanted to travel. I wanted to be close to sports. I wanted to better myself. Most of all, I wanted to continue having the feeling I had when I talked with people about their passion.

These desires that I wrote down is what you now see with Pursue the Passion. The RV came as a necessity because we had nowhere to stay, and I actually thought that when I bought Maggie Miracles (the first RV), that I was making a sound investment. Three hours into the first trip, broken down with green liquid spewing from the engine, I quickly realized that it had not been such a financial savvy decision.

That summer I interviewed 75 amazing people. I traveled 10,000 miles by RV, my mom’s 4Runner, plane, and train for 2 months. I went to places like Nike, Microsoft, Playboy, many sports stadiums, the homes of welcoming strangers, and cities I had only read about. It was the time of my life.

The summer also had an inadvertent effect on my Corporate America experience. It completely soured it before I even stepped in the door. I knew, that after being exposed to all different occupations and possibilities, that I had made the wrong choice to go into accounting. I was selling out by going into a secure, stable, well-paid position because it just wasn’t me. But because I was contractually obligated to show up on September 4th, I was going to show up on September 4th.

On August 23rd, two weeks before my anticipated start date, I reported to a “real job.” The corporate lifestyle benefits came throughout the week, ranging from extravagant lunches to all types of corporate goodies. I temporarily forgot about all that I had gained and gleaned during the summer.

But as the months passed, I began to revisit the advice that was given to me. I began to write a book about the pursuit of a passion, despite not working with a passion myself. This was troublesome to me, and even more so as I continued to receive emails from people around the world who were inspired by this site.

I felt not only like a corporate sellout, but also a hypocrite. I thought to myself, “how can I have a site that says to pursue your passion when I’m not pursuing it myself?”

I guess that was my “aha” moment where I said to hell with this. I started to get by on a PB & J diet, sacrificed Saturday nights, and saved up so I could go on a second PTP tour. I sent out over twenty carefully crafted sponsorship proposals to corporations, schools, and small businesses to see if they’d be interested in sponsoring the tour. No luck.

One day I received an email from the boss saying that she wanted to see me. I made the decision that it was now or never for me. It was time to quit the job I despised.

I walked into the office belonging to my boss at the scheduled time on the scheduled date with my heart pounding and my roommate’s co-worker’s resume. My boss was seated on the other side of the desk with two envelopes. Much like a classic western gunfight, I drew first. I quit. BAM!

I left the two envelopes on the table, one containing a raise, the other a bonus, and said goodbye to steady paychecks and corporate security.

With no paycheck, I scrambled to get by. I hired my friend Jay, who graduated in December with a college degree and is now on the tour, and paid him minimum wage to help me get things in line with the Pursue the Passion tour. He crashed on my couch, and we ate free Hot Pockets and Stouffer’s products, given to us by Nestle, until we couldn’t take the taste anymore.

Every day I would rise at 5am, wake Jay up at 8am, and we’d work until 9pm or 10pm. Then we’d bounce back the next day, looking for sponsors, passionate people to interview, and couches to crash on.

It wasn’t until I focused all my time on Pursue the Passion did I start to see results. After all those hours of writing sponsorship proposals, we found a sponsor in Jobing.com right in our own backyard. We went from having four people visit the site a day to an average of two hundred people per day. We made a pact not to eat Hot Pockets again.

Things started to click and hit full stride come July 1st, the official start of the second Pursue the Passion tour.

We’ve been on the road for over a month now, pursuing our passion, and the question that I frequently receive is “so, are you any closer to finding out what you want to do yet? What you going to do after this?”

People don’t realize that I am a passion pursuer and a crazy entrepreneur that will not stop until the bank account says zero. My goal is to turn this website into a resource that will help people who are in the same situations I found myself in as a student, and in the working world.

I am whole heartedly and no longer hypocritically pursuing my passion, and I invite you to join the journey as well.

Yesterday Pursue the Passion dropped by the Long Beach Summer Pro Basketball League, a league designed for basketball players holding onto the dream of playing basketball professionally. Players that take the court have literally traveled the globe to realize their dream, playing in far off countries ranging from France to Bangladesh. We figured that if you could go to Bangladesh to play basketball, you had to be passionate.

Growing up these players lived and breathed basketball. It was (and still is) their life. All day long they would watch Michael Jordan and imitate his moves on the playground, imagining one day they would rock a NBA basketball jersey and get paid to play the game they love.

But something happens along the way of chasing hoop dreams. Players begin to do the math. One thousand colleges multiplied by twelve players on a team with only sixty annual NBA draft picks made by thirty teams equals a better chance at winning the lottery than being a lottery pick.

Once a player does the calculation they have two choices. Players can hold onto their dream of playing basketball professionally, or they can quit because they won’t make the NBA. It’s as simple as that. More often than not, the player quits his pursuit because of one reason…he doesn’t know about the possibilities.

“I’ve played in China, Bangladesh, Israel, France, Saudi Arabia, and Las Vegas, man.” said Antoine Broxsie, a six eleven power forward who graduated from Oklahoma State in 2002. “I just love basketball, and if they’re paying me, then I’ll go anywhere to play the game I love.”

Artis Grant, a level headed Long Beach State guard going into his junior year, was asked if he thought young players were aware of the possibilities to play basketball professionally.

“Most young players have their sights on the NBA, and have had them there since they were kids. Once they realize they can’t make it, they’ll quit and go do something else.”

“Are you going to quit if you don’t make the NBA?” I ask.

“Naw man. Obviously my goal is to make it to the NBA, but there are other ways of playing professional. Overseas and stuff. I’m not going to quit. I will play basketball professionally.”

Artis is averaging 1.3 points a game. Not your typical professional basketball player numbers. But Artis’s reply is our lesson learned.

As a young person in the workforce, the biggest obstacle we face is that we don’t know what is possible. We have our sights set on one goal, whatever it may be, and we see one way of getting there. If we don’t make the goal and things don’t go as we planned, then we begin to give up on the pursuit.

Narrow mindedness is our biggest shortcoming.

But just like we had no idea Bangladesh plays basketball, we have no idea about the endless amounts of ways we can make a living with our passion. There are many different paths you can take to do what you love. There are possibilities are out there, and it doesn’t matter if you are averaging 1.3 points a game or never attended an Ivy League school.

You don’t have to make the NBA to make a living in basketball, just like how you don’t need to work at the New York Times to be a writer. If Artis can find a way to play professionally in some foreign country because he loves to play ball, then we can find a way to do what we want, too.

Wake up from your dreams by following them. Don’t let responsibility wake you. Too often during our daily routine we are living in a dream before we are woken up by a co-worker asking us to do something. Or by an email that requires immediate attention. Or by a phone call. Or by, or by, or by.

Aren’t responsibilities like a useless dream catcher dangling from the dash? Our daily duties are consistently finding their way through that small, little hoop to abruptly wake us from our dreams.

Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up in a different way?

Instead of a co-worker popping their head into your cube and asking for a favor, what if you woke yourself by having a plan of action on how you were going to materialize an idea? Or instead of being interrupted by an email, what if you prioritized your day so you would have time to dream?

I’m not daring you to dream. I’m assuming that you are a dreamer just like me. What I’m daring you to do is prioritize your dream, make time for it, and most importantly, make time to think about it.

Read the full interview »

Yesterday Jay and I were rapidly typing away at our computers to spread the message about our tour. We were emailing any and everyone to see if they knew of any extraordinarily passionate people we could interview and/or if they would link our site to theirs to increase our traffic a bit.

In the haste of a Monday, we decided to take a break. This break soon turned into an imaginative goal setting session, in which we set some outlandish, yet achievable goals. The goals that we came up with are as follows:

Read the full interview »