I have been a fan of Kahlil Gibran since I first picked up the Prophet at age sixteen. Every once in awhile I pick up the book and flip through its pages. Yesterday I landed on “Reason and Passion.”

Here’s the opening passage on the topic:

“And the priestess spoke again and said: speak to us of Reason and Passion.

For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

That last line sums up the last year of my life. Reason (aka my risk averse accounting job), was my force that confined. My passion (aka the four month tour that I dreamt about executing for a year and a half) was unquestioned by anyone. Therefore, as the trip progressed, the end goal that I had in mind (a resource for people to turn to for career guidance) fell short of my expectations because it was driven by passion alone.

Which puts me in a unique situation now, proceeding forth with a book and documentary. If our crew approaches it with reason and executes with passion, I believe that we have the rudder and sails to lead us to land.

But for now, we’re at mid-sea.

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.

Is it me or is the “pursuit of a passion” popping up everywhere these days?

You have Lexus and their “Pursuit of Perfection.”

Excedrin says that nothing can stop you from pursuing the passion, while Monster.com says that when you find a job, you find a passion.

Will Smith did the Pursuit of Happiness. Dassault Falcon Aircraft apparently engineers their aircrafts with passion.

Microsoft says that your potential is their passion, while Grant Thorton has a passion for the business of accounting.

As long as we are on the topic of drawing similarities, American Express and their “Members Project” logo looks very familiar, as does American Rights at Work, and even Shaq’s new “Big” project.

What other companies use passion or the pursuit in their slogans?

What job comes to mind when you think of someone that has ZERO passion? The accountant crunching numbers in a cube? An insurance salesman? The garbage man? The janitor that cleans second grade throw up every day?

I’m going to go out on a limb to say that these professions, which are typically looked upon as “passionless,” are passionate too.

Now I know that there are more industries out there that could be looked upon as being more passionate about their work. But I want to meet the people who love the jobs that nobody loves. I want to meet the accountant that gets no greater thrill in life than when everything on the balance sheet balances. I’d like to meet the garbage man that takes pride in providing more than the standard garbage man service.

Do you know these people? They have to exist, right?

If you know someone in a job typically viewed as passionless, but they really love their job despite the societal stereotypes, email me at brett@pursuethepassion.com.

I’d love to use them as an example to show the world that the passionless are passionate too.

My roommate Zach accepted a job to accept a job out of school. As an accounting major, the natural next step for him was to take an accounting position. He reassured himself that the work would be temporary before he would move on to the next step.

I have been fortunate enough to observe his behavior as he continued to work as an auditor. I watched him flirt with career changes like becoming a coast guard, or a pilot, or a ski bum. I witnessed him get accustomed to a new city. I saw his long distance relationship fizzle, and stood silent as he spent money on things like a new car and expensive vacations. I also noticed that he constantly made himself busy by working out, going out, watching TV, and reading to take his mind off addressing the issue at hand- the question of how to get out of auditing, and find a job he could be passionate about.

Zach is the subject of today’s post because he is the stereotypical recent college grad trying to figure out what to do with his life. He is also the subject of today’s post because he broke out of the stereotype Monday, when he put in his two weeks to officially quit the job he never intended to stay in after starting eleven months ago.

Read the full interview »

“I could line up two Africans, two Europeans, two Australians, two Asians, two South Americans, two Canadians, and one American, and still pick out the American,” a Canadian (but recently turned Phoenician) Amy stated to me during a poolside chat.

“No way!,” I said. “How would you determine that?”

“The American would be the one that’s narrow minded.”

Read the full interview »

I love to do guest posts for other blogs because it allows you to reach an audience you normally wouldn’t reach. I don’t like to repost them to my blog unless I am proud of them.

This is a post that may be repetitive for the people that read this blog on a daily basis, but you know what, it’s good writing that I’m proud of. It’s about how I plan to change the world.

Read the full interview »

Kimberly Pirtle is an intuitive life coach and holistic healer. She blogs about the power of positive thinking for creating bliss in our lives at http://www.uncoveryourbliss.com/blog/

Being wrong (or worrying that we will be wrong) about something as important as what we want to do with our lives is hard. It’s one of the fastest ways down the path of indecision and fear. What do we do if we invest time and money working towards a goal and then we get there and it’s not what we thought it would be? How can we trust ourselves if we took risks and now we’re headed down an uncharted path? Here’s the truth: That is life to its most basic definition. Life is change and the unexpected. Even if you live a charmed life and always know what you want to do and go out and do it you will be faced with unexpected events and people. I would go so far as to say that most of our meaningful living is done within the flow of change and unexpected events. Those are the times when we can’t run on autopilot and must call on who we are to find our way.

Read the full interview »

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 »

Many students mistake passion for pleasure. A passion can be incredibly frustrating, overwhelming, sometimes even downright painful.

Most students mis-assume that passion must overtake you right away. A passion can be a small flicker – you can tell it’s a passion when its flames are ones you want to fan. It does not start out as a blaze of glory.

A number of students believe there is some great (high-paying) fun job out there somewhere if they can just find it, that does not come with a lot of stress, and that is as much fun as effort. I have not yet seen this job.

Finally, a substantial number of students mistake passion for profit. The belief is that if they do something they really love, they will make lots of money at it. To the contrary, my observation is that most passions insure, at least in the short term, poverty – not wealth.

So why don’t students “Pursue the Passion?”

Read the full interview »