I live in Denver; the weather here is very changeable.  On December 21 2009, the first day of winter, we had 60-degree weather.  That night the weather announcer on TV reminded us that we had snow on the last day of summer.

This got me thinking about the unpredictability of life.  As I frequently say to my career success coach clients, stuff will happen as you go through life – good stuff, bad stuff, happy stuff, sad stuff, encouraging stuff, frustrating stuff.  However, it’s not the stuff that happens that’s important, it’s how you react to it.  You cannot control the people and events in your life.  You can control how you react to the people and events in your life.

I choose to react positively to the people and events in my life – especially the bad stuff, sad stuff and frustrating stuff that happens to me.  I choose to tenaciously follow my purpose and dreams.  And I urge you to do the same if you want to create the life and career success you want and deserve.

I know this isn’t always easy.  In fact, it’s seldom easy.  But the harder you find it to react positively to negative people and events, the more important it is for you to do so.  Don’t blame people or circumstances when things go wrong.  Instead, choose to be tenacious and learn the lesson behind every less than successful relationship or event in your life.

When you look for the lesson behind problems, setbacks and failures you are being tenacious; you are taking responsibility for your life and career success.  Find the lessons in the bad stuff that happens and then do something to put those lessons to work.  Commit to taking responsibility for yourself, your life and your career success.  Put yourself in the driver’s seat.  Don’t let events and people stop you from achieving your goals.  Be persistent.  Be tenacious.

As I write this, I’m reminded of the famous quote on persistence by Calvin Coolidge…

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.  Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.  Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.  Education will not; the world is full of educated failures.  Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people commit to taking personal responsibility for their life and career success.  They heed the advice in Tweet 10 in Success Tweets:  “Emerson says, ‘Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.’  Find your purpose and pursue it tenaciously.”  Only you can make you a success.  You have to take personal responsibility for creating the life and career success you want and deserve.  Tenacity and persistence are the hallmarks of people who are committed to taking personal responsibility for their life and career success.  Tenacious and persistent people keep going, even in – no, especially in – the face of difficulties and problems.  Promise yourself that you will commit to taking personal responsibility for your life and career success.  Be persistent.  Be tenacious.  Keep at it, and you will reach your goals.

“All men dream, but not equally.  Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity.  But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”

The second is from my favorite playwright, George Bernard Shaw.

“This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

The third is from Oscar Wilde.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world.  Most people exist, that is all.”

I dream by day, and I hope you do too.  I want to be thoroughly worn out before I’m thrown on the scrap heap.  I refuse to be a selfish little clod of ailments complaining about the world.  And I choose to live – completely and fully.  My purpose in life helps me do this.

As you know, I’m a career success coach.  My purpose is to help other people create the life and career success they want and deserve.  That’s why I am a career success coach.  To me this is a worthy purpose.  More important, it’s a purpose that makes me happy.

As I’m writing this, I keep seeing a tweet by the mythical Frank Tyger that has been re-tweeted at least 10 times in the past hour.  “Doing what you like is freedom.  Liking what you do is happiness.”

All of this goes back to Tweet 9 in Success Tweets.  “Things don’t make you happy.  Happiness comes from doing something of value.”  Success Tweet 4 says, “The mightier your purpose, the more likely you are to succeed.  It will give you a strong foundation when the winds of change shift.”

If you want to create a mighty life purpose, it’s a good idea to write a life purpose statement.  However, many people tell me that they have tried to write a life purpose statement with little success.

Steve Pavlina offers a common sense, four-step approach to finding your life purpose.  I really like these four simple steps:

1. Take out a blank sheet of paper or open up a word processor where you can type (I prefer the latter because it’s faster).
2. Head it, “What is my true purpose in life?”
3. Write an answer (any answer) that pops into your head.  It doesn’t have to be a complete sentence.  A short phrase is fine.
4. Repeat step 3 until you write the answer that makes you cry.  This is your purpose.

That’s it.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a counselor or an engineer or a bodybuilder.  To some people this exercise will make perfect sense.  To others it will seem utterly stupid.  Usually it takes 15-20 minutes to clear your head of all the clutter and the social conditioning about what you think your purpose in life is.  The false answers will come from your mind and your memories.  But when the true answer finally arrives, it will feel like it’s coming to you from a different source entirely.

I love Steve’s simple common sense approach to finding your life purpose.  As a career success coach, I suggest you try it if you don’t have a clear statement of your life’s purpose.

However, once you find your life purpose, you have to live it every day.  This blog is one way that I live my purpose every day.  I post five days a week.  That means that five days a week I write 800 to 1,200 words on career and life success and post it here.  My daily success quotes are another way I live my purpose every day.  If you want to receive these daily quotes, go to www.BudBilanich.com.  Enter your name and email address in the box at the top right of the page.

My books are another way I live my life purpose every day.  I write books to help me clarify my thinking on life and career success – and to help others apply my career success coach thoughts to create their life and career success.

What is your purpose in life?  I hope it’s not getting more things.  I hope it has something that is bigger than you; something that benefits others and all of us in general.  I hope it’s mighty.

Once you have determined your life purpose, ask yourself what you do to live it every day.  Then start doing that every day.  Doing something every day that reinforces your life purpose is the best way to creating a happy life and career success.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people identify their purpose in life and then pursue it with passion.  They follow the advice in Tweet 9 in Success Tweets. “Happiness doesn’t come from getting more things.  It comes from finding a worthy purpose and pursuing it.”  Follow Steve Pavlina’s advice to develop your life purpose.  Ask yourself, “What is my true purpose in life?”  Keep listing answers until you find one that makes you cry.  Once you get to this point, dry your tears and begin doing something every day to live that purpose.  The old saying, “Whoever dies with the most toys wins,” is just flat not true.  As George Bernard Shaw says, success comes to those who are “used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature.”  I choose to be a force of nature, not a collector of things and toys.  I hope you do too.

Yes, money does make the world go ‘round.  We all need money.  It is difficult to live with little or no money.  But I suggest that choosing a career solely on the basis of the money you can make is not a good idea.

John D. Rockefeller, once the richest man in the USA, said, “If your only goal is to become rich, you’ll never achieve it.”

This is great common sense career success advice.  Your goals in life should be more than just making money.  Your goals should spring from your purpose in life, your passion.  This isn’t to say that you should choose a career in which you can make little or no money.  Choose your life’s work based on what you love to do, and you’ll find a way to make money.  The old saying, “Do what you love, and the money will follow,” is true.

Michelle Schubnel is a coach to coaches.  She runs a program called Coach and Grow R.I.C.H.  Her R.I.C.H. acronym applies here:

R = Rewarded
I = Inspired
C = Confident
H = Happy

I think this is a great way to think about making money and being useful in this world.  You are rich when you are: rewarded for your contributions; inspired by what you do; confident as a professional; and happy with the way you spend your time.  Let’s talk about each of these.

Rewarded – We all deserve to be appropriately compensated for the work we do and the value we bring to others.  This means that you shouldn’t feel bad about making money, only that making money shouldn’t be your sole goal in life.  Some might say that the current financial crisis is the result of some people who valued making money at the expense of others.  Do your job, get good at it and the money will follow.

Inspired – You can find inspiration in the work you do every day.  If you’re a realtor like my niece, Morgan, you can be inspired when you help a person or a couple find the home of their dreams.  If you’re a pharmaceutical sales rep, you can be inspired by the fact that you’re helping doctors understand how the medicines your company makes can save lives.  My dad was a steel worker for 37 years.  He found inspiration in the buildings and bridges he helped build.  I find inspiration every time someone leaves a comment on this blog or tells me that one of my tweets made a difference in their life.

Confident – Doing something you love, doing it well and being useful in this world will build your confidence.  Your confidence grows as your skill level grows and you begin to make bigger contributions at work and in the world.  A world of confident people would be a wonderful place to live.  Confident people see the world from a win-win perspective.

Happy – When are you happiest?  I’m willing to bet it’s when you accomplish something – or help someone else accomplish something – not when you get your pay check.  When you do something you love everyday you can’t help but be happy.  I am happiest when I finish a book.  Writing a book takes a lot of time and effort.  And, I’m a perfectionist.  I want to make sure my books are the best I can make them, so I put in a lot of time and effort making sure they’re just right.  And, you know what?  I’m really happy when I first hold a copy of one of my books in my hand.  At that moment, I know the work was worth it.  I’m happy when I help others succeed too.  I love the moments when I can see the light go on in one of my career success coach client’s eyes.  I love it when I help other people get it.

I saw a young woman wearing a T shirt the other day that made a profound point.  On the front it said, “Wealth is not the opposite of poverty.”  On the back it said, “Enough is the opposite of poverty.”  This message goes to the heart of the message in Tweet 8.  Successful people know what “enough” is for them and their family.  They are happy with enough.  They pursue a life and career that fulfills them.  They know that being rich is more than having a lot of money.

If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that my mom passed away a little over a year ago.  She was one for schmaltzy cards.  I’m not.  But several years ago, she sent me a card on my birthday.  I cut out the message and taped it to my printer.  I look at it several times a day…

“That man is a success who is happy with himself and gives happiness to others; who makes the world a better place simply by being a part of it.”

My mother believed this about me.  I do my best to live up to it every day.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people see money as the byproduct of their work – not as their sole reason for working.  They follow the advice in Tweet 8 in Success Tweets.  “Don’t focus just on making money.  If you do, you’ll be asking too little of yourself.  Focus on how you can be useful in this world.”  Successful people know that being rich doesn’t mean you have tons and tons of money.  They know that being rich means that you are: Rewarded for your contributions; Inspired by what you do; Confident in your skills, and Happy with the way you spend your days.

Morgan O’Reilly is my niece.  I love her dearly.  Ever since I can remember, Morgan has been interested in houses and decorating.  I remember her visiting Cathy and me when she was about 12.  She wanted to explore Denver’s neighborhoods; she was very interested in the different types of houses and how prices varied from neighborhood to neighborhood.  I remember telling her that she should get into real estate.

Morgan graduated from high school and enrolled at Florida State where she studied fashion merchandising.  After graduation she got a job as an assistant buyer with a large and profitable retailing chain.  She got a couple of promotions and was doing quite well.  She was moving up the ladder there.

But she wasn’t happy.  Not only did she not love her work, she came to dislike it.

She decided that she needed to change careers.  She thought about what she really loves, and it turned out to be houses and decorating.  She concluded that real estate was a good fit for her.  Unfortunately, real estate is a tough 100% commission business.  That’s the reason why Morgan didn’t get into it right out of college.

But this time, she decided that real estate was the right career for her.  She discussed it with her husband Aaron, and together they decided that they could forgo her salary for several months.  She interviewed and got a job with Keller Williams, a large national real estate firm.  She took a certification exam prep course and nailed the practice exam.  In fact, she got a hundred – excuse this uncle’s bragging.  She passed the Florida state licensing exam – they don’t give scores to people who pass, so she doesn’t know how well she did.  I’m sure she passed by a wide margin.

When Morgan resigned her job with the retailer, they offered her a promotion.  She didn’t even think twice about turning it down.  She is starting her career in real estate.  She isn’t looking back.

As a career success coach – and her uncle – I say, “Good for you, Morgan.  You’ve found a career you love, and you’re putting all of your heart and soul into it.  I’m proud of you.”

Morgan is working in the Jacksonville Beach, FL area.  If you, or anyone you know is interested in buying property there, get in touch with her at moreilly@comcast.net.  Tell her I sent you.

The common sense career success coach point is simple.  Remember Tweet 7 in Success Tweets when you are thinking about your life’s purpose and work.  “Figure out what you really want to do.  Work you love will make it easier to create the life and career success you want and deserve.”  Work you love doesn’t seem like work.  It is enjoyable and fun.  Morgan O’Reilly, my niece, recently made a career change.  She went from being a buyer with a large national retailer to a career in real estate.  She didn’t like retailing.  She loves real estate – especially matching buyers and houses.  Since she made this move within the month, it’s too early to tell how well she’ll do.  However, from her enthusiasm, and perfect score on the licensing exam practice test, I’m sure she’s going to kick some serious butt.

This means that you need to choose the career you love – not what others want you to love.  Parents, friends and peers mean well when they try to steer you into a career they think is right for you.  But, parents, friends and peers are not you.  You know what’s best for you.

Many people apply to medical or law school because their parents want them to become a doctor or a lawyer.  However, after a year or two of school, or worse yet, a year or two of practice as a doctor or a lawyer, some of these people figure out that they aren’t living their life purpose, they’re living the life their parents want for them.  And, they have a mountain of student loan debt.  These folks become angry and bitter.  They spend a lifetime going through the motions, never really developing that sense of happiness and career success that comes from doing what they love and what they choose to do.

We all have to find our passion in life and pursue it.  I had a double major at Penn State, broadcast journalism and human development.  My senior year I had an internship at a television station in Scranton PA.  I did well in the internship.  As luck would have it, one of the reporters announced his plans to leave the station right about the time I was to graduate.  The News Director liked me and offered me a reporter job.  I was flattered and really tempted to take it.  This was a rare opportunity.  In those days, most people coming out of college had to spend a few years in radio news prior to moving to TV.  Yet, I was lucky enough to receive an offer at a TV station right out of school.

However, there was one small problem.  I had already committed to doing a year of service as a VISTA Volunteer.  I could have backed out of that commitment, but my personal ethics wouldn’t let me do so.  I turned down the TV news job.  The News Director and my Journalism advisor at Penn State did their best to convince me that this was a special opportunity and that there would be no guarantee that I would be able to secure a similar offer one year later.  They had my best interests in mind.  They wanted me to get off to a running start in the world of TV news.

I chose to stick to my commitment of a year of service.  And I’m glad I did.  That year of service opened my eyes to career possibilities I didn’t know existed.  After my year of service, I took a job that helped me identify my purpose in life – helping others grow and succeed.  To paraphrase Tweet 5, I made sure that my personal mission and vision were what I wanted – not what my professor, boss, and parents for that matter – wanted for me.

These people were all well-meaning.  My professor saw some promise in me.  He liked my writing style.  He thought I would be a great TV news writer.  Besides that, he saw his students’ work in the broadcast journalism field as part of his legacy.  The News Director saw an opportunity to fill a vacancy with a proven commodity.  My parents thought a “real job,” as opposed to a year of service, was better for me.

However, I had to decide.  And, I made the correct decision.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people look deep inside themselves to discover their purpose and direction in life.  They listen to, even solicit, advice from people they respect and trust.  But when it comes to creating their personal mission and vision, they follow the advice in Tweet 6 in Success Tweets: “Make sure that your personal mission and vision are what you want – not what someone else wants for you.”  It’s your life and your career.  You have to live it.  That’s why you have to choose your personal mission and vision based on what’s right for you – not what other people think is right for you.  Other people, particularly those close to you, have your best interests at heart.  That’s why you should listen to what they have to say; but you need to make the final decision on your personal mission by yourself.  That’s the first step in taking personal responsibility for your life and career success.

Your personal vision is the direction in which you are going in the short to medium term – usually the next three to five years.  Unlike your mission, your vision should change with the times.  It should be consistent with your mission, but should reflect the new goals you set for yourself as you move forward in your life and achieve some measure of career success.
As the tweet says, your vision should always be a BHAG – a big hairy audacious goal.  You need to create a vision that will challenge you and motivate you – it should be big and hairy and audacious.  What’s your big hairy audacious goal for the next year?  Three years? Five years?  Ten years?

I like the word “audacious” in the BHAG idea.  According to Dictionary.com, audacious is defined as: “extremely bold and daring, brave, fearless, original, without restriction to prior ideas, highly inventive, unrestrained, uninhibited, bold in defiance of convention.”

Do these words inspire you or frighten you?  I hope they inspire you to be bold and daring, fearless and original when it comes to creating your personal vision.  Don’t be constrained by convention, or restricted by prior ideas.  Be highly inventive.

I’ve shared my current vision in a previous post.  It comes in a one-year and a five-year time frame.

Create a profitable internet business that will allow me to share my optimistic message on career and life success and help as many people as I can.
Make 100% of my income from the Internet five years from now.

This Vision is a BHAG for me; it’s audacious.  I’m on a steep learning curve when it comes to Internet marketing.  Accomplishing my personal vision is going to take more than a little luck — and a lot of persistence.  But that’s OK – I realize my vision is a BHAG, and I’m willing to take the risk of stating it in public and committing to doing the work to make it a reality.  I’m choosing to be bold and daring as I enter the next phase of my life.

So what does this mean for you?  It means that you too should be bold and daring as you create your personal vision.  Don’t be constrained by convention; see yourself as an audacious success three to five years in the future.  That’s how you become a career success.

Your mindset makes all the difference.  You need to be willing to commit to doing things differently.  As the saying goes, you need to be willing to give up what you are for what you can become.  The first step in creating a personal vision that is a BHAG is to determine your goal for the time frame you choose.  As you see, I’ve created a one-year and five-year goal.  Your goal should be very focused.  It should be difficult to achieve – or it’s not a BHAG.  Your personal vision should stretch you past your comfort zone.  It should be life-changing.  It should build on the momentum you have going.  It should excite and stimulate you.  It should be something that is really worth accomplishing.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people clarify their purpose and direction in life.  Your purpose is your personal mission.  Your direction is your personal vision – what you will accomplish in the next three to five years.  As Tweet 5 in Success Tweets says, “Your vision should be a BHAG; a Big Hairy Audacious Goal.  Make it something that is really worth accomplishing.”  Your personal vision should be bold and daring, original, not restricted by your past way of thinking, highly inventive, unrestrained and uninhibited.  In short – think big, think outside the box, think about what you can become, not what you are today.

I’m a sixties guy.  After all these years, my favorite recording artist is still Bob Dylan.  My favorite Dylan song – and maybe my favorite song ever — is “Forever Young.”  He rerecorded and re-released it recently.  Pepsi has picked it up and is using it in its ads that run on NFL games.  I used one of the lines from it to introduce my bestselling book, Straight Talk for Success – “May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung.”

Check out some of the other lyrics…

“May your hands always be busy.
May your feet always be swift.
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of change shift.”

By now you may be saying, “Get to the point, Bud.”  So I will.  You should begin your success journey by clarifying your purpose in life.  Why are you on this earth?  What are you meant to do?  I believe that the more mighty this purpose, the more you are likely to succeed.  A mighty purpose gives you that strong foundation “when the winds of change shift.”

Brad Swift of the Life On Purpose Institute makes a great point about clarity of purpose…

“Taking a bold stand for living on purpose starts by knowing your purpose with crystal clarity — knowing it so well that if someone woke you up at 3:00 in the morning and asked you what your life purpose is, you’d be able to tell them.  And if someone who knew you well heard what you said, they’d realize that your life was a true, authentic reflection of that purpose.”

There are two common sense points on which I want to focus here.  First, your clarity of purpose should be so big, so mighty, so important to you, that it is deeply ingrained in your psyche.  It has to be part of who you are.  Second, you have to live your clarity of purpose 24/7/365.  This takes commitment; commitment to determining your life’s purpose, and commitment to living it.

If you were to wake me at 3:00 in the morning, shine a light in my face and ask me for my life’s purpose, I’m sure I would say, “Helping people create successful lives and careers.”  It’s that much a part of me.  My elevator speech begins, “Hi, I’m Bud Bilanich, the Common Sense Guy; I help people create successful lives and careers by applying their common sense.”

For me, this is a mighty purpose.  I’m helping other people find career success — and fulfillment in their lives.  That’s important work in my book.  I take immense satisfaction out of seeing others learn, grow and succeed.  In another life I might have been a teacher or athletic coach.  In this life, I help people create the life and career success that they want and deserve.

There is an old saying that goes something like, “The problem is not in setting your goal too high and not reaching it.  The problem is setting your goal too low and achieving it.”  I can’t remember the exact quote or the attribution.

What is your purpose?  Is it mighty?  I hope so.

The common sense career success coach point of this tweet is simple.  Successful people think big.  They ground themselves in a mighty purpose.  Tweet 4 in Success Tweets says, “The mightier your purpose, the more likely you are to succeed.  It will give you a strong foundation when the winds of change shift.”  Take this advice to heart.  Ground yourself with a mighty purpose.  It’s better to aim too high and fall a little short than it is to aim too low and reach your goal.  Or, as Mario Andretti once said, “If you’re in complete control, you’re probably not going fast enough.”  Think about it.

Check it out…

So….someone on Twitter asked me “Does all of this leadership and success material really work? Or is it all (expletive deleted).” A little cynical, no?

I haven’t replied as yet. But I wanted to use her tweet to make a point. With great respect…

“Nothing (no book/online course/event/idea) works until you make the time and commitment to DO THE WORK.”

Success is less about learning superb ideas and more about having the guts/patience/focus and smarts to get the ideas DONE.

Ultra-successful people are just uncommonly skilled at execution. And we all can get to this place. Via daily practice.

So to kick start your best life, I wanted to show you how much I’m trying to help by giving you a wealth of free resources.

These have taken me a lot of time and money to create and edit and prepare. All I ask is that you share them with 3 people today. So I get to feel I’m making more of an impact on people’s lives. And that you ACT on them. With speed. Please.

Click here for The Free Resources: http://www.robinsharma.com/blog/05/how-to-achieve-your-goals-fast/

Hope this all helps. Together, let’s shatter your past limits. And help you impact THE WORLD.

All green lights,

Robin

This is tremendous life and career success advice.  Nothing works – unless you are willing to put in the time and effort to make it work.  Take this advice to heart the next time you are considering purchasing some new life and career success product.

The other day, I was having a conversation with one of my career success coach clients.  We were discussing clarity of purpose and direction.  She said that she read a blog post on clarity of purpose and direction that I wrote and got confused by all of the different words that came up when she thought about clarity – words like purpose, direction, mission and vision.

This got me thinking.  If she gets confused about the semantics of clarity of purpose and direction, I bet others do too.  Below, I have defined these terms for you in a manner that will help you create your personal clarity of purpose and direction.

As I begin, please note that these are the working definitions that I use with my career success clients.  You may have seen other definitions for these terms.  I am presenting these definitions here to help you better understand how I use them in my model – not as the “correct” definition of these terms.

For our purposes here, I define the word “mission” as follows…

• Your reason for existing.
• Your passion.
• Why you are on this earth.

This isn’t always easy to discover.

If you’re young and still trying to figure out your mission, don’t worry.  It takes time.  That’s why I always tell people to be open to new ideas and thoughts, as you never know what you might pick up.

If you’d told me when I was in high school that my mission would be to help others succeed, I would have laughed.  It took several courses in college and a year of service as a VISTA Volunteer for me to figure it out.  That’s when I began my career in the human development field.

Your mission needs to come from deep inside you.  It is unlikely to change over the long run.  I’ve had lots of different jobs in lots of companies and have been self-employed for over 20 years.  Through all the changes, one thing has remained constant – my desire and passion for helping others succeed.  In my heart of hearts, I know that I am on this earth to help others navigate the ambiguities of life in order to reach their goals.

Here is my mission…

To help others achieve the career and life success that they want and deserve by applying their common sense.

It hasn’t changed since I was 23 years old.  This mission reflects who I am and why I get up every morning.  It’s what’s right for me.

What’s right for you?  What is your passion?  What is your reason for living?  Why are you on this earth?

Think of your vision as…

• Where you are going.
• What you will achieve in the next 1, 5, 10, 20 years.

Unlike your mission, your vision will change over the course of your life and career.  Early in my career I was working for the government training other people to be VISTA Volunteers; my three-year vision was to get a Master’s Degree at night and to parlay that into a training and development job in business.  Notice that this vision fit into my mission of helping others succeed in their lives and careers, but it had a specific short-term time frame.

When I was in my 30’s my vision shifted.  It became “to create a successful career success coaching, consulting and speaking business.”  Your vision needs to be consistent with your mission.  However, unlike your mission, your vision should change as you grow and develop in your career.

Finally, your vision should always be a BHAG – a big hairy audacious goal.  I first saw this term in Jim Collins and Jerry Porras’ great book, Built to Last.  You need to create a vision that will challenge you and motivate you – it should be big and hairy and audacious.  What’s a big hairy audacious goal for your next year?  Five years?  Ten years?

My current vision comes in a one-year and a five-year time frame.

Create a profitable Internet business that will allow me to share my optimistic message on career and life success and help as many people as I can.

Make 100% of my income from the Internet five years from now.

Notice how my one-year vision is consistent with my mission of helping others succeed in their lives and careers.  It’s also a BHAG – for me at least.  While I have amassed knowledge about career and life success over a lifetime of work and study, turning that knowledge into information products that I can sell over the Internet is something completely new for me.  I’m learning about Internet marketing as I go.  With a little luck and a lot of persistence, I am confident that this will be a breakout year for me as an Internet marketer.

I’m also confident that in five years; I’ll be doing almost all of my business on the Internet.  I’ll be traveling for business only when I choose to do so.  This will be a radical departure from the 45 to 50 weeks of business travel that I’ve done for so many years.

So where does all this leave us when it comes to thinking about clarity of purpose and direction?  Here’s how I suggest you think about it.

Your purpose is your mission – your reason for living, your passion, what you are on this earth to do; something that is unlikely to change over the long run.

Your direction is your vision – short- and medium-term goals that define the direction you will take your life and career.

There is a common sense career success point to this tweet.  Successful people define a clarity of purpose and direction for their lives and careers.  Your clarity of purpose and direction should include both a personal mission (your purpose) and a personal vision (your direction).  Your mission is your reason for living, why you are on this earth.  It is unlikely to change over the long run.  Your vision is a short- or medium-term goal that defines the direction you will take over the next three to five years.  It will change as you grow and develop in your life and career.  Your vision must be consistent with your mission.

But 1995 was different.  Nelson Mandela, a black man, was the President of South Africa.  The apartheid era was over.  And the Springboks were invited not only to play in the World Cup, but to host it.  The 2009 movie, Invictus, chronicled that story.

Invictus is the story of the South African victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup.  That victory is credited for healing many of the wounds caused by the apartheid years.  Nelson Mandela consciously chose to support the Springboks – long seen as a symbol of white oppression in South Africa and hated by most of the country’s black population – as a rallying cry for national unity and putting aside the hatred of the dehumanizing apartheid policy of the white South African government.  The team did not disappoint.  They won the World Cup in a memorable match against New Zealand, then the best rugby side in the world.

Morgan Freeman plays Mandela in the film.  Matt Damon plays Springbok Captain, Francois Pienaar.  I loved the movie – it was right up my alley – about two things I love to discuss: politics and sports.  It was a bonus that it was about my favorite sport, rugby football.  I actually saw that famous 1995 match on video two days after it happened.  As I watched it, I commented that Pienaar was a mad man on the pitch that day.  He willed the South African team to victory…

You can see the rest of the article at: http://gonepro.com/blog/gonepro/2013/05/03/career-advice-for-former-athletes/

Let me know what you think.