Dream Jobs are a passion. You would do them for free if you had to . . . but more often than not, they are well paid, high status jobs that consume you from the moment you wake up in the morning until the moment you go to sleep at night. As Warren Buffet said on CNBC :
"Find what turns you on and what you have a passion for. If I would have known that Bill's (Bill Gates) industry was the next big thing I don't think I would have done too well at it. I had a teacher Benjamin Graham that I offered to work for free for and he said I was overpriced but I went that direction and had a passion for it and here I am. You will do well in whatever turns you on."
Perserverance - You don't fall into a dream job. You fail at it repeatedly. You take one step forward and two steps back until you see daylight at the end of the tunnel. Get used to rejection. Don't believe me - Look at the number of rejections for some of the most popular books in the last 100 years.
Auntie Mame, Patrick Dennis (15)
Carrie, Stephen King (30)
Chicken Soup for the Soul, Jack Canfeld and Mark Victor Hansen (140)
Diary of Anne Frank (16)
Dr. Seuss books (15)
Dubliners, James Joyce (22)
Dune, Frank Herbert (23)
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell (38)
Harry Potter book one, J. K. Rowling (12)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach (18)
Kon-Tiki, Thor Heyerdahl (20)
M*A*S*H, Richard Hooker (17)
The Peter Principle, Laurence Peter (16)
The Prncess Diaries, Meg Cabot (17)
Watership Down, Richard Adams (26)
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle, (26)
Practice doesn't just make perfect, it makes genius. According to Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers, the difference between good and genius is the amount of time you spend getting there. Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours. Mozart, chess phenome Bobby Fischer and computing legend Bill Gates all did their time.
Environment - You won't find your Dream Job sitting on the couch in front of the television. You have to get out in the world - You're not going to be a travel writer if you never leave home. And while it does happen, you're probably not going to be discovered as Americas Next Top Model while your working at a Grocery Store in Dubuque. If you want to be an actor, go to Los Angeles or New York. If you wan't to be a Supreme Court Judge, go to an Ivy League School. Since 1950, 70 percent of Supreme Court Justices were educated at Ivy League Schools.
Gifts - Contrary to what your mother told you, you can't grow up to be anything you want. You may want to be a rockstar, a top model, or an astronaut, but if you lack the innate talent or physical gift, chances are you will not make it. Knowing when to persevere and when to quit is one of the most difficult decisions you will have to make in your life. The question you have to ask yourself it "Did I fail enough"
