Friday, January 11, 2013
McGovernTheory: Thoughts on Successful Living...
In reflecting on my career, I am come to appreciate that I have done many things wrong but also a few things right. First and foremost, I think the thing that I got right was the acknowledgement that in order to have a career, one doesn't have to dedicate and inordinate amount of time and energy but must be savage in their devotion to their trade/craft.
I am the poster child for the introvert community, yet I am savage when it comes to extroverted activities and the need to connect to others. I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn understanding who are the movers and shakers in hopes of catching an emerging trend before someone else. I use Twitter specifically
to connect, interact, and network with various communities of interest to me whether it is about enterprise architecture, information security, martial arts or even sophomoric humor. Through these interactions, I have been lucky enough to make some good friends.
I have been fortunate enough to find a group of like-minded individuals who listen to my rants and screeds and openly amplify them with passion. The people who have made me successful are the ones who themselves have embraced their otherwise unknown celebrity status to not just improve our trade/craft but to also improve the human condition. Whether it is support for noble charities such as the Wounded Warrior Project or initiatives such as Kiva, they are doing their best to help others do their best.
In the circles I travel, I have surrounded myself with successful people who are selfless. They are consummate professionals who engage in giving speeches at industry conferences, sharing their thoughts via blogs and even contributing to open source projects even though they have a day job and a family. They never make excuses about how busy they are and always find time to do the right thing.
