DustinGTaylor.com

I don’t know how many times I’ve said this on this blog, but I’m getting ready to start this up again and be consistent all the way through now.

I recently read Gary Vaynerchuk’s book Crush It! and (a book review will be coming soon) and absolutely loved it.  If you are wondering how to get started blogging and living your passion in a way so that you can connect to those around you, this is a must read.  He starts out the book with three (3) easy rules to follow.  These are the three rules I would like to follow from here on out.

1. Love your family.
2. Work superhard.
3. Live your passion.

I expect them to come through in that order as well!

Here are a few things that I expect to do on my new blog: interviews with other entrepreneurs, others who are doing what they love, book reviews (personal goal is to read at least one non-fiction book a month), and begin to create a community where those who are looking to find what they love can find inspiration and motivation to continue down the path they’ve started on.  I also hope to share my experiences, successes, failures and struggles going down the same path as you.

I hope you’re following me on this journey.  I hope to talk about businesses that I’m involved in.  The good and the bad.  The struggles and triumphs.  Interview those who I see as already living their passions and how they got there.  I’m VERY excited about the new direction this is going.  I think I’m finally choosing to do what I want to do instead of what I thought I should do with this blog.

What’s holding you back from starting your dreams?

I’m a little behind on this considering my birthday was last month (January 14th), but I wanted to just have some fun with a little list of 23 things that I’ve learned and grown to love in my 23 years.  As you’ll be able to tell, I’ve still got lots to learn!  Considering my love for quotes in general, I have attached a quote that I’ve happened upon recently to each item.  Here we go…

• Love life and life will love you back – AKA – what goes around, comes around.  –

“Love life and life will love you back. Love people and they will love you back.” – Arthur Rubinstein

• If there are two ways to take something that a peer says or does, always choose the best one. –

“Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it.” – Anonymous

• Do what you really love, not what you’re supposed to love.  –

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”  -e.e. cummings, 1955

• Dream.  Don’t let others limitations reflect where your dreams start and stop. –

“The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers.  But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, 1996

• Dreaming and wishful thinking is only the beginning, action is where dreams become reality. –

“You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.” – Henry Ford

• The day is simply better when you take time to put the Lord first.  Reading the scriptures and praying in the morning starts the day off right. –

“At … moments of crisis and challenge, some choose to abandon faith just at the time when it most needs to be embraced.  Prayer is ignored at the very hour when it needs to be intensified.  Virtue is carelessly tossed aside when it needs to be cherished.  God is forsaken in the all-too-human yet mistaken fear that He has forsaken us.” – David S. Baxter, “Faith, Service, Constancy,” October General Conference 2006

• School and work should teach you to think, not tell you what to think.  Be careful which you choose. –

“An educated man is not one whose memory is trained to carry a few dates in history. He is one who can accomplish things. A man who cannot think is not an educated man, however many college degrees he may have acquired. Thinking is the hardest work anyone can do, which is probably the reason we have so few thinkers.” – Henry Ford

• Exercise, but do it in a way you love. –

“An hour of basketball feels like 15 minutes.  An hour on a treadmill feels like a weekend in traffic school.” – David Walters

• Stressing over inevitable things will NOT make them go away.  Simply take them as they come, one-by-one. –

“The field of consciousness is tiny.  It accepts only one problem at a time.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

• First impressions are important. –

“Everyone sees what you seem to be, but few know what you are.” – Machiavelli, The Prince

• Faith is a principle of action – nothing gets done, no matter how much you believe it, until you punch your time card and put in the work necessary. –

“Action alone is not faith in the Savior, but acting in accordance with correct principles is a central component of faith. Thus, ‘faith without works is dead’ (James 2:20).” – David A Bednar, “Ask in Faith”

• It’s easier to think, focus, and feel the Spirit when your home, car, clothes, etc. are clean. –

“Cleanliness is indeed next to godliness.” – Christopher Morley

• Always serve for no other reason than because you love and want to help others. –

“You cannot live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.” – John Wooden

• Plan. –

“Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.” – Tom Landry

• When all of your plans fall through, laugh. –

“Laughter gives us distance.  It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.” – Bob Newhart

• Money is a means to an end.  There’s a difference in having money and counting your money.  Money is the means, NOT the point. –

“Men for the sake of getting a living, forget to live.” – Margaret Fuller

• Know your priorities, set specific goals to help with your highest priorities.  Achieving those goals bring joy and a sense of success no matter the size of the goal. –

“When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life.” – Greg Anderson

• Always do what you say, when you say you will do it.  No exceptions. (See next point) –

“Promise only what you can deliver.  Then deliver more than you promise.” – Anonymous

• Legitimate excuses are few and far between.  Just do your best. –

“Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall.  Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day.  Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down.  And this is all life really means.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

• Whatever you do, do it with your whole heart and your best self. –

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” – Confucius

• (Almost) Every bad thing starts with an attitude of laziness or desire to get something for nothing. –

“In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.” – Henry Miller, The Books in My Life

• Say it how it is in the most loving, honest way possible. –

“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.” – Mark Twain

• If you don’t love life, you’re doing something wrong. –

“Life is good, if we live in such a way to make it so. [...] A ‘good life’ comes as a result of the way we do things, of the words we choose to say, and even of the kind of thoughts we choose to have. [...] ‘Wanting to’ is the determining factor which leads us to lay hold upon the word of God and be happy.  Perseverance in making correct decisions is what leads us to happiness.” – Benjamin de la Hoyas, “True Happiness: A Conscious Decision,” October 2005 General Conference, Saturday Afternoon Session

Work Ethic 2.0: Attention Control: One of the most interesting and accurate reads I have had in a long time.  It’s great to finally get someone seeing the future, especially with his comments about kids being addicted to screens before they enter HS.