Other Interests: pursuing your passion

Don't settle

Yesterday I posted what I thought were 2 separate notes: one on Peter Cook's cancer journey and a second reminding myself about my career journey and including an excerpt from a speech by Steven Jobs.

This morning I read Evelyn Rodriguez's article Don't Settle linking to my career post (for the Jobs' quote). Eerily however she begins her article by discussing The Cancer Code: How a Journey through Leukemia Led to Software That Changed the Way People Work (website) by Mike and Bettina Jetter. It is the story of a young software engineer who, told he is dying, writes a new type of software (which I am amazed to find out is now MindManager, the brainstorming software!)

"The Jetter’s software laid the groundstone for a multimillion-dollar, award-winning company called Mindjet. More important, the battle against cancer transformed their lives, helping them understand the true meaning of success."

Evelyn Rodriguez's article is a great reminder of the energy and creativity that we are capable of, even in the face of incredible personal adversity, as long as we remain positive.

The cancer journey: options for dealing with cancer

A year ago Senator Peter Cook was diagnosed with cancer. He was given a year to live. As a politician, part of his response was to establish an inquiry into the different forms of treatment available.

In delivering the Report of the inquiry into services and treatment options for persons with cancer , on the eve of his retirement from Parliament he gave a speech (pages 25ff Hansard 23 June 2005)in which he said:

When I was diagnosed I knew nothing about the disease. Initially it was a frightening and frustrating experience. With little or no knowledge I had to make life-critical decisions in an urgent time frame. Faced with that immense task it is very easy to despair and give up. What I needed was a rational evaluation of all the options—information on diet, exercise, emotional wellbeing and guidance on what was snake oil and what held promise among the alternative treatments. Most of all I needed advice on the various conventional therapies available. Eventually I found my way through to a treatment strategy that has given me confidence.

In all that I have learnt, I have learnt that there is no such thing as a silver bullet here—no single, one solution—and that the answer, if there is one, lies in integrating a number of treatments, or sequencing them in a way to make sure that one treatment does not negate or block another. The other insight I gained is that, as a patient, I had to take responsibility for my own healing...

Our report looks at the experience of cancer patients who have survived what many call their ‘cancer journey’— from the impact at the time of diagnosis through sometimes lengthy cycles of treatment. Others gain full remission or cure, or the knowledge that their cancer cannot be cured and they cope with maintenance therapy until they die—often of something else. One thing we do know is that more people in Australia are getting cancer, in all its forms, and that the incidence is going to increase as our population ages. I hope that our report, which quotes all the statistics, will help people who are currently being treated and significantly improve the outlook for those who are diagnosed in the future.

The report recommends a patient counsellor for each cancer sufferer with access to the different referral pathways and multidisciplinary approaches.(ABC News)

One year on: you've got to find what you love

It's been more than a year since I started this blog and just under a year since I finished as a partner at my old firm.  So, how has my new venture gone?

It's still evolving: it's too easy to get distracted by work and not spend enough time on thinking about the future.

I am enjoying the journey and the time I have with my wife and family.

And I am reading the experiences of a lot of other people who are on their own journey.

In You've got to find what you love,  Steve Jobs' Commencement graduation address to Stanford University, Jobs observes:

Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle...

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

UPDATE : Here's the speech on video

More reading

How do you define success? (Curt Rosengren)

It Ain't Hard (Evelyn Rodriguez)

Are you busy? (John Clark)