When I started out, I wanted to have everything solved by the time I was 30. That didn't happen. Instead, I realized that the journey is the destination, that the work.

Lewis Schiff

Categorized in : Wanted Journey Destination

During that time, I began writing and designing the propaganda that we distributed to the students who we were trying to convince to join us.

design writing trying

I found that I loved producing that kind of propaganda and I loved the power that a few students with a Macintosh computer could wield. I was hooked on communications at that point.

communication kind students

I went to work at political consulting firms, graphic design and communications firms and ultimately, magazines. Today, my career is in the media business. And more specifically, I'm in the "words" side of the business as opposed to video or music.

communication media careers

That being said, everyone of us can move a big step farther towards determining the direction of our own lives. We can all break free from group think. Some more than others. Most don't. Finding out who is who is great fun.

fun moving thinking

I believe that only a subset of us is meant to lead. The rest wan... by Lewis Schiff

I believe that only a subset of us is meant to lead. The rest want to follow.

i-believe want believe

On a personal side, I found Bo Burlingham's Small Giants to be a great window into how business can be an extension of social change and the critical role the entrepreneur plays in creating progress in society.

creating entrepreneur play

Because I work with entrepreneurs who own businesses, I have found Doug Tatum's No Man's Land to be a really helpful body of working knowledge. It's very applicable to most businesses that have the usual problems of growing businesses - managing people, capital, markets, etc.

land men people

I don't know if you hear this often but I would say The Razor's Edge (loosely based on a great W. Somerset Maugham novel). This was Bill Murray's first dramatic role so everyone thought he stunk in this deep character but I thought he and the movie were great. The movie takes place over decades so you see Murray's character go from goofy playboy all the way to wiser, older person. It's basically a movie version of the journey I described.

roles journey character

The work I'm doing today gets me one step closer to the work I should be doing tomorrow. And that the way I learn this is by trying, failing, networking and experimenting. I'll stop doing that when I'm dead.

networking trying today

When done right, working is a series of decisions that you make which allow you to refine and refine and refine your highest and best use. Ultimately, if you are lucky, you will find out where you belong.

lucky decision use

There is a direct line between the communications work I did to protest tuition increases at my school and what I do today. Plus it had one other benefit...it got me kicked out of college!

communication college school

As members of a minority, one that was often persecuted, that entrepreneurial perspective was burnished with a sense of "outsider" status - so not only were we committed to finding our own way of achieving success, we also grew up to believe that we'd have to fight to get whatever we wanted.

perspective fighting believe