I love the rich and picturesque questions submitted by 48 Days Podcast listeners. Here’s one:
“Dan, I believe I am at a crossroads. I am a product designer and I have finally achieved a life long dream of designing a product that will soon be released. One would think I would be at the top of my career and would be happy but I am not. To achieve this it has affected my life, health, and my new marriage in a negative way. While this has been going on I have been reading business books for the past couple of years and have been thinking I’m in the wrong place. I believe my passions are teaching, art, and then design. I had to become someone I am not to get employment in the first place (conforming to a corporate work horse) and this position makes me feel there is no soul in my work.
I feel as though I am in a gray world where I have been reading about a colorful distant land that is more of an idea than a real place. In my eagerness to get to that place I just fear I’ll get on the Titantic and then – you know the rest.
I know change is in the air. Just looking for the map.” Sincerely, Charles
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Here’s a piece from Seth Godin’s book Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
“Here’s the truth you have to wrestle with: the reason that art (writing, engaging, leading, all of it) is valuable is precisely why I can’t tell you how to do it. If there were a map, there’d be no art, because art is the act of navigating without a map. Don’t you hate that? I love that there’s no map.”
The concept is that successful people can’t be told exactly what to do. They have to release the artist within to find their own unique success.
Think about that. Do you need a map for everything you do? In discussing this with some 
brilliant friends recently they quickly decided we don’t need a map, but we do need a compass. If you’re in the middle of the woods a map will take you right back to the well-worn path and you’ll see just what everyone else has seen. However, a compass will get you to the desired endpoint but along the way you may see the baby fawns, magnificent waterfall, and other hidden treasures that have never been put on the map.
And that compass is having a clear sense of your Personal Mission in life.
If you need a map, your work may be predictable but boring. If you need a map, your religion may be full of rules but missing authentic spiritual experience. If you need a map, you may give your spouse a gift on your anniversary but be missing her real heart’s need.
Don’t wait for a map. A map will only take you where lots of other people have already gone. There is no map for your extraordinary success. Develop your compass – and see your life become rich and meaningful.
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Want to see a whole book of people who are leaving a trail? Check out Joanne Miller and Dorsey McHugh’s new masterpiece: Be Your Finest Art
Great point Dan and great post. Super cool about Joan’s book!
I love this – what a great comparison of a map versus a compass. It’s so easy to get bogged down by the details and lose sight of the forest for all the trees. In an age of information-overload, sometimes we need to put down the instruction manual and get back in touch with ourselves. We run the risk of looking outward so much that we forget how to trust our own intuition. Intuition, like a compass, is powerful. Being connected to ourselves and our surroundings, paying attention to what is going on inside of us and the external world is so important. We lose sight of that when we are simply looking for someone else to show us the way.
Ashley – well said. I love Seth’s concept that where there is a map there is no “art.” So we can choose to paint by the number – or create art.
It inspired me to write my own blog about this: http://mamasaysnamaste.com/do-you-live-by-a-map-or-a-compass/.
Wow, I love this post. I never thought of having a compass instead of a map, what a great way of looking at things. Thanks Dan!
Thanks for your comments. The compass gives us a clear direction but an unclear outcome – filled with possibilities.
Love this! Thanks for the reminder, Dan. I recently went to Kent Julian’s Speak It Forward Boot Camp and he introduced the idea of using a compass to find the next landmark. There is no set path for those of us creatives who want to find extraordinary success! It’s a scary but rewarding process. I love what Dave Ramsey says: “Live like no one else today so you can live like no one else tomorrow.” The old-fashioned “American Dream” hands you a map: go to college, get a job, grow old there, retire, and sit around for a few years until you die. I’d rather risk amazing success or failure on a daily basis than to know there is a reliable but soul-killing outcome waiting on me. The old system doesn’t even work anymore as we are seeing more and more layoffs and an unreliable corporate climate. Thanks for the resources and provocative questions!
Elyssa – wow you create a very strong picture contrasting the “American Dream” with the terrifying but exhilarating process of creating our own path.
Awesome post! Developing the compass is key. If we don’t take time to “sharpen the saw” and find the compass, we’ll rely on others to do it for us, and that is no way to live. Living authentically and with earnest passion comes from walking on that road less traveled with confidence and grace.
Jevonnah – you are so right. Brian Tracy says: “If you don’t set goals for yourself, you are doomed to work to achieve the goals of someone else.”
Personal mission link seems to no longer work…. please update.