How many people you know are passionate about what they do for a living? Scott Dinsmore believes that we all have the potential to find and pursue meaningful work in our lives. What's lacking for most, in his opinion, is a supportive environment and community in which to cultivate and foster our career dreams.
Scott tackled this issue by founding an international community called Live Your Legend, which is dedicated to helping people find and do work they love. LYL currently has nearly 100,000 members from every country in the world.
Recently, Scott developed a non-commercial community called Live Your Legend Local. The goal is for it to be the equivalent of the Toastmasters Club for those who want to do exciting world-changing work. With LYL Local, no matter where you are in the world, you will be able to find a supportive community in your hometown to help make the transition to a career that matters to you.
To kick things off, Live Your Legend Local is hosting their first global gathering on Jan. 7. As of today, they have over 200 people signed up to host events in 134 cities in 42 countries around the world. After that, monthly meetings around the world will take place on the first Tuesday of every month.
"We could not be more excited," Scott said. "I don't think anything of this magnitude has ever been done, in terms of inspiring people to pursue meaningful work across the planet." You can find out more about Scott's personal mission to help people do work that makes them come alive by viewing his TEDx talk, "How to Find and Do Work You Love," which just recently reached over 1,000,000 views.
Scott initially connected with his passion for helping people find meaningful work when studying abroad in Spain during college. He said:
The experience turned my thinking upside down. I used to think that you live to work. I believed in the standard American definition of success, which is about status and money. There, I saw how people prioritized differently what it means to be happy and successful. They worked so that they could live. It showed me there's a different path. You don't have to fight over job titles and salaries. You have to define what success means to you, not what society tells you it should look like. If you can find a way to love what you do, that will make your life so much richer.
After graduating, Scott ended up working for the Gap in San Francisco. But he felt like he was pulling his hair out with the mindlessness of his day-to-day tasks. So after seven months, he quit. His dad gave him a copy of What Color is Your Parachute, and that career guidebook became his Bible. It taught him that you have to understand your strengths and go for a job that fuels your passion. And his passion, he quickly realized, was helping other people connect with their passions. He launched the Live Your Legend website, and has been the "go-to guy" for people looking to make career changes ever since.
I asked Scott what it means to him to live the Life Out Loud. He replied, "Be you. But first of all, you need to know who you are. That's the tough thing. I've taken dozens of personality tests, read books and case studies, and interviewed tons of people just to understand that."
It's not easy to find and do the work that you love, Scott warns. You have to fight for it. At the same time, he gets angry when people tell him they can't stand their jobs because he feels that finding their way to a meaningful career is totally within their power. "You can do it. You can live out loud and be you. You can wake up excited and use what you have to help people in a way that only you can."
Photo credit: Scott Dinsmore