Lessons from how I did NOT pursue my passions.

Your Sherpa daily guidance...You can't save money if you don't earn money. As the old expression goes, "do a job you love, and you will never work a day in your life". Your best chance of loving your work is to pursue your passions.

Did I pursue my passions? Sadly, I didn't even consider my passions when I was 18. My dad was an engineer. My brother was away studying to be an engineer. I did well on the math SAT. So, I blindly decided to pursue engineering, too. When I entered the workforce, at least initially, I definitely did not enjoy being an engineer.

If I actually had considered my passions in high school, I may have connected some dots…my love of baseball, my analytical and mathematical skills, and a budding trend in professional baseball to look at old statistics in a new way. I could have been on the ground floor of the revolution in baseball analytics, well before the movie Money Ball. I could have reported to work at a major league ballpark. I could have interacted with major league players, for a living. It was/is an ultra-competitive field, but now I’ll never know!