What were you born to do? I think a lot of us get caught up with life and don’t ask ourselves this simple question. Some people are working jobs where they make tons of cash in companies they care nothing about. So what’s the point? I want you to not just think about your outer-self and your financial goals but also your inner-self who needs to be fulfilled as well. Since I turned 25, I’ve been on a fast and furious mission to graduate college and change my life. I finally did last December. It took me 9 years. I like to think that I’m an expert student.

So what’s my dream? I want to be a computer programming/social media/blogging/advertising/freak. Since I graduated, I’ve been LinkedIn’ing, Tweeting, Facebook’ing and cyber stalking those who currently hold a job in my dream career and members of companies I’d like to work for. I’ve spent countless hours doing this. I mean, I don’t want to brag, but I’ve become a pretty good stalker :) Since it’s my goal, it’s been sorta like my full-time job. I want this bad.

One of the companies I started following this spring is @NYCinterns. Around the middle of March, I went online and saw that they were having a conference with a bunch of speakers from big name companies on April 21st. Casually I looked up flights, DFW to LGA, then closed my computer and went about my day. Later that week I told my girlfriend about it and she said, “How much is the entrance price and how much are flights?” She’s the more sensible out of the both of us. For a recent grad, I couldn’t afford a flight and the ticket to get in, so I emailed them and got a sweet discount. I booked my flight that same night.

So yesterday I went to the event. A great quote I heard from one of the panelists at the event was, “passion without execution gets you nowhere.” Real shit.

But passion isn’t everything. I’ve had no luck. A few empty leads & many new acquaintances. Luckily for me I love to ask questions and the answer I’ve heard time & again is:

“You need to live in New York to find work here.”

But see, if I move to New York with my life savings and no job, I’ll have to disconnect my phone. That’s the only sure-fire way to make my fiscally conservative Latino parents discouraging words disappear. I think they can survive a few months without hearing from their eldest daughter who just moved to a huge new city 2,197 miles away (I calculated)…right?

Since the event, I’ve been pumped and inspired to take the risk to follow my dream so much so that I haven’t been able to stop looking over my notes and sharing my experiences with my girlfriend and Aunt. I want to share everything I wrote down with all of y’all so here’s what I wrote:

• Finding your passion is easy, following it is the hard part. Don’t lose sight.
• Go at your passion like an assassin.
• The Onion- 89% of networking is non-consensual.
• Think about what you have to offer.
• Convey your passion in your resume.
• Ask for an informational interview.
• “Don’t get distracted by the no; focus on the yes.” @ardenfaye
• Get across why you feel the connection is valuable to them.
• write [email] “I’m sorry this is a blind pitch.”
• Center. Soften. Connect.
• “Ask for forgiveness, not permission.”
• When things stop being fun, it’s time to move on.
• watch Steve Jobs commencement speech 2005:

• Look up Bill Cunningham documentary:

• Look up:
• jobs at Google. @googlejobs
• Flipbook.
• “Daylighting”–working on side projects while at work.
• “In a creative career, you have to be willing to fail, then pick yourself back up every time.”
• “Failure is an amazing learning experience.”
• Get on Behance.
• “Push away the thieves of your ambition. Who makes you better? Surround yourself with those people.”

I hope my notes have inspired you to think about what your passion is and to take baby steps into making it a reality. One day, maybe even ten years after you first start, you’ll get there. As for me, I’ve made a few connections on this trip that I’m going to follow up on so I can be one step closer to my goal.