CREATE Work You Love Now, Not Later

"To do what you love and feel that it matters, how could anything be more fun?" - Katherine Graham

Well, the only thing that could be more fun is to do work we love, feel it matters, do it with people we enjoy and respect, and get paid for it.

If that sounds good to you, here's how I've been fortunate enough to create a "Katherine Graham Career," and how you can too.

Years ago, I worked for Open University in Washington DC. Part of my job was keeping my antenna up for possible classes. I was reading?The Washington Post?one day and noticed that the word concentration was used six times on the front page of the sports section.

Tennis player Chrissie Evert said her ability to stay focused despite the planes flying overhead was why she’d been able to win the U.S. Open.

A golfer missed a gimme putt on a sudden death playoff hole because he was distracted by the clicking cameras of nearby photographers.

A baseball manager blamed his team’s seven-game losing streak on the fact that players were thinking ahead to the playoffs instead of concentrating on that day’s game.

I was intrigued. And when we’re intrigued, opportunity is knocking on our mental door.

I thought, “We all wish we could concentrate better, but we're never taught how. It is the key to success in just about everything – business, relationships, sports and life – but I've never seen any workshops or books on this topic. And it?matters.”

So, I decided to research it.??I?developed a quiz with ten questions and started interviewing people to crowd-source content on how we can concentrate on and off the job.

Here are just a few of the questions from that quiz that elicited real-world experiences and insights that imbued my work with how we can get better at this important skill.

1.?WHAT does concentration mean to you? How would you define it?

2. WHO taught you how to concentrate? Who's a good example of it?

3. WHO is not a good example of it? Who is someone who's the opposite of it?

4. WHEN is a time and place you concentrated well? What contributed to that?

5. WHEN is a time you did NOT concentrate well? What compromised it?

6. WHY do you think it's important to be able to concentrate? What are the benefits?

7. WHY can't we concentrate when we want to? What are the blocks?

8. WHAT's your advice about how to stay focused - no matter what?

9. WHO is someone you recommend I interview on this topic?

10. WHAT is something else you'd love to know about this topic?

Then, write down your own best-practices about this topic.

How did YOU learn to do a particular skill? What is the secret sauce that makes you good at this? What do you do differently that other people aren't able to do - and they might be willing to pay you to do this for them or teach them how to do it for themselves?

Based on my research, I presented a public workshop with a step-by-step approach on how to concentrate at work, at home, in school and in sports.

At the end of the program,?16 people came up to ask if I would speak for their company or conference.

That launched a rewarding career that has taken me around the world and given me opportunities to work with NASA, Capital One, INC 500, Intel. It even resulted in a book that Dr. Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, endorsed, that has been featured on NPR, and in The Wash Post and Harvard Business Review (Ascend).

What’s this got to do with you?

Author Kristin Hannah says, "Finding your passion isn’t just about careers and money. It’s about finding your authentic self. The one buried under everyone’s else’s needs."

Is there a passion you've buried or set aside?

Want to see whether it has the potential to be transformed into a successful side hustle or satisfying full-time job?

Start reverse-engineering how you got to be good at this. Then, start interviewing people about this topic so you develop a body of work that features real-life questions, examples, and insights that makes your insights relatable and actionable.

You will quickly discover that people have different definitions and approaches to this topic that never would have occurred to you.

This diversity of input "fleshes out" your subject and makes it more valuable because your content is coming from "everyday" people who have learned these lessons the hard way.

Remember, waiting is not a strategy.

Print this 10W Quiz and start asking people for their insights about your passion topic. This can be the first step to creating a meaningful NEXT that lights you up where you're getting paid to do something you love that matters.

Who knows? It could result in a "best of all words" career that makes a positive difference for you and everyone around you starting today, not someday.

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This is excerpted from Sam Horn's book SOMEDAY is Not a Day in the Wee k, which has been featured on TED.com, HBR, CEO Reads and in many career book clubs.