Welcome to Ebere Samuel's Blog: Cadillac

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<figure class="article-image-container article-image-container-horizontal" itemprop="image" itemscope="" style="margin: 0px 0px 50px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><img alt="6, things, successful, people, know, about, turning, your, passion, into, a, dream, job, " class="photo-image-article-main enlarge-image" height="530" itemprop="contentUrl representativeOfPage" src="http://media3.mic.com/NTlhYTEwMGE2ZiMvODN0Nk4xeEVEUEl0V2FuUlI3Ul9xMEhSblBZPS8yeDQzOjEyODB4ODQ5Lzg0MHg1MzAvczMuYW1hem9uYXdzLmNvbS9wb2xpY3ltaWMtaW1hZ2VzLzI2MGJhNDk5MmE1OTdlMmY2NGQ5YzAxNTc1ZTQ5MjU0NzdkOGVjNzAwYzBhNDY4N2VjZWJjYjRlN2JkNTljZGYuanBn.jpg" style="border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; min-width: 350px; vertical-align: middle; width: 830px;" width="840" /></span><figcaption class="article-image-caption" style="float: left; font-style: italic; margin-top: 7px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">6 Things Successful People Know About Turning Your Passion into a Dream Job</span></figcaption><figcaption class="artice-image-attribution" style="float: right; font-style: italic; margin-top: 7px;"></figcaption></figure><div style="margin-bottom: 18px; margin-top: 18px;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://r1.fmpub.net/?k1=cmx-metric&k2=6025%7C107%7C334&k3=post&k4=&r=http%3A%2F%2Fad.doubleclick.net%2Fclk%3B280044678%3B106818832%3Bl" style="text-decoration: none;"><img class="no-lightbox" data-no-share-btns="true" height="83" src="http://media2.policymic.com/eac65c87649f8f91e50d282d6928d04e.jpg" style="border: 0px; float: left; height: auto; margin-top: -5px; max-width: 100%; padding-right: 5px; vertical-align: middle;" width="90" /></a> This post is in partnership with <a href="http://r1.fmpub.net/?k1=cmx-metric&k2=6025%7C185%7C492&k3=logo&k4=&r=http%3A%2F%2Fad.doubleclick.net%2Fclk%3B280044678%3B106818832%3Bl" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: none;">Cadillac</a>. It's part of a series on young CEOs and Founders who are disrupting industries, and the lessons they've learned.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A fifth grader from Georgia goes to space camp and experiences weightlessness for the first time. A few years later, he’s standing spellbound at an airshow. At 22, he walks into a conference room to broker the sale of a multimillion-dollar airplane and a business is born. Jamail Larkins, now 30, is the founder and CEO of Ascension Air.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It’s an incredible career full of lessons learned, and if you ask him about it, he’s still at the beginning. Ascension Air leases small aircrafts to pilots, who can then access a fleet of planes for a fraction of the price. It has 24 full-time employees and bases in Atlanta and Ft. Lauderdale and, with $8 million in annual revenue, it’s already a success. But his vision is bigger. Larkins wants to operate in every major metropolitan area. He wants to turn Ascension into a household name.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In an interview with <em>Mic</em>, Larkins, who’s often mentioned as one of the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mkk45jike/jamail-larkins-29/" style="text-decoration: none;">top entrepreneurs under 30</a> in the country, lays out some of the biggest lessons he’s learned about identifying one’s passion and turning it into a dream job. Because for so many young people who want to make an impact, the challenge is often identifying the what — what do I love to do and how do I make it happen?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="number">1.</span> Identify the experiences you can't shake.</span></span></h3>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Don’t waste a moment sitting behind your desk wondering, “What should I do with my life,” says Larkins. It’s the wrong question to ask.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The better question is: What experiences have you had that you can’t shake, that have had a profound effect on who you are? Build your identity around those.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Upon asking Larkins if there was a specific moment he could pinpoint, where he knew what he was going to do with his life, he laughs. He identifies a few different experiences that stayed with him instead, like going to space camp for the first time and later an airshow:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I thought it would be so cool to be one of those [pilots performing in an airshow] ... everyone just watching me.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">He kept following his interests. After the airshow, Larkins started taking lessons. A year later, at 14, he petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to let him fly solo. The FAA wouldn’t let him (you have to be at least 16 to fly solo in the U.S.), so he traveled to Canada, where the age restrictions are looser. By then, flying was his full-blown passion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="number">2.</span> Surround yourself with those experiences.</span></span></h3>
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<img class="enlarge-image" src="http://media2.policymic.com/edac98e0d33e46fe823888eb3c55fe6b.png" style="border: 0px; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: auto; margin: 5px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="310" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Once you know which experiences really speak to you, immerse yourself in a related industry.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When Larkins got back from Canada, he landed jobs selling flight instruction manuals and washing airplanes. He continued doing things that kept him close to flying.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I came from an average middle-class family. I realized as a kid that if I’m going to fly when I want to fly, I’m going to have to afford to do it on my own.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">That’s when the pieces started coming together.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="number">3.</span> Make connections and be ready.</span></span></h3>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It’s one of the most important lessons. Larkins does everything he can to stay up-to-date on the industry and the people in it — what they’re doing, what interests them — so if he’s ever in a room, he can connect with them and be ready for any opportunity.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Networking is huge,” he says. “It’s hard to describe how important the people you meet and know are ... and that’s really about preparation. Whatever it is you want ... you’ll never get it unless you’re ready for it.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When Larkins was in college, a wealthy friend was interested in leasing a plane. Larkins said, “I can help you with that,” and called someone he knew from Embry-Riddle, an aeronautics school, to help him broker the deal. His first one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="number">4.</span> People will discourage you, but forget them.</span></span></h3>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Don’t let other people’s hang-ups over your age, race, gender or anything else deter you. Larkins recalls walking into the conference room to seal that multimillion-dollar deal.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“The closing guy representing the company ... when I walked in, he looked at me like, ‘There’s no way that this is the guy signing the paperwork.’ Looks can be deceiving,” Larkins says, laughing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">No one knows your dream better than you do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="number">5.</span> Keep your eye on your goal and don’t stop.</span></span></h3>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Big dreams can seem so far away it’s sometimes hard to know where to begin. But if you have the guts to start, with every obstacle you overcome the more you’ll want to achieve.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Today, Larkins operates Ascension Air with bases in Atlanta and Ft. Lauderdale, but he has expansion plans that put every U.S. city in his sights. It’s a daunting vision that leaves an incredible amount of work undone.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“We’ve got a really long way to go,” Larkins says. “We may never accomplish it, but it’s the goal I’m going for.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="number">6.</span> Find role models and people you can learn from.</span></span></h3>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">You’re not the first person to walk this path. If you need inspiration, it’s everywhere.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I read a lot of biographies of people who have nothing to do with aviation,” Larkins says, “but are successful in their own way ... and I look at the things they’ve done and try to apply them to my own life.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Chances are, if you do the same, your career will start taking shape and bend closer and closer to the dream you’ve always had.</span></div>
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6 Things Successful People Know About Turning Your Passion into a Dream Job

6 Things Successful People Know About Turning Your Passion into a Dream Job This post is in partnership with Cadillac . It's part of...

6 Things Successful People Know About Turning Your Passion into a Dream Job

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