There is no shortage of advice out there on how to achieve your goals and at the time of this writing, a Google search on "how to climb the corporate ladder" yields 2,000,000 results.
Aspirations more eccentric? No problem. Indeed, you'd be hard pressed to find a goal for which a guide doesn't exist.
Sometimes, though, the best direction to take is your own, as these two extraordinary stories illustrate.
In a short documentary, John Bramblitt describes how oil colors each have a distinct viscosity. White is thick like toothpaste. Black is runny like, well, oil. How did he discover this?
Out of necessity: He began painting after losing his sight freshman year in college, a result of a lifetime battle with epilepsy. To defy his new limitations, he deliberately sought out a visual hobby. He learned to feel colors. He found a fast-drying paint to create raised borders. He proved to be his most able teacher.
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http://blogs.hbr.org/recommended/2010/03/managing-myself-a-direction-of.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-DAILY_ALERT-_-AWEBER-_-DATE Rasika Welankiwar is an Assistant Editor with the Harvard Business Review Group.
