2 Incredible Success Stories Show Us How to Build Our Dream Career

Don’t be afraid to change and learn something new, while still leaning on your skills.

Christopher D. Connors
4 min readNov 18, 2021

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It’s incredible how many people are so afraid to begin again. To try something new. To (gasp) start over. For so many people, starting over means that we’ve failed. That we’ve lost time. It’s easy to think that starting over is an admission of guilt — an outcome that suggests we should start blaming and beating ourselves up over all of our transgressions, mistakes and efforts.

But why?

Starting over is not a bad thing. It may be the best move you ever make, particularly when you know in your heart you’re on the wrong track. But also, when life throws adversity and challenging circumstances our way.

Let’s face it — COVID-19 has dealt all of us a challenging hand. We must adapt and learn what we need to succeed in this ever-changing economy, or we will be left behind. The lessons to learn are all around us. They require that we change.

Because continuing doing the same thing, for the sake of comfort or fear of change, is further compounding a move in the wrong direction. Some of the most successful people we know today started over — and it made all the difference.

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it, begin it now.“ — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

From Teaching to Media

Jonah Peretti started out teaching high school computer science during the mid-90s for several years. He decided that he wanted to keep learning and try something new. Peretti attended graduate school at MIT and began growing and learning about new ideas. His big break came in a very odd way — an email that he sent to friends about a hilarious exchange with a Nike worker went viral and got him an appearance on NBC’s Today Show.

Peretti brought light to the sweatshop conditions that many Nike workers toil in. His move caught the eye of Ariana Huffington and Ken Lerer. Those three, along with Andrew Breitbart, went on to found the Huffington Post several years later — yes, the digital media news and opinion website that he later had a hand…

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Christopher D. Connors

Bestselling Author, Globally-recognized leadership speaker and Executive Coach to Fortune 100's; Seen on Fox, ABC, CNBC, etc.; http://chrisdconnors.com