I find it somewhat amusing that I have been on this planet for 26 years and have only known what I was going to do with my (professional) life for about two months. In the end, I was influenced in part by Jim Collins' Hedgehog Concept. As shown in the diagram, this concept basically encourages you to try to find the intersection of

1) What makes you money?
2) What could you be best in the world at?
3)What are you passionate about?

I think that it is easy to dwell on things that may only fulfill one of these criteria. For me, staying at E*TRADE, windsurfing in Hawaii, starting a business, getting a PhD, traveling, playing tennis, and doing pottery each fell into only one of those categories.

In pursuing an MBA in Brand Management, I hope that I'll be able to tap into each of those goals in order to fall somewhere in the center of the mix.