Jonathan Coulton, once an average nerdy geek, pursued his passion and became the “Godfather of Geek Rock.” His story is a story of courage and is indeed an inspiring one. You can read it all here.

After reading it, I quickly extracted what I thought are the most important lessons.

1. He refused to live a life of fear and mediocrity:

Jonathan could have stayed all day in the office just like his other colleagues and continued a mediocre - or probably even outright miserable - existence within his cubicle, but he refused and he broke free. (Further reading: Overcome Fear By Not Overcoming Fear).

2. He wanted to set an example to his daughter so that she may live her dreams:

Think about it, how many of us want to see our loved ones, whether friends or family, succeed and make their dreams come true, but at the same time aren’t implementing what we advise them to do in our own lives? Kudos to Jonathan for leading by example instead of merely telling his daughter “honey, you can be anything you want to be. Just go for it and believe in yourself.”

3. He never gave up:

Whenever I come across successful entrepreurs, they pretty much offer a very similar answer regarding what they did that made them successful. It’s an answer that is short and straight to the point - persistence. They never gave up. Never. They just tried again and again, adjusting things on their way forward and figuring ways to do things better.

4. He did it one tiny step at a time:

It’s too hard and way too overwhelming to achieve your goals all at once. That’s one of the main reasons many people fear and walk away from big, audacious, scary goals. You must break it down. Jonathan did exactly that. He came up with one song every week and persisted.

So what happened at the “end” you say?

Well, Jonathan quit his job as a programmer and now currently makes more money doing what he loves than he did as a code monkey. Of course, this isn’t the end for Jonathan. In fact, it could just be the beginning of something way bigger.

Read Jonathan’s full story and watch him on video here.

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