There's no IKEA manual for building a successful life

In a world obsessed with data, metrics and quantitative analysis, it's easy to forget that passion and perseverance matter more than anything else in our creative pursuits.

In a world awash with data, information and effortless access to both, we too often believe the key to success can be neatly explained, quantitated and analyzed for our own personal endeavors.

However, that’s not quite the way the world works.

As it turns out, not every success story can be turned into a “how to” guide or be used as a replicable template …