Today, you might know Albert Yu-Min Lin as a National Geographic Explorer, entrepreneur, inventor, or an international keynote speaker. Back in 2008, however, Lin was just another restless graduate student in the Material Science and Engineering department at UC San Diego. He was finishing up his dissertation and unhappy with where his life was going. Then he made a decision that changed the course of his life. This decision literally took him from living in his car to exploring the world.

If you ever wanted to change your life to doing something you always wished you could do, then here’s the process Lin followed.

Start by answering one question: What would you do if money was no object?
At the end of his graduate career, when Lin was searching for direction, a friend put a question to him about how he would live his life if money wasn’t the object. Lin, an engineer by education, always wanted to be a National Geographic Explorer. He wanted to ride the plains of Mongolia on a horse and discover the tomb of Genghis Khan.

Commit to your dream
In order to achieve his goal, Lin completely committed himself to his dream. He sold all of his belongings so he could fund his research. At one point, he was living in his car so he could afford to pursue his goal. With the last of his last money, he traveled to Mongolia, making connections with the government, obtaining permissions for research, and making his plan to search the Valley of the Khans for the tomb of Ghengis Khan.

Make a solid plan and perfect your one minute pitch
Lin didn’t rely on inspiration and passion alone to achieve his dream. He made detailed plans and a timeline for success. He gave himself a year to complete his mission, and if he hadn’t achieved his goal after fully committing himself for a year then he would move on. This deadline inspired him to work hard every day. He spent all his time writing grants to get funding for his idea to find the tomb of Ghengis Khan using satellite imagery and non-invasive tools. In the process, he came up with the best one-minute pitch of his life for the project.

Seize your opportunity
Once he was prepared, he seized the opportunity when he saw it. The moment came in the form of a campus visit by the Senior Vice President of Mission Programs at National Geographic Society, Terry Garcia. Lin got a hold of his schedule and saw Garcia had a break between two different events on campus. When Garcia was alone, Lin approached him in the middle of the cafeteria and gave the best one-minute pitch in his life for investigating the Valley of Khans. Then, Lin wouldn’t let Garcia go until he at least had his business card.

Be tenacious
After that pitch, Lin worked even harder to win Garcia over. He wrote Garcia nearly every day for about half a year until Garcia finally gave in. Garcia told him he could come to Washington D.C. to pitch his idea to the National Geographic Society as long as he stopped writing Garcia emails. Lin came to Washington D.C. and won over the committee with his idea. He was awarded grant money to follow his dream of being an explorer and searching for the tomb of Ghengis Khan.

Since that pitch, Lin has accomplished great things such as searching for the tomb of Ghengis Khan and other non-invasive explorations of cultural sites around the world. Along the way he invented new crowdsourcing technologies for non-invasive research, co-founding companies based on the technology he invented. However, none of this would have been possible if Lin hadn’t asked himself what he truly wanted in life and then fully committed to his dream.