 |
|
|
 |
Monday
Motivation
9/29/2003 |
Dreaming big dreams, and making them real
 |
I've never been that good of a dreamer -- at least while I'm asleep.
My wife has amazing, vibrant dreams, while my dreams are more of the pedestrian variety. While I'm asleep, my mind wanders through work problems, takes drives in the country, or tries to find the right room in a strange convention center.
They're really boring dreams, for the most part. Oh, there is the occasional nuclear holocaust nightmare, and every once in a while, I fly across town, simply by flapping my arms up and down, but by and large, my nighttime dreams are mostly work-oriented.
I've always been amazed by people who have vivid dreams -- mostly because the few dreams I remember upon waking are usually pretty muted.
But wake me up -- and I really start to dream.
My most vibrant dreams occur when I'm wide awake, thinking about a challenge; that's when I can actively visualize the answer -- and that's when my dreams really come into their own.
Life needs daytime dreamers -- in fact our world depends on them.
Let me quote from a few of the really "big dreamers."
"People of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things." -- Leonardo da Vinci
Can you think of a bigger dreamer than da Vinci? Did you know that da Vinci, aside from being an amazing artist, also was a visionary? His attempts to draw the future have led some people to suggest that Leonardo was a time traveler.
Star Trek aside, it's unlikely he ever saw any part of the future -- except in his mind's eye.
"So may of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable." -- Christopher Reeve
Reeve, injured in a tragic accident, keeps fighting to regain his mobility, even though people keep telling him it's a lost cause. In the last year, he has gained some feeling -- feeling others have been telling him would never come back.
It's difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow." -- Robert Goddard
Back in the 1930s, Goddard pioneered the development of rocketry -- a quest that was later adopted by the German side in World War II. Goddard was dismissed by many in his own nation as a crackpot -- until the early Nazi rockets started to fly.
From Goddard, as well as many dreamers, we learn that persistence is the only key to getting your dreams into reality. There will be those who mock your dreams -- and yet those people are never the ones who cause great things to happen -- they are just the ones who follow blindly along after the future has come to pass, looking for something else to declare as "impossible."
"Build a dream and the dream will build you." -- Robert Schuller
Schuller, a noted expert in living your life in a positive manner, is right. By building your dream -- helping your dream to come to live, no matter what it may be -- you build yourself.
Many of the greatest men and women in our world have become great by following a dream -- and then recasting themselves to be worthy of that dream.
We should do the same -- dream great dreams, and actively work to become great enough to find a place in our glorious vision.
Many people have found themselves caught up in the reality of their dreams -- and as a result, they have made themselves better.
As the old adage goes, "It's better to shoot for the stars and miss, than to shoot for nothing, and hit it."
If you're not worthy of your dreams -- then now's the time to start to become worthy.
"What you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." -- Goethe
We usually don't think of philosophers as the "action-oriented" type. But, the much-quoted philosopher Goethe brings dreaming full circle, where it belongs. As long as your dreams stay dreams, they will be of no use to you, or anyone else. They will eat away at your self-image and reveal you as a sham, to yourself and others.
You see, dreams -- at least the kind you have during the day -- are really useless, unless they are followed by action. Dream all you want, but it's only when you actually start doing something that a dream turns into reality -- and despite the emphasis on "dreaming" in this week's Monday Motivation, we're really interested in reality.
When all the dreaming is done, that's where the real work starts -- if you want to be considered "visionary" instead of "dream-locked," what matters is the good old fashioned basics -- making a plan and executing it well.
If your dream is great enough, chances are you don't have all the skills necessary to achieve it -- as you currently are. Relax! Ability can be learned, bought, or rented -- through learning, experience, and other people.
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, had a bit of ability when he first came up with the vision for his company. He had financial know-how, a basic plan, and a lot of guts. But he didn't have everything he needed. He hired people to take the company farther, and as he hired them, he imbued them with a sense of his dream -- his vision for a better way to buy on the web.
|
|
I was one of the early customers of Amazon.com, and I've been amazed ever since to see what he -- and his team -- have done with the company. It is dramatically different than the way it started -- and yet it still is growing to fit Jeff's dream.
That's the way the best dreams are -- they take a bit of growth to achieve.
By following his ever-adapting plan, Bezos and his team have created a company out of just a dream -- and yet as soon as he started to work on the dream, it started to become reality.
Other great companies are much the same. When Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, first proposed overnight delivery, people laughed at him.
I'm old enough to remember the pre-FedEx days. At the time, I had a balky piece of high-tech (for the time) equipment -- and every time it needed a part, I wound up having to drive to the airport, after making bizarre arrangements with airlines, freight forwarders, and airline company employees. One night, I locked the keys inside the company van at the airport -- and had to talk a security guard into fishing the doors open with a coat hanger -- which they kept hanging in the trees in the parking lot, for just such an emergency.
I'll never forget the day I first had a part shipped by FedEx. I was flabbergasted. It was so easy!
As a FedEx customer, I have long been amazed by Smith's drive to turn his dream into reality -- and I have benefited from it time and time again.
Like da Vinci, these two visionaries saw something that did not exist. Although da Vinci never built the helicopter that he envisioned, both Bezos and Smith managed to build companies that reflected their dream -- their vision.
"Dream no small dreams" is the advice of the philosopher. "Plan no small plans" should be its corollary.
Anybody can dream -- what really sets aside the winners from the losers is action.
Put a call to action in your life -- and make your dreams into reality
Let me give you -- and me -- a challenge for this week: Dream great dreams -- while you're awake -- and then determine a plan of action to make your dreams reality. Then, put those plans into effect.
Do you like reading our weekly Monday Motivation feature? Help support WeekdayWisdom.com by making your purchases from Amazon.com or Nightingale-Conant through one of our links. If you'd like, just setting this link to Amazon.com (http://WeekdayWisdom.com/amazon) as a bookmark and then using it for your purchases (or clicking on any Amazon link on website) will give us a small percentage of your purchase, at no extra cost to you. It's much appreciated! If you're a customer of Nightingale-Com, just click on any Nightingale product (such as the ones below) and go to their website. It's the way we help pay our bills.
Copyright, 2003, by Daryl R. Gibson and WeekdayWisdom.com. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the non-commercial use of this document as long as it retains this copyright and all lines and images remain intact. This does not allow the compilation and marketing of this material, whether for commercial or non-commercial use. Join us at http://www.WeekdayWisdom.com.
