I was perusing the webosphere during my lunch break today. It's been about 10 years since I've had a corporate job. As an entrepreneur, "lunch break" usually meant "working lunch" or "lunch meeting". The "break" part was sort of ignored - at least for me.
Since I've started working for someone else (my official start date was last Saturday), I'm appreciating why we have those breaks.
I'm still learning how to actually TAKE a break, since I was perusing the web, but that's another topic for another day.
Today though, I wanted to talk about unfulfilled dreams.
It was a sermon given by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., about a month before he was killed. In it, he talks about how David was blessed by God just because he had a vision in his heart (to build a temple) and did his best to see it through - even though it wasn't realized in his lifetime.
Several things came up for me that I want to share with you:
The dream needs to be in your heart and you need to be doing your best to make it real.
Life happens. I'm in the middle of a LOT of life happening. So much life is happening around me right now that, after nearly 20 years as an entrepreneur, I've decided to go back into corporate America and work for "The Man" for a time. How long? Not sure. Maybe this is an incredibly bad idea and I'll be back to my home office in a matter of months. Right now, it feels like 2-5 years.
Sounds blasphemous, huh? Sometimes, though, doing our best means taking care of the life happening around us so that we can better meet the challenges of fulfilling our dreams.
I have some unfulfilled dreams in my heart on which I haven't been doing my best.
I've got some BIG, GLOBAL-sized unfulfilled dreams that I can't fulfill right now unless I have the financial and emotional cushion underneath me that allows me to really nurture my dreams - without having to rush them to market. I want to create ease around developing my revolution.
I want to learn from experienced entrepreneurs.
This company is essentially a start-up, so I get to use my creativity and my entrepreneurial smarts as if these guys were just my biggest client, AND I get to stand shoulder to shoulder with a seasoned entrepreneur who can teach me loads more in a shorter amount of time than I would by learning the hard way in my business. I like to shorten the learning curve.
So I'm taking the next year to work with him, learn from him and help him grow his company. During that time, I'll be re-shaping my own path, my own business, and letting go of the old paradigms that won't serve my new direction.
I've been getting ready for my annual planning session, and I realized that I want to spend more time working on my dreams - which means letting go of projects and ideas that don't serve those dreams. I love coaching, and teaching, helping others to achieve their goals, and I think I've gotten pretty good at them. I've helped best-selling authors launch their books, increase their reach, and help businesses make multi-millions (I'm not kidding) of dollars.
BUT... that's not why I believe God put me on planet Earth. So I'll be phasing some of those things out in the coming months. What things? Not sure yet. My annual planning period is where I do most of the thinking on this stuff.
We are blessed just because we have the dream.
That kind of shook me. Because until today, I'd always felt like the blessing came after the dream was achieved. In fact, the blessing is in the dream. Jim Rohn said that everyone should aspire to become a millionaire, not because of the money, but because of who you'd become in the process. The becoming is the blessing. Just having a certain dream in your heart makes you choose, think, and act, differently than you would otherwise.
But when you can take action on it, and see it come to fruition?
I am reminded of the flying machine that Leonardo daVinci drew. He never realized seeing the flight of man - that would happen centuries later. But had he not had that vision, perhaps it would still be centuries from now before man learned to fly.
We need you to dream.
Those dreams and ambitions pave the way for the next generation of dreamers - even if they're unfulfilled.
What are your unfulfilled dreams? How can you find the blessing in just having them? Share your thoughts in the comments, or email me. I'd love to hear what's on your mind!