Dreams Enter the New Millennia

Posted on by

Big Dreams At a Conference

I am spending some time this week at the JuicePlus Leadership Conference. As a distributor for JuicePlus and Tower Gardens, Sherry and I are able to attend the conference, especially since it is here in Orlando. Our family has benefitted greatly from both and we enjoy sharing that with others.

A couple of things that really caught my attention about the conference so far:

1. There are over 5,000 distributors here. There are couples and individuals, women mostly but quite a few men, young and old. Apparently the desire to eat and be healthy and share that with others isn’t really limited by demographics.

2. Very reputable medical professionals like Dr. David Katz and Dr. William Sears spoke and endorsed JuicePlus and the Tower Garden enthusiastically.

Even more of what caught my attention is the people themselves. As I mentioned before, the people attending here spread across age ranges, cultural ranges, gender, body structure, and level of passion. But what they share in common is a desire to share healthy alternatives to the way we eat and, for a great many of them, how they fulfill their dreams.

See, some of the people here run this as a little supplemental income side business, but many are running this as their main source of income. Either because they were laid off and could not find work or because they always wanted to run their own business.

From a leadership (and good business management) standpoint, Jay Martin, the CEO of The JuicePlus Company (formerly NSA) and his team have gone out of their way to make it very easy to make this a business.

no overhead
very little management required
flexibility in what you offer and when you offer it.

If someone had dreams of their own business but worried about capital, stocking product, or handling process, this is ideal because it takes those roadblocks away. It gives hope to their dreams.

Dreams Leaving the Corporate World

More and more, people are seeing that placing their dreams in the corporate world just isn’t the same promise it might have been before; or perhaps it never was and people are seeing that now. College graduates are finding it harder and harder to get a job and it may not have the income they need.

The older workforce is being laid off by short-sighted executives who value savings in human capital expense more than productivity. As the 50 and over crowd gets laid off, they also find getting new work to be challenging at best and darn near impossible at worst.
So these people turn to entrepreneurial dreams in companies like The JuicePlus Company.

As Meridith Martin, the Director of Marketing Operations for the company said in her speech today,

“More of you are saying, I don’t need the latest version of What Color is My Parachute! I know what color my parachute is; it is Red, Green, and Purple!”

(Red, Green, and Purple by the way are the colors of the JuicePlus bottles.)

It seems dreams have entered the new millennia.

Dreams Like a Weakling!

Posted on by

Teddy Roosevelt was a Weakling!

It’s true. Growing up, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., the 26th President of the United States, known for his gregarious personality, adventure-loving and thrill-seeking lifestyle, leader of the Rough Riders, and one of the faces on Mount Rushmore, was actually a sickly, frail child. He was so asthmatic that he had to sleep propped up in bed. He had frequent illnesses. He was almost literally a 98-pound weakling physically!

I don’t tell you this to try to take down another public figure. If that was the whole story it would certainly be a negative, and malicious attempt to destroy someone regarded as one of, if not the, greatest Presidents of the United States. Obviously, however, he didn’t stay that way.

As Theodore (he actually hated being called Teddy) entered his teens he desired to become something more. Encouraged by his father, he began boxing lessons, working out, and reading a steady stream of books to improve himself. He quickly improved both physically and mentally and led a life of great experiences and adventures, including becoming at 42 years of age the youngest person ever elected President.

Even after that, he never stopped learning and growing. He read thousands of books over his lifetime (which meant several books a DAY) and legend has it that after he died in his sleep and they removed him from the bed they found a self-improvement book he had been reading.

You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream. –C.S. Lewis

Putting All You Got Into a Dream

There is a point here. Roosevelt had visions, he had dreams of what he wanted to be, and he pursued them with passion and enthusiasm. He had his detractors and enemies, including very famously Mark Twain, but never let it stop him or even slow him down. He continued to dream new dreams and set new goals, even up until he died. Despite his robust life, he battled Rheumatoid Arthritis most of his adult life and lived with a bullet in his chest for many years. Still, he kept on learning and growing and dreaming, preparing himself as well as he could for the next adventure and the next episode of his life.

Theodore Roosevelt knew you had to GROW INTO YOUR DREAMS!

They don’t just happen. You achieve your dreams only when you fill your pursuit of them with passion and enthusiasm, prepare yourself for when your dreams arrive, expect to achieve them, and pounce on the opportunity when it arrives. As Zig Ziglar says

You were born to win! But to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win!

Action Plan

If you haven’t written your dreams down, now is the time to do so.
Have it written down? Now, think about how life will be when you achieve it. You need to create a very specific vision of achieving your dream in order to commit it to your mind and develop a passion and enthusiasm for achieving it.
Now think about how you need to prepare for it. Consider yourself a poor marketer and know you will need to effectively market yourself to achieve your dream? Read marketing books and attend workshops on marketing. Need to develop your leadership skills? Find a leadership coach, attend workshops and seminars, join a leadership mastermind, identify your leadership strengths. Just need to grow yourself overall? Find a growth coach, read self-improvement books, join mastermind groups of other like-minded people to help each other grow. Preparation is key!

Get Your Dream Out of Your Head

Posted on by

A Dream in Your Head is Called a Fantasy

One of the things I have noticed in my talks with people about their dreams is how many have to search their minds for exactly what their dream is. In fact, that’s the only place they have their dream documented. “I have it all up here!” they proudly proclaim, yet seem to have trouble finding it in that filing system.

It doesn’t work! You need to get your dream out of your head and down on paper! When you write down your dream, you have made it more than just a dream. You have made it a goal. You have given it substance. As Napoleon Hill said in Think and Grow Rich

A goal is a dream with a deadline.

When you document it, you commit to it probably truly for the first time. Things written down tend to have more meaning and permanency to them, like an ancient king making a declaration and then saying, “so let it be written, so let it be done!”

If we put it down on paper, we put it not only in our minds but in our hearts as well.

Now when I say paper I simply mean documented somewhere. You can do it in Word on your computer. There are lots of apps out there for tablets and smartphones. I use Evernote because I can synch it between my tablet, my smartphone, and my laptop and access the same information everywhere.

However, you do it, DO IT!

When it is documented it takes on legs. And wings! It spurs you on to action so much more than if you simply keep it “all up here!” It creates a visualization that helps you really paint a vivid picture of what you dreamed about. It becomes detailed and real and tangible. You begin to see it, feel it, touch it, taste it! It moves from the realm of “one day, it would be nice” to “gotta have it NOW!” and you begin to build your case and your plan.

How to Record Your Dream

Here’s a few great ways to get your dreams down “on paper”. Remember that detail is important here. The more you write down the dream with all the trimmings — the who, what, when, where, why — the more real it becomes and the more likely you are to take action.

The simple one is…get a sheet of paper and write it down. Or buy a composition notebook. Or if you want a lot more guidance along this lines, buy a goals planner. Zig Ziglar publishes a great one but it can be pricey. Here is a shorter version you can download as a PDF. I used this and it was sufficient for the time being.
Use an online application or use Evernote to write down your dreams in detail.
Create a “vision board” using pictures to represent your dream or dreams. Vision boards are great because it completes that step of visualization, making your dream real and tangible, that we talked about earlier. If you want to have an online version of this, consider using Pinterest. You can create a page with your vision board and make it private. It’s about the only real good usage I have found out of Pinterest at all.

Action Plan

Set aside time tonight to think about your dreams. Brainstorm for 15 minutes and write down every dream that comes into your head. Don’t evaluate them, write them down.
After the 15 minutes is up, look at what you wrote. Pick out the top three to five to start working on right away.
Write them down in detail using whatever method you have chosen. But write them down, don’t keep them in your head.

Why is Your Dream an Orphan?

Posted on by

Dream, Wherefore Art Thou?

Where are you, RIGHT NOW, in the pursuit of your dream? You know, that thing you always kept in the back of your mind; the thing that would make a difference in the world and change things for the better and you would be recognized for the unique contribution you made. Where is it?

If you are able to talk precisely about where you are with your dream; you are living it or pursuing it actively, then you are commendably one of the few. For far too many, that dream is something that has sunk into the back recesses of their mind, either abandoned completely or placed into the bin marked “SOMEDAY”. The dream has become a lonely orphan, waiting for a forever place to fit in to your life.

Why? What causes people to abandon the dreams they had to make an impact and settle for a life being defined by others? They will send back a bad meal at a restaurant in a heartbeat, but accept in the rest of their lives whatever anyone else is willing to dish up. They trade impact and influence for a false sense of security and cubicle with no view. Why do they make their dream an orphan?

I have noticed several things to push people to abandon their dreams:

Others have discouraged or disparaged their dream. The world is full of people who have settled for less and want to make sure you do too. They will go out of their way to try to crush the dream and the dreamer, to instill feelings of inadequacy, to detail the reasons why they will never make it. They have accepted it for themselves and it makes them feel insecure or insignificant if you opt for something more.
They take failure to heart. For some, failure is a be all and end all. To them, failing even once means you should never try again. This condition especially can occur in those who are outwardly focused. Extraverts tend to be more sensitive to the thoughts and impressions of others around them. Being a high extravert, I fight this battle with myself every day.
It was never their dream. Some people have dreams planted in their minds by others. You should be a doctor. You should be a lawyer. You should be an accountant. Somebody else planted a lofty goal in their mind, but it wasn’t their choice so it never really takes hold, even if they once claimed it was their dream. Notice, by the way, nobody ever says you should be a garbageman or food service worker or pig farmer, despite the critical role those people have in our lives often on a daily basis.
Mediocrity becomes an accepted way of life. We are just like everyone else. The flaw in that logic is that we AREN”T like everyone else. Author Max Lucado says

You aren’t an accident. You weren’t mass produced. You aren’t an assembly-line product. You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on the Earth by the Master Craftsman.

Reunite with Your Dream

Adopt that dream again! You were not meant to be like anyone else and you certainly weren’t designed to be what anyone else says you should be!

Take that dream back out, dust it off, and re-examine it. Forget everything else for the moment; forget the how, forget probabilities and possibilities, forget logistics. Is this still your dream? Is it really YOUR dream? Then start right now to move towards it. Tomorrow is not guaranteed! You deserve a life of significance and accomplishment! Refuse to settle for anything else. When someone tries to serve you up that meal of mediocrity, send it back! Demand the meal that satisfies!

It’s your dream and your life; why not live it today? No excuses!

Action Plan

Get out a sheet of paper. Think about the dream you want to keep. Do not analyze the dream right now. Don’t rationalize or evaluate. Just write that dream down at the top of the paper. Write it out in detail, every facet of what you are visualizing in your mind when you think of that dream. What are you doing? Who are you serving? Where are you? What do you look like? Is your family with you? What are they doing? Every last bit of the vivid picture in your mind. Write it down!
Now write down below that specific steps to work towards that dream. What reality do you have to create to make that dream come true? Again, don’t think about arguments against it, just think about steps to move towards it.
Set the list aside and review it daily for five to seven days, then take it out and read it through and see how you feel about it. Does it still appeal to you? Does it create a strong sense of desire in you? If not, it’s not your real dream. Toss it out and write another. If it is, set a deadline for that first step.