Dreams Like a Weakling!

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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

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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?

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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.

Focus or Flurry – Is it Urgent?

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Focus Requires Urgent Action

All week the topic has been focus; the importance of focus and where you place your focus, the difference between being productive vs just being busy (focus or flurry), and I shared my personal story of how I am learning to focus my efforts in specific areas instead of trying to be all things to all people. I believe that personal growth is the first step in the process for everyone. Without recognizing that intentional personal growth is critical to your success, you leave “money on the table” in terms of how much more of your potential you can realize. You may even leave real money on the table by shorting yourself on growth. So, my focus will be on helping you grow and part of that is focusing on what you really want to achieve.

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Being willing is not enough, we must do.

Leonardo Da Vinci

What is Urgent to You?

What are the achievements that have your focus right now? Do they feel urgent? If not, you may want to re-evaluate them or their importance. The problem for most of us is a lack of urgency driving us. There is always tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. As Brian Tracy and others put it, so many of us live on Someday Isle. We talk about our dreams and say, “Someday I’ll…..” We rationalize away with reasons we can’t start now. When the economy gets better, when I have a little bit more money, when the administration changes. It’s not the right time. The holidays are coming up and nobody cares about this stuff during the holidays. Wait until after the holidays and come January I will get started. Then it’s recovering from the holidays. Then it’s too cold. Then it’s spring break for the kids. Then it’s Spring and we should spend some time outdoors before it gets too hot. Wait until the kids get out of school. Well, the kids are out of school and underfoot all the time. Wait until they go back to school. Then school starts and things are hectic and the school football team is winning and we must go to the games and then the holidays are coming and….there we are all over again.

Urgent Demise

The Law of Diminishing Returns, while originally an economic concept, also applies here in a different way. The law says that the greater the time span between when you get an idea or come up with a dream and the when you take action on it, the less likely you are to ever do anything at all. In other words, the longer you wait exponentially increases the chances that you never will. The longer you wait, the more it becomes just a dream. It’s hold on you diminishes with each passing day. That alone should create a sense of urgency for you.

Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.

Jim Rohn

Urgent Action

So, how do we avoid this? Mel Robbins, author of Stop Saying You’re Fine, tells people to apply the five-second rule. No, the not the one having to do with food dropped on the floor. In this case, the five second rule mandates that you must take action on an idea within five seconds of having the idea.

It doesn’t have to be necessarily massive action.

In fact, most of the time it is simply writing down on paper the first step you have to take to move forward and then set a deadline date.

Just that simple action, executed within five seconds after conceiving the idea, greatly increases your chances of doing that first action.

Many say that are waiting for inspiration or until they “feel motivated”.

It will never happen. Motivator and Success Trainer Frank Tibolt says

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration almost never generates action.

Decide to take action. Little bits add up as long as you keep it up. Start now. Make it urgent.

Action Plan

What is the one thing you have always wanted to do? What is one thing you can do right away to move closer to it?

How to Rejoice Always

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Rejoice – Enjoying What We Have

We All Ride a Roller Coaster

I try to be transparent with what I share here. The more you can see me, warts and all, then the more likely you are to realize that success in business and life is attainable; that we all have flaws, shortcomings, and challenges we face. Steve Jobs, despite his incredible vision and gift for marketing, had big character flaws. Same with Bill Gates, and many others. Ray and Maurice McDonald didn’t have the vision to make their restaurant a household name; it took Ray Kroc to do that. We ALL have hurdles to face and have up times and down times.

I share that because recently I have been having a down time. For a variety of reasons, things have not gone well in different parts of my life and I have gotten down on myself and doubts began to creep in. When that happens for me, I go back and look for things that remind me to re-focus and think positive.

Warning: The rest of this post will have a decidedly spiritual bent to it. I apologize if it offends you; I do not apologize for who I am and what I believe.

I ran across this: I have a card I received at a men’s group meeting years ago that I keep around. It is shaped like a stop sign and, in fact, on one side looks like a stop sign. On the other it carries this verse from the Bible, specifically from Philippians 4:4-7:

“Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS (emphasis mine)! I say again, REJOICE! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

Changes in Attitude

For me, of course, it is a reminder of where I have put my faith and my life. It is also a reminder that no matter what else I have things I can take great joy in throughout my life daily.

Let’s expand it beyond and see what we can find for everyone. When we have an ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE, we are better able to keep things in perspective. When we rejoice in the things we have that cannot be taken away, that the world cannot touch, then we provide a solid base for how we regard everything else that happens in our life. Once we have that perspective and are thinking in gratitude, therefore thinking positively, then we are better equipped to handle the crisis and not only survive but come out ahead. Zig Ziglar often said

“The more you express gratitude for what you have the more you will have to express gratitude for.”

Adopting the principle of rejoicing yields big returns; perhaps not always in the way we expect. Certainly, we all wish we had more money, more resources, more opportunities, more clients, more of whatever is on our mind right now. Yet when we rejoice in what we do have, we see that not only do we have a full cup but that it actually overflows. On the other hand, when we focus on what we don’t have we can lose what we do have. I remember years ago watching a comedy sketch where a man asks another man who is holding a cup of coffee for the time. The second man turns his wrist to look at his watch and pours out his cup of coffee. Like the man, we lose focus on what’s in our hand to look at something else.

Consider This

What would your life be like if, for say at least a week, when someone asks you how you are you respond with “I am rejoicing!” Don’t reflect on what people will think about you, center on what it will do for you. Certainly it would be hard to say that continually and be negative.

I am going to try that for the next two weeks. I invite you to try it with me and let me know how it goes.

Action Plan:

Begin a gratitude journal. Get a notepad or journal or use an online one like Penzu. Every day for at least a month, write down at least one thing you are grateful for. Each day you have to enter something you have not previously added; in other words, each day is unique. Look at the list often.
Respond to any greeting of “how are you” with “I am rejoicing!” for at least a week. If someone asks you why, use the gratitude reason of the day or some other response if you wish.