Dreams Enter the New Millennia

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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!

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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!

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.

Why You Should Ignore the Dream Killers

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A Dream for Life

Where we go and what we do in life is designed to be driven by our dreams. So we begin dreaming at an early age about who and what we want to be. It changes from time to time, depending on the influences in our lives, but it also each change molds and shapes us into the person we are designed to be.

Disney’s Dream Wasn’t Folly

Walt Disney was always an artist. He had a passion for drawing and he would draw anytime he could; first little sketches from family members and then drawings he would sell to friends and others. Deep within him was this dream of creating animated feature films.

The problem was, no one wanted full-length animated feature films. He made lots of short cartoons that became extremely popular, such as Laugh-O-Grams, The Alice Comedies, Oswald Rabbit, and little animations for local businesses. Over this time, he tried and failed several times to have a successful animation venture. Even Steamboat Willie, the debut of Mickey Mouse, was actually a short featurette.

Walt kept re-iterating his desire to create full-length animated feature films. His business advisors and friends were all against it. Other industry colleagues derided him. In fact, they called it “Disney’s Folly”. This kept on right up until 1937, when Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs released and grossed $1.6 billion. So much for Disney’s Folly.

All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.

Walt Disney

Following My Own Dream Path

I was not as lucky as Disney. It wasn’t until halfway through college that I found my passion. I was working my way through college at Walt Disney World and for a while I was “Jungle Paul” on the famous Jungle Cruise ride. “Welcome aboard, thrill seekers and danger lovers!”

I performed well on this attraction and they made me a trainer for the ride. I would typically work with trainees for several days, teaching them to work the ride, memorize the spiel, and deliver it effectively. That’s where the passion struck! I found myself making supplemental teaching aids to enhance the manual and help my trainees learn faster. I worked hard with energy and excitement; nothing made me happier than a trainee successfully completing a trip and passing the test.

Now I knew: this was my dream! I wanted to help others be inspired and learn and grow and perform well. That was what really drove me! I didn’t want to be president of Disney, or a corporate giant, or a lawyer. I wanted to help adults learn and perform.

But the road wasn’t that easy. I was told that the way to become a trainer was to beccome an expert on something and then maybe a company will make me a trainer. I didn’t want to do that. I decided on my own route. I had lots of ups and downs, lots of failure. Plenty of people telling me I couldn’t do it my way. I refused to be stopped; I kept my dream in mind.

I have now been a professional trainer for over 25 years. I accomplished my dream and I followed my own path. I can tell you, a dream and a passion will get you anywhere.

Action Plan

What dream have you held on to from an early age? What are you doing to pursue it?
Think of one thing you can do TODAY to start making that dream a reality.
Shut out any negative talk from anyone (including yourself) telling you that you can’t too it or it’s too late.

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.