Finish the Dream

When Gary Vaynerchuk was a little boy, he dreamed of being incredibly rich. Actually, for him it wasn’t a dream as much as it was a foregone conclusion. It was just something he KNEW was going to happen.

 

Last month I had the opportunity to hear Gary speak, and not surprisingly, his dream came true. He took his family wine business from $3 million to $60 million a year by leveraging his abilities and the never-ending marketing tools the internet creates to reach customers – email, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. He has since parlayed his success into a venture capital firm and a social media agency of 500 employees.

 

And he is not done.

 

Within the first minute of his talk, Gary joked about buying the NY Jets football team. It was a joke because . . . well, the Jets are a joke and in bad need of good leadership. It is not uncommon to poke fun of the Jets here in the New York City area.

 

But then he mentioned the Jets again. And then again. And once more. It soon became clear that he was not joking. This is a real goal and dream of Gary’s: buy the Jets and resurrect them into a Superbowl champion, creating the same success with them as he has done with his family wine business and other businesses he invested in.

 

And this is no small dream! We are talking about an investment of just over $1 billion. And he will do it. Of that I have no doubt. He talks about it with the same confidence and certainty he had when he was a kid and just KNEW he was going to be incredibly rich.

 

Today, the dream of owning the Jets is what fuels Gary. It inspires him, excites him, provides him with laser-like focus, and gives him the energy of a giddy child.

 

Hearing his story got me thinking about our childhood dreams. I think so many of our authentic childhood dreams have been crushed because these days the American dream seems to be all about making a jillion dollars or finding celebrity on the web and reality TV.

 

The problem, however, is that I think that is a fictionalized characterization of the American dream that we finally need to let go of. I think our true dreams have been hijacked by this incessant message that success = making a jillion dollars.

 

Your dream doesn’t have to be about money or celebrity – not that there is anything wrong with an awesome dream like that. What is important, however, is that the dream is about YOU.

 

What is YOUR dream? Or was your dream growing up?

 

I remember as a 12-year-old in 7th grade I wrote this amazing poem about the Revolutionary War battles of Lexington and Concord. I was surprised by the positive response I received to my writing and in that moment I realized I wanted to be a writer. My dream was to be a best-selling author.

 

And here is what I have learned from years and years of NOT fulfilling that dream.

 

Until we go after that dream, the one we have always known and felt deep in our soul, we will never feel the peace and sense of accomplishment we crave. We will always be chasing the wrong thing, and when we catch it, we will still feel unsatisfied.

 

Stop chasing after the things you don’t truly desire.

 

Thanks to Gary, I added a new goal to my 2015 goals – finish the book I started writing 10 years ago.

 

What dream will you finish this year?

 

Hope is a beautiful thing. I have built a career off of it. But it sucks as a plan.

– Rich Largman

 

I struggled with focusing on dreams for this post. The truth is, I feel like the term dream is a bit “tired” these days. It feels like a Disney cliche and it has lost the meaning and power it once held. As soon as you mention the word dream, people relate to it as something that might never come true, or worse, is not suppose to come true. It is something we are supposed to always chase, and at best, it will be very difficult to bring to fruition.

 

However, dreams are really just goals we have not put a plan behind. That is the real secret. More times than not, fulfilling a dream is not about divine intervention or an amazing stroke of luck. It is about having a clear idea of what you want, putting a plan in place and putting in the hard work to make it a reality.

 

Read how this applies to your business here.

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Are You Ready for Your Dreams?

We all have dreams we aspire to. But how many of us are truly ready for them to come true?

 

A few weeks ago a friend invited me to watch the movie Inception. The movie alone is enough to have you question your life, your dreams and what is real, but in this particular situation, the experience I had as a whole went far beyond just the plot of the movie.

 

I was watching the movie on a beautiful new flat screen TV and it was on a Blu-ray Disc. This was the first Blu-ray movie I have ever watched and I was having trouble adapting to the new technology. In fact, it was so astounding to me that I had trouble following the story line of the movie.

 

The new format didn’t have the typical movie-like quality I was used to. Instead, it felt more like something I might see on the TV news. In short, it was more real. I felt like I was a participant in the movie rather than a viewer.

 

And here is the challenge I found myself confronting as a result –

 

The picture quality looked so great that it often looked fake to me. Things seemed so real at times that I couldn’t accept them. I stumbled through the whole movie this way, questioning what I was seeing because it looked so life-like that it looked fake.

 

And this got me thinking. If my dreams came to life, would I believe them or would they seem so real that I would think they were fake? Could I truly welcome them, live them and celebrate them or would they appear so unreal, like the movie did to me, that I would reject them?

 

I think many of us believe the idea that our dreams can actually come true and that we can manifest and live them. In fact, our country – and many Disney films – were built upon this concept. But in reality, I wonder how many of us, deep down in our heart, truly don’t believe this or reject it as impossible.

 

One of the keys to fulfilling dreams in life is a willingness to accept the fact that they can come true and that we deserve to live that magnificent life we have imagined. Don’t let a “perceived” reality get in the way of your imagined one.

 

Those who are willing to suspend their reality open up the space to create their own dreams.

 

Do I know what’s real and what’s not in my life? Maybe. Lord knows I have seen and experienced things that defy explanation and my understanding. Oddly, that is when life appears most magical and magnificent for me. Time disappears and anything seems possible.

 

And perhaps that is the point. The fact that I am open and willing to question “reality” allows for my dreams to come to life and manifest.

 

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The Power of Intention

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”

                                                        – President John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961

 

In that brief yet bold statement, I believe President Kennedy made one of the clearest declarations of an intention ever made. What became possible as a result of that declaration was inspiringly demonstrated in the wee hours of July 21, 1969, when millions of children and adults from around the world were aroused from their slumbers to watch their fuzzy black-and-white TVs as Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong floated from the lunar module and proclaimed, “That is one small step for man . . . one giant step for mankind.”

In that moment, I believe we proved to ourselves that anything is possible. Often, it is simply a marshalling of our resources and determination, and an unleashing of our human spirit, to make it so.

 

“I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership. . . . For while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last.”

 

Often, not trying what it is we dream or believe is our biggest failure. It is the doubting of our unlimited potential, more than anything else, that stops us.

 

“If we are to go only half way, or reduce our sights in the face of difficulty, in my judgment it would be better not to go at all.”

 

Whatever it is we choose to do in life, we should do it with confidence and a belief in ourselves. I think we often forget the human potential that was unleashed that day. It is a quality that once unleashed, is not something that suddenly disappears. It is now a part of all of us. Our job is to not shrink from the power such potential now blesses us with.

 

“But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon–if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”

 

And most importantly, we must remember that the gifts brought forth from our individual declarations and intentions are meant to serve our species as a whole. Your gifts, when fully brought forth in the world, are a blessing to us all. Do not withhold them . . . and do not withhold the power of your intentions.

 

What intention will you bring to life this year? Declaring your intention is a good first step to bringing it to reality.  Leave a comment declaring your intention and the difference it will make in your life and watch as it begins to unfold.

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