Friday, June 27, 2008

Think and dream, sleep and dream, live your dream.

John Killinger tells of the time when W. Clement Stone, the Chicago financier and philanthropist, was asked how he had done so much in his lifetime. Stone’s reply was this: “I have dreamed. I have turned my mind loose to imagine what I wanted to do. Then I have gone to bed and thought about my dreams. In the night, I have
dreamed about them. And when I have arisen in the morning, I have seen the way to get to my dreams. While other people were saying, ‘You can’t do that, it isn’t possible,’ I was well on my way to achieving what I wanted.”

It has been said many times that the person standing on the sideline saying it can't be done is often surpassed by the person doing it.

Behavioral scientists will tell you that in your formative years, between 6 months and 5 years, our basic personality is formed. The way we view the world and understand how we interact with our surroundings. The interesting part about that bit of information is that close to 80% of everything we heard was negative:

"Sit down"
"Be quiet"
"Don't talk to strangers"
"Children should be seen and not heard"
"Don't touch the stove"
"Don't run on the pool deck"
"No rough housing"
etc.

And it only makes sense. Our parents had to keep us safe. But this is one of the reasons so many people spend time saying why something can't work, why it won't get done, why it's impossible, or not worth it. Rather than thinking why it will work, how they will figure out how to make it work, and how they will do it.

And although we can't take all the negative out, we can add positive in to our personality. One of the most powerful ways to combat that negative conditioning is to dream. Dreaming allows us to think about how we will accomplish something, that something amazing will happen, and it allows us the freedom to step out from the negative and think of ways to make your dreams reality.

But if we don't dream, there is often nothing left to think about other than how and why things don't work and are impossible.
Dreaming makes the impossible tangible, and is often the first step to making our dreams reality.

So today, dream of what you want to do, go to bed thinking about your dreams, at night dream about your dreams, and tomorrow wake up and begin to achieve those dreams.  It's a good first step.

-Jon Bohm


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