I read an interesting article this morning on KSL.com about a guy who fulfilled one of his dreams by going to Antarctica. (See Photos).
The opening line is what guy me thinking . . .
A lot of us hope that when we retire we can follow our dreams. We found a Salt Lake man who did exactly that, following his dream most of the way to the South Pole.
The part that caught my attention was “a lot of us hope that when we retire we can follow our dreams.” I have a feeling a lot of you aren’t waiting until retirement to follow a dream. Three questions . . .
What’s one of your dreams? What’s a dream you’re already pursuing? If it’s really a dream, what are you doing now to make it come true?
Dream 1
I have always wanted to be a professional baseball player. My skill level is nowhere near that, but I still play organized baseball anyway. And while I don’t actually play pro baseball, I’ll be working for the play-by-play stat staff for the SL Bees this summer. In a way, I’m living my dream now.
Dream 2
I have another dream. Voiceover acting/announcing. I have always wanted to be the voice behind movie trailers or the announcer for a sports team like the Jazz or Bees. During the past few months I have been on the radio a few times as the voice for a commercial, and I just recorded the voiceover for a new book that will be coming out in a few months.
How My Dreams Came True
Dream 1
I work for the Utah Jazz on the game night media relations staff. The guy (Derek Garduno) who got me the job used to work with me at Politis, and he is responsible for the Salt Lake Bees PR. I made it a point to tell him that if there was ever any kind of game night PR work that needed to be done with the Bees that I wanted in. That was probably more than a year ago, and I brought it up more than once.
A few months ago I got the call. Dream one is coming true.
Dream 2
I knew a sound engineer who did a lot of recordings for radio commercials. I told him that it was a dream of mine to do voice work and offered to be the voice of one of his commercials if he ever needed it. I brought it up more than once, and he finally asked for my help one day. I bring it up in meetings all the time (when appropriate) to the point that there are a lot of people who know this is something I want to do. When I train a person for a speech, I bring up that I would love to do voice over work.
I feel like me dream is coming true in one way or another.
A final Word
I’m not trying to be preachy or anything, but after a little reflection on a few of my dreams I realized that the more I made the point to say “yes, these really are my dreams” the more I have been in positions for them to start coming true now and not after I’m retired. The more I have made the public declaration the these are my dreams, the more others have responded and said “I can help.”
Three questions . . .
What’s one of your dreams? What’s a dream you’re already pursuing? If it’s really a dream, what are you doing now to make it come true?
Somebody out there knows how to help it start coming true. Maybe I can help.
7 comments ↓
Hive fives all around, Russ! So cool to hear about your dreams in getting involved in baseball and voice acting work. A couple years back, I had the dream of getting paid to write and it’s paid off more and more with each passing year. I’m actually amazed people send me money to write, not because I don’t think writers can make money, just that I have no background in writing other than one day saying, “I like doing this. I’m going to do it everyday now and see if I can become a professional writer.”
My other dream would be to own a professional baseball team and completely turn that model on its head. It’s one of the oldest, most archaic organizations that needs a changing. Anyone have a billion dollars they can loan me?
I totally agreed with this method, and of course heavy networking. I’ve got a lot of dreams, and I don’t want to wait to retire to pursue or obtain them. The more I leave behind my fears, or the negativity of others and create my own mantra, the more I come in contact with people to help me. You never know who it will be…..currently I’ve got a couple of dreams to pursue outside my saily business of consulting:
Becoming a highly paid publlic speaker
Writing my book
Finding innovative partners and investors to expand on and be an early adopter of a great business model and product.
Luck to all who pursue their dreams!
Cool post! I agree that dreams are not to be deferred until retirement. In his (awesome!) book Six Events, Stephen Covey talks about what a farse retirement really is. We’re to continually be progressing and being anxiously engaged in a good cause.
I’m living one new dream this summer and heading to Africa for three weeks on a service trip.
Another dream I’ve always had (which isn’t that big a deal, just something fun) is to conduct the MoTab and Orchestra at Temple Square. Not in a slow hymn, but in one of those envigorating musical numbers that gets your blood pumping! For now I just conduct in my car..
Another dream is to speak at Education Week. My Mother has been doing it for 10+ years and I might get into it here in the next few years if things work out well.
Another is to write a book. I’ve been encouraged by friends and family to do this but still am considering which direction to head in.
Dreams are great! I like how Dale Carnegie put it:
“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon, instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.”
Great post:
Remember what Chuck Coonradt, Author of the Game of Work said:
“Goals that are not written are mealy dreams.” I think what you are seeing here is the manifestation of dreams realized, which are goals achieved.
Accomplishing ones goals is greater than realizing one dreams. Or are they the same thing?
Good work and great post.
Man…as one of the faithful readers of your blog I thought I could get a name mention instead of “a guy I worked with at Politis Communications,”
Just kidding…but I am looking forward to a summer of baseball and hanging out with Russellmania. Glad I could help out in some small way, nothing beats seeing someone accomplish something they’ve always wanted to do.
Great post, Russ. At the end of my mission, my mission president told me to write down my life goals — career, family, etc. I wrote down about a dozen things I wanted in a career, and now after bouncing around a bit I’m doing about 10 of the 12. (”High paying” isn’t one of them.)
[...] What would you have done? I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. It’s easy to tell stories about people who leave behind the obvious money to follow a dream and then become successful. This poses the question. Are you living a dream? That is, are you currently involved in something right now that you’ve always dreamed of doing? It doesn’t have to be your full-time career. It could be taking photographs, teaching a class at a college, etc… [...]
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