February 26, 2015
I’m very excited to announce and share the new Venture to Dream Creed! This is what we believe, it’s what we value, and it’s what we are about here in our community. Take some time to read it over. Think on it for a minute, print it out, post it somewhere, or share it with a friend you think would like it too.
Dreams are not wishes. Dreams take hard work.
I want to talk about this first, not only because it’s first on the infographic, -there’s a reason for that- and not only because it is important, but because it is a bit of a litmus test for you. I’m not here to waste your time, or mine. I want you to know what you are getting yourself into. I want you to know exactly what you are standing up for and saying yes to… and what you aren’t.
Venture to Dream is not about magic wishes. I won’t help you win the lottery. I won’t help you score with a superstar. I’m not a genie, but there is good news. You may not get three wishes, but you have more than three dreams existing in your head anyway. It is time for them to exist in the waking world too!
Dream are not fantasies. It is time for us to stop uttering “I wish I could do xyz” mindlessly, and start plotting and planning how to make xyz happen. Dreams take hard work. What our community is about is recognizing that impossibilities do not exist, and starting to take action to make our dreams come alive. More good news: It is often much easier than you imagine it to be!
Do what excites you, even if it scares you.
I have a good habit of getting really excited about the things happening on this blog. Excitement helps each of us create on a level and pace that out runs the other tasks we have to do. What’s more is that when something excites us, we may work longer and harder, but we also do it happily and willingly. Sometimes. What happens though when fear and uncertainty enter the picture? Do they overwhelm your excitement into submission? I’m not advocating a life of recklessness and risky behaviors, but you need to keep your fear rationally in check. The truth is that the exciting is very often scary as well, because usually it is the fresh newness that makes it so exciting to begin with. Don’t let fear keep you from even trying. Don’t let the voice in your head telling you “You just can’t,” -you know the one- win over. Don’t pay it any mind at all. The scariness, doesn’t go away. Neither does the voice. However, we don’t need to let them win either. Give your excitement a fighting chance, and it will win for you 9 times out of 10.
See the world.
Almost 6 years ago I set off on my first overseas trip… in Europe… without knowing their languages… by myself. That opened me up! I’ve traveled in week to two week road trip style family vacations yearly since I was almost a baby. However, going to another country, well that might as well have been another planet. Only rich people travel to Europe. However, once I got going, the excuses and fallacies, like that one, started to disappear.
Traveling not only gets you access to amazing sights and adventure, but it opens up how you think about possibility. It primes your mind and body to seek and expect adventure -to do what excites you before shutting it down with a laundry list of soiled excuses. It also gets you out of your normal routine. It reminds you that there are other ways to do things out there. Book a ticket. Go see something you never thought you’d see!
Down with the mundane.
By now you might be getting really excited or a little overwhelmed, and if it’s the latter you’ll start thinking about your nice and comfortable life. You’ll decide that you have it pretty good after all, and what are you really complaining about. Life is easy. You get up, go to work, get home, eat dinner, talk to the wife, or play with the kids, and go to bed. Rinse and repeat. It is the way it is suppose to be, after-all. Right? It’s the way everyone else is living their lives. But isn’t it just a little… mundane? I’m mean, c’mon! Snap out of in man, or I will have your mother in here talking about bridges so fast your head will really spin!
Don’t get defensive. Families are great, and I have no intention of you leaving your day job. This is about working in time for you, your ambitions, and your dreams. You have responsibilities, I get that. We all do. However, if you don’t take care of yourself, you aren’t going to be able to take care of everyone else for very long.
So start the rally cry: “Down with the mundane!!”
If you aren’t passionate about your dream, it isn’t your dream. Find your dream.
This is sadly how most of us got into these mundane little lives of ours to begin with. We took some bad advise, and we made a bad bet. Time to settle down and listen. If you are spending large amounts of time, or energy, on things that you are not passionate about, you are probably following someone else’s dream. Most people don’t get this far, but I want you to. There are lots of people that aren’t passionate about their work, or their social lives, or the things they let fill up their time, and they know this. They aren’t blind or stupid. They know that these things don’t light them up inside. However, that’s as far as they get. At that point they just accept it. They just accept a life they are not in love with as normal, expected, and dutiful. Well working relationships have been ended sighting nothing more than “I just wasn’t in love anymore.” Why are we willing to do more to have our relationships excite us than our entire lives!
This isn’t about new career decisions, and it definitely isn’t about divorcing your husband. Sometimes we are far too rooted in our lives to make complete switches. However -please- take the next step! Look back and try to find where the path split, and whose dream that was. It isn’t about blame either, for yourself or whoever might have nudged you toward a life you now live complacently. This is about remembering so that you can start to find the dreams that are yours. Yours will be the ones that give you that warm fuzzy feeling. They’ll be the ones that excite you and make you feel child like. They’ll make you feel ambitious, and imaginative. It’s not necessary to change your whole life, or uproot everything you have worked so hard on for so long, because once you start to find and act on your dreams, every other part of your routine will become less bleak. The energy will carry through. Find those dreams inside you that make the whole world seem better. That is your challenge.
Make sacrifices to get what you really want, but don’t sacrifice what you really want.
We all operate with priorities. “Ya can’t have everything,” we say, followed by the debate on whether you can “have your cake and eat it too.” (Does any one actually understand that saying?) Yes, sometime sacrifices need to be made. However, unless they are sacrifices for the safety or well being of your family or friends, (and even then please refer to my previous statement about taking care of others, without taking care of yourself) your sacrifices should be for the cause of something you want even more. Right? That’s why we make sacrifices. We spend money on groceries for the family not a five course lunch because we love and care about our families. You suck it up and go to work, because 5 paragraphs ago you bought tickets to Florence. (Look at you following directions so quickly!) However, with so many things going at once it is easy for the world to get a little convoluted. We confuse easy, and our brains were better at ‘eat – sleep – avoid cheetah’ than they are at ‘work – but not too hard – but don’t tick off the boss – or the wife – start saving for Austin’s college – but don’t forget he needs dinner tonight to survive that long – I really always thought I’d have my BMW by now.’ The web of responsibilities seems endless, and again, we confuse easy.
It’s difficult to make out the forest for the trees, but its not impossible. We get lost in the woods because 1) we forget where we were going, and 2) we go into survival mode. We lose focus of the precise reasons we are working, and fall into a panicked repetition of work, bills, and retirement saving.
Focus on what you really want. This isn’t some ‘think it and it will manifest’ fantasy. Dreams take hard work. But you are already working hard. Really hard! Make sure you are not just working to work, or going through the motions of some sort. Make sure you are sacrificing the right things, not the wrongs things.
“Bucket-list” is a dirty word.
Repeat after me, “‘Bucket-list’ is a Dirty Word.” I don’t want to hear that nonsensical word coming out of your mouth. I know it seems a bit harsh. I know some people like their lists of all the things they want to do before they die. However, first, it’s not. Second, I like pizza, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for me. Make no mistake, Bucket-lists are public enemy #1 around here. I mean shoot on sight levels of ridiculousness. I will kick that bucket-list!
…
Ok, I’ve calmed down a little bit. (A little bit.) Here’s why bucket-list are an evil dictator we must banish forever from our lives. They are lazy lazy bums. They don’t work! Most people naturally assume they will live a long time, -a healthy idea- and most people are very good at procrastinating until the last minute. See where I’m going with this? I don’t need to identify the dreams I want to live when I’m 80. Seventy-nine year old Michael will do that for me. I need to identify and plan the dreams I want to live this year. Now is even better.
Need more to convince you this is a bad idea? We change. We all change. I dreamed of finger painting all day when I was five. I should have done it then, because I sure don’t want to now. Want to go skydiving? Seventy year old you doesn’t really like going up in the airplane let alone falling out. Yeah, there are people out there that get older, and do -or probably more likely, continue to do- wild things that impress us all. However, it is far more common that you are going to change a bit in your likes, dislikes, and dreams throughout life. Become comfortable with this idea. Then start becoming uncomfortable with the thought of putting off your dreams till a day that never comes.
If you focus on every piece you need to know and do, you’ll never start; start now, learn as you go.
Dreams are by our definition activities and experiences we have never done before. To make the learning curve steeper, they are not light undertakings. They are challenges and they are difficult. They are big! Besides simple procrastination, this is a significant reason they get put off. When we start to think about all the work that will go into the process, we realize we barely have any idea where to start and zero idea what to do next. That’s okay, and turns out not to be as big of a problem as you think.
In fact we humans, turn out to be pretty good problem solvers, but you have to get started. If you get bogged down trying to create a beginning to end plan to make your dream exist before you ever start, you run a real risk of never starting. This is because you just don’t know enough. Not yet. How could you? You are trying something new and exciting, that you have never done before. You aren’t going to have all the information. Get started, and the the next pieces will come. Don’t become overwhelmed in the not-knowing. Get started, and you will learn everything you need as you go. Sometimes this happens quickly, sometimes slower, but it will happen. As long as you take that first step, and then another, and then another. If you feel like you don’t know where to start, just start somewhere. You’ll find the next step. The sooner you start, the sooner you can learn what to do next!
Only great ideas deserve to be called Dreams.
Exclusivity is expensive. So is your time. Be selective and ambitious in what you call dreams. The more adventurous, the more ‘out of this world’ they are, the more likely you are to get there. Pardon, come again? It may seem counter intuitive, but the bigger your dreams, the more amazing they seem to the point of fantasy, the more likely you will be to put the work in to making them happen. You just need to know that they can happen.
I want to pause here, for another word on what dreams are and aren’t- feel free to play along at home. “I want to be rich.” Not a dream. “I want to own an Aston Martin” Dream. “I want to be happy.” Not a dream. “I want to meditate with monks in Nepal for a year.” Dream. What makes two of these wishes, not dreams? They certainly seem big. They also seem ideal. However, they are weak ideas. They are pretty cliche, and they are not really substantial. They have very little meaning. What does rich mean to you? What does happiness? Dreams are firm ideas you can bite your teeth into. If you really want a fast car, (I prefer anything where the top goes down, or the doors come off) that is something you can work for diligently and with fervor. “More money” is just something you wish you had.
“Dream big.” “Go big or go home.” “Some people say why, I say why not.” There are more tired sayings out there than I can recall or stomach, but your dreams should not be cliches. Only strong ideas that you personally really connect with, and that make you want to pour yourself into meet our standard.
In the future, there will be better times to act, and there will be worse times; they don’t matter, act in the present.
There is no perfect moment to embark on a new adventure, yet we put off going after our dreams because… well… the timing just isn’t right. Identify this quickly for what it is and you will save yourself a lot of time and regret. It’s an excuse. For most things, there isn’t a perfect time. There’s a better time, sure. There will always be a better time, if only in our imaginations, and there is the rub. Don’t get caught up in why the situation isn’t right. Ignore all that, because truthfully, it could probably be much worse.
Write down your top three excuses. (Get used to the phrasing, because we aren’t going to call your “reasons” anything else. If something is prioritized higher for you, recognize that, and you will feel amazing for what you have already. If it isn’t a higher priority, and it is keeping you from what you really want, it’s an excuse) Ok, top three excuses for not going after your dreams now, got ’em? You wrote them down? Ok, whatcha got? Time, Money, Not sure how. Did I miss one? Probably, I’m not psychic. Look at each one, and really think about it. Could you fit learning something new into Tuesday evenings once a week? Have you run the numbers to actually see what your new adventure will cost? Maybe you can do it cheaper. Maybe you can save with that to motivate you. Mostly, these big vague excuses enter our mind so often that we just except them as fact. Once you recognize them, and consider them more closely, you realize you have a lot more wiggle room than you thought.
There is only this moment and it deserves your love and attention. Do the activities you want to do, in the present. Act now. Start your dreams.
Living life takes a conscious effort.
I believe in dreams. I also believe in responsibility. Some people will look at you with a pious eye pronouncing you the worst kind of sinner if you tell them you let adventure, excitement, and happiness guide your life. It is as if the world believes that dreams and responsibility are mutually exclusive. They are both just different sides of the same coin. Dreams take hard work. They take hard work to achieve. They take hard work to keep and maintain. What exactly is responsibility if not the effort put into maintaining and protecting the priorities you hold the highest? Dreaming is not the abandonment of responsibility. It is the art of actually studying, understanding, and practicing responsibility.
But you have to think.
Understanding what and who you are responsible to and for takes a conscious effort. It takes a constant evaluation of what you decide to stand for and against. It is a conscious defining of you by you. If we copy and paste the priorities of the world around us, we copy and paste its dreams as well. Life is a solo experience. To find the adventures that excite you, you are going to need to be actively engaged in your own life.
We are all responsible for our own lives, but we can still help each other.
Life is a solo experience, but it is a group activity. Just because we have to find our own ambitions, and what really excites us personally, doesn’t mean we aren’t in this together. It doesn’t mean there are no common interests between us, or ways to help each other. Venture to Dream is about coming together to show each other what is possible, and to help each other get rolling. Great things start to happen when we interact with people committed to seeing us succeed, and helping us grow!
No one lives a perfect life; don’t let your excuses stop you- this is too important!
Impossible doesn’t exist, and while striving for our dreams will lift us out of mediocrity, neither does perfection. Define and deconstruct your excuses. Whether they are the type that convince you to hide your excitement, and put it away till some magical future where everything is different, or whether they are the type that just tell you it can’t be done -not by you anyway- abandon them. We are human. We are not machines, and we are not perfect. We feel, and we yearn for excitement and connection. We don’t know everything, and we screw things up… a lot. You don’t know where to start? Good. Neither do I most the time. That should make this fun! Afraid of messing up? Be more afraid of never giving it a go. I’ll tell you something to take the edge off: it’s not going to be perfect. It isn’t.
That doesn’t make this any this any less important. To say your life depends on it would not be a lie. Not your physical life, but the life you want, the life your dream of, the life that excites you to think about and ponder over, that life very much depends on you putting your excuses in thier places and start listening to yourself. Listen to your dreams. Stop listening to the voice that screams “You just can’t!” He’s bad for you. Join us instead, and do something amazing: Venture to Dream!
Join the adventure!
If these values mean something to you, the way the mean something to me, join me! This isn’t a one man show. It’s about all of us. So whether it’s a share, a subscription, a comment, or just an air high-five and a “Hell Yeah!” that scares the cat in the other room, if you’re in, let me know it!
Welcome.
Thank you!
Smile!
-Michael Speck
10 Comments
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Cody
February 26, 2015
“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” – Ayn Rand
Hell yeah, my friend!
JCSandusky
Michael Speck
February 27, 2015
That’s what I like to hear!
Thanks Cody!