Dreams and Motivation

Dreams, dreams, dreams! Who doesn’t like to dream? That is the place in your mind with unlimited potentials and no boundaries; a place where absolutely nothing is impossible. I love to dream and we hear phrases like, ‘dare to dream’ and ‘dream big’. I write about that too.

We can’t always write the full story in a single post so of course a post encouraging you to dream is a ‘complete’ post that is incomplete. You can dream until the cows come home but if you stay in the dream world, then every thing that your mind came up with remains nothing but a dream.

To make the impossible possible requires another step which I refer to as ‘motivation’ which is what triggers you into action, then commitment, consistency, habits, dedication and a host of other things help you make your dreams happen.

In this past week, I came across a video clip about a West African man’s journey to the Canadian version of Dragon’s Den. He went in search of 60,000 dollars in return for 10% of his company and ended up with an offer of 600,000 dollars for 30% of his company, access to world class facility for his food production and access to 500,000 dollars of loan facility as additional working capital.

His story brought tears to my eyes as I could see his journey between the dream and the result. I could see the motivation that led him to leave his home country to study in Italy, the motivation to stay back to ensure a better life for his family back at home, the flawless way he spoke the Italian language showed the effort he put in to learn the language as a student, the motivation that led him to move to Canada by himself and retrain as a school teacher.

While holding down a job, he passionately pursued his dream creating loads of food products and beverages. The ‘Dragons’ thought he made a few and marketed the others but he corrected them by saying he produced and marketed them all by himself.

He kept referring to ‘us’ and when they asked him for the size of his team, it turned out to be a grand team of ‘one’. His team was just him as all of his family members and core support system remained in his home country.

That story was heart wrenching and anyone watching him would wish him nothing but success. He brought the ‘Dragons’ to tears and brought me to happy and proud tears.

There is ‘clear blue water’ as far as the eyes can see and challenges between dreams and result which is only bridged by a commitment to action, hard work and tenacity. Not everyone will be willing to pay the price this man has paid which is precisely why they won’t be ‘lucky’ or ‘blessed’ like him.

The reality is all the dreaming, positive thinking, visualisation, confession and dare I say even prayers won’t make this kind of success or good news story happen unless they are backed with action. Don’t get me wrong, all of these things are must do’s and work but they don’t work in isolation. They work in conjunction with each other.

I grew up hearing my mother say, ‘the person who has arms and refuses to use them for work will not eat’. I know that in some countries with benefit system, this might not sound completely true because a few might choose to abuse the system by not working even though they are fit to work.

But it remains true that even in such system, what you eat will be determined by the benefit amount which is fixed. So the proverb is right in saying, ‘work for the life you want’ because it won’t be handed down easily otherwise. The only way to have a say in the results is to be invested in the efforts that went in.

This morning I woke up and thought about the networks that I am blessed with and I pictured what was possible if I leveraged those networks for greater good. What was possible blew my mind.

I considered the effort it would take to bring those dreams to life and I was reminded it needed a decision, commitment to making the dream a reality and follow through until the dreams are realised.

I am sure same would apply to any of us if we take a moment to dream big. We will soon realise making a difference is easy if we learn to invest in ourselves and others; it involves us paying forward and sometimes paying back. The relationships we value, invest in and nurture can and do become future currencies.

Question then is, ‘are you willing to pay the price to bridge the gap between dreams and their actualisation?’

Thanks for reading and sharing my post. Have a great week.