What’s Your Greatest Dream?

This is a question I got from a Twitter follower. His dream is to build a homeless shelter for dogs and provide them with a good life. It will give you a perspective on how I help people identify their most heartfelt goals, and then help them come up with a plan to execute in order to make those goals a reality. You can use the same process to answer the same questions about your own dreams and goals.

If you have not read my article, “Goal Setting That Works!” or if you have not yet decided what goals you want to accomplish, that is your starting point when deciding what your purpose is or the goals you want to accomplish in life.

This article is step two. Developing a plan to execute that will bring about the realization of your goals is about asking a lot of questions. The knowns, the unknowns, and the things you will have to acquire, learn or experience to become the person you need to be, in order to one day be living a life that is identical to your previous dreams and visions. Life is about creating and building your life and your lifestyle. Its a process. It will never end either. There is always more you can do or become. There is always a bigger mountain to climb. There’s always more to experience. Accomplishing anything in life requires you to know more than you do right now. To become more and to grow into the fullness of the person God created you to be. This starts and ends with the heart, always. Sometimes it also involves learning, going to school, passing tests, working for others who are sometimes… “less evolved” (LOL) or heart centered than you are. Many things that happen, or that you have to do or work at in order to gain experience, make money, learn a companies business model, etc. are going to totally suck.

However, you always have the choice to decide what something means to you. YOU decide whether something is good or bad, right or wrong, happy or sad, exciting and fun, dull or boring, etc. Many times, things will happen to you in life that are totally out of your control. Things that you are not happy about. So if something happens in life that you do not like or wish was not there, understand that you have two choices: 1) change your circumstances, or 2) change the meaning you give to it.

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Focus on what you’d love to create in your life, and then pursue it relentlessly. Just like building a high end custom home can take over a dozen months to construct, your ideal life can take decades to build or create. That’s why you can’t get caught up in whining about how long things are taking, how boring school is, I feel like quitting, etc. Its going to take as long as its going to take. You will have to shed limiting beliefs and fears about yourself and your abilities along the way, but it is necessary to shed them before you can become who you need to be. By simply facing your fears you realize that FEAR stands for “false evidence appearing real.” What you fear you attract. What you look at disappears. Every obstacle or fear you conquer, further teaches you that all you have feared is not real. Each success slowly builds your confidence and knowledge of what works. Over time by trying different approaches, noticing whats working and whats not, and then changing your approach continuously, you will eventually figure out the formula for success. By trusting your heart, you will build something totally unique and that no one else can duplicate. Take the best of the ideas, practices and business models of those who are already successful at what you want to accomplish, and then apply them in your own life to get the same results.

So here’s his tweet:

“The job i want most is simply to own and manage a homeless shelter for dogs, and to provide them with a great life.”

Here’s my response:

Thanks for your question. You will have to ask yourself several questions to develop a business and life plan to carry out the SUCCESSFUL creation of your “Homeless Shelter for Dogs.”

You don’t want to re-invent the wheel. Identify several successful regional animal shelter type of operations. Try to find companies that have several profitable locations. These will have the most stable operations, cash flow and mature business models to learn and emulate. So if you’re going to do it, why not do it big-time? You’ll eventually open a smaller one based upon the bigger successful business model. Then as you grow, you can grow into the type of operation they are.

Go get a job working for one of these locations. Learn how they are run, the corporate structure, accounting systems used, products they sell, how and where they advertise, budget information for locations and corporate structure, services they offer, how they determine where to open new locations so they are successful as soon as they open, how they got started, capital required, etc. If there are no regional operations near you to work for then you may have to relocate. If its your true life’s dream and purpose, you’ll do anything for the chance to realize it. Also by working for an established company you can be 100% sure you are choosing something you actually enjoy doing before investing your time and money to open your own.

The better the company you choose to emulate, the more success and money you will achieve in the shortest possible time. You will also reduce costly mistakes. The people you go to work for have already made them. That will save you, time, money and heartache. Most importantly, the more money you make, the more dogs you can help.

Here’s a link to an article I did on a strategy you can use to get any job you want, so you can go to work for one of these companies once you identify them. Your goal is to learn their successful business inside and out, how they make their money, how they are operated, products and services they offer, etc. Once you have learned their business model inside and out, create a plan to open your own based upon their successful operations. You will need capital of your own and may need to explore business partners and equity investors at that point if you don’t have enough capital to last several years; if things don’t go rosy when you first open. I have found it always takes longer than you think it will and more money than you think it will to make it a success. What ever monetary and time investments you think you will need, double them. Even that may not be enough.

That’s why its good to have a successful entrepreneur like myself coaching you.

Here’s his second tweet:

“If u can’t hook me up with helping animals, get me over to slaughter the Taliban man, and let a married soldier come home.”

This is an interesting tweet. All men feel they must “die” to their purpose. Meaning we men tend to hitch our identities to our purpose. If we can’t live what we want, we can sometimes find our thoughts turning to death or dying. A man’s purpose is what he lives for in this world. Its his reason for being. To not be able to chase after one’s purpose is like a death or a life without a purpose, which to men is meaningless or a meaningless existence. An existence not worth living. It can really feel that way when we become fearful or doubt we can truly succeed at creating and living the life of our dreams.

Its looking the dragon in the face and declaring I AM and I WILL CONQUER YOU!!! The dragon being a metaphor for your fears feeling like they can destroy you. In the end its only an illusion. We realize that when we push thru them. Once we do we realize we are so much more than we ever thought we were before. The past does not equal the future.

Men know deep inside that they must live for something. Anything less is just not a life worth living. As Nelson Mandela said, “There is no passion to be found in playing small -in settling for a life that is less than what you are capable of living.”

As far as the Taliban go, leave that to the guys/gals in the military who have chosen that life as a purpose; so you can have the freedom of choice to go and follow your own hearts desire and purpose.

So if you’re a man, in order to be truly fulfilled, you really have to “die” to your purpose. Pursue it with tenacity and without exception. As long as you keep moving forward, learning and adapting as you go, you WILL get there someday. If God brings you to it, he’ll bring you thru it 🙂

Never Give Up,

“Almost nothing works the first time it’s attempted.  Just because what you’re doing does not seem to be working, doesn’t mean it won’t work.  It just means that it might not work the way you’re doing it.  If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and you wouldn’t have an opportunity.”

Bob Parsons, Founder and CEO, GoDaddy.com