The Power of Dreams

I just got back from a 10 day vacation in my favorite place in the entire world. Destin, Florida. I have a little condo near the beach in Seagrove Beach just a mile and a half from Seaside, the location of the Truman Show, a film starring Jim Carey.

If you saw the movie, you remember the quaint little pastel colored town with paver brick roads and picture perfect Victorian style. As this was a “working vacation” I was leading one of my Inner Circle Small Group Calls.

I looked up and saw the teeny tiny post office in Seaside. I realized at that moment that that little post office office had been my “dream board” for the past ten years. You see, although I have been there many, many times, about 10 years ago, I had taken a week off in Destin to make a decision.

I was a slave to my business. I had slugged it out night and day for 13 long years. Although we had great customer service and marketing, I had no systems. Everything revolved around me.

Just before that, I read Dr. Michael Gerber’s Book “The E-Myth Revisited”. Every small business owner in the world should read. Except maybe the Italians and those who who open their business at 10am, close for siesta from 1:30 til 3:30, close again at 7:00pm and take the ENTIRE month of August off! (Maybe someone needs to write a book about how THAT works! LOL!).

Anyway, I got a vision and more importantly a dream on that vacation to Destin, FL. The dream of having a business that was a turn-key “system” that did not rely on me “being there” to make it work. That was March of 1997.

Since that time, I have had a poster of the Seaside Post Office in my office. When I looked up and saw that little post office, I realized that my dream had come true.

Everytime I looked at that picture in my office, I asked myself “Why aren’t you there right now?” Don’t get me wrong. I love my employees. In fact, my purpose is to have a positive impact on as many people as I can. Especially my employees. And I couldn’t really do that by being a frustrated, beat down slave to the business. Sure, we enjoyed many “community” moments and our hearts drew together, but when you are not doing what you love - when you are not doing what you were born to do - you won’t be truly happy.

So, what does all this have to do with dreams? Your vision of your life - your life dream - should be in front of you all the time. One of the most powerful things we did this year was to find out what our employees dreams are. By connecting them to their dreams and goals and showing them that the relationship we have exists so that each of us can help the other one reach his or her goals and dreams has given us record sales and record production.

To build community, you must have a collective, powerful dream that everyone benefits from. In addition to personal dreams, the company should have a dream.

Personal dreams can’t come at the expense of the company and the company dream can’t come at the expense of the employees. Instead, if we set up a win-win situation where the better our employees do, the better our company does, we all win. And of course, your customers MUST win. If they don’t get what they want, we won’t get what we want.

In closing, remember what Zig Ziglar says “You can have anything you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want”. Also remember, that he borrowed that from Jesus who said it a little differently: “Give, and it will be given back to you - pressed down and shaken together”.

If you give time, you will get time.

If you give money, you will get money.

If you give love, you will get love.

If you give things, you will get things.

If you give encouragement, you will get encouragement.

If you hurt people, you will get hurt.

If you take from people, you will get taken.

If you are a fake, people will be a fake to you.

The list goes on. “But Howard, I don’t believe that” you say. I give of myself and people still take advantage of me.”

Aha! This principle does not say that you will get it from the person or the place where you make your investment. Also, keep in mind that if you give expecting something in return, you make the principle null and void because that’s not really giving.

So Have a Dream of Helping Others find their Dream and You Will Live the Life You Have Always Imagined.

(c) 2007 Howard Partridge

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