Dream Big Dreams | Darren Hardy Success Magazine

I love this time of the year as it provides us the space to reflect, assess and sketch the blueprints to make our New Year dreams come true.

As you do, I’d like to encourage you to dream bigger dreams and adopt the unstoppable achiever’s mindset.

To help you, let me tell you the story of a young boy starting out with a lot less than you have going for you right now.

You wouldn’t think this is the kind of upbringing, nurturing, training and development that would produce one of the most creative minds in history–winning 22 Oscars and 7 Emmy awards from 59 nominations (more than any individual in history) and being honored with the highest civilian award the United States government bestows—the Medal of Freedom.

I think these not only eliminate any excuses you might have, but it will inspire you to consider your own greater potential.

Let’s call this young boy Walter.

Walter was born in Chicago in 1901 to a large Irish immigrant family. His father struggled at work and took out his anger on his wife and children.

At only 8 years old, Walter went to work delivering letters. In any weather, early morning or late at night, he ran through the streets in his worn-out shoes, hurrying to deliver the mail on time. Any money Walter earned was then seized by his father.

At age 16 Walter attempted to enlist in the army to participate in the first World War. He was refused for being too young so he volunteered in the Red Cross and was sent overseas, where he worked as an ambulance driver.

Walter kept the troops in good spirits by decorating his ambulance with amusing drawings. Walter learned he liked to draw.

When Walter returned home from the war, he worked various jobs in creative fields. He worked as a night watchman, which particularly suited him because it gave him an opportunity to study and practice his art.  Later, he got a job at a small studio working on an advertising campaign, where he was paid a meager $40 a month but soon unemployed.

Walter wanted to work for a newspaper as an editorial cartoonist but lacked the satire to do so.

Walter decided to start his own commercial art company, but it was short lived and ultimately failed to sustain. Still not deterred he decided to start yet another company, which this time was met with some success and he was soon hiring a vast number of his friends.

Unfortunately the profits were not enough to cover the high cost of salaries and he mismanaged the money straddling the business with loads of debt, ultimately ending in bankruptcy.

Even his success ended in failure. Certainly this should be a final lesson for him.
But not for Walter.

He recruited his brother to pool some more finances together and they started another business. They didn’t have enough money between them, so they brought on an investor named Mary.

Once again Walter found success and he rehired many of his friends back. One year later, Mary married a man named Charles, who came in and strong-armed Walter. He told Walter if he didn’t comply to budget restraints he would lose his funding for all his now successful productions and all his employees.

Walter refused to be controlled and was once again on his own.

By now you’ve got to be thinking, just hang it up Walter and get a job, entrepreneurship doesn’t seem to be in your cards, right?

Walter would refuse that thought as well. This time Walter decided he would start a Mickey Mouse sort of business. Literally. Walter drew, animated and became the voice of Mickey Mouse.

Walt founded the Walt Disney Company and went on to produce additional characters that have been loved and squeezed by hundreds of millions of children such as Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Alice in Wonderland, Popeye the Sailor, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi and many more.

Walt’s achiever mindset doesn’t stop there, of course.

On a flight to Chicago in the late 40s he sketched ideas for an amusement park where he envisioned his employees spending time with their children.

Even Walt’s brother Roy thought it was a terrible idea and convinced the Board to disapprove of the funding to build it.

What does Walt do now? His own company won’t go along with building his dream?
Well, Walt has a ceaseless achievers mindset.

Walt went out on his own and raised the money by himself. Walt also inspired a dedicated team called Imagineers… something we all should aspire to be… and together they created and opened The Happiest Place on Earth on Sunday, July 17, 1955.

He built it on ground where only an orange grove existed before. Disneyland is now visited by more than 5 million people every year.

Okay, you create the happiest place on earth, that should be enough right?
Not for the achiever.
In early 1960 Walt conceives of Disney World and EPCOT, this time on top of where only alligators go—in the swamplands of Orlando, Florida.

You have to remember, in the 60s, where the Magical Kingdom resides today, there was nothing there, I mean nothing. The World of Disney, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, known as EPCOT was imagined and built on a full-fledged swamp.

While Walt Disney’s life journey ended on December 15, 1966, when he was 65, the power of his achiever’s mindset lives on to this day.

According to statistics, annual cash flow from Disney films (not including sales and rental of videos) exceeds more than $1 billion dollars. The Disney conglomerate includes amusement parks in California, Florida, Tokyo and Paris, 535 international Disney stores, hockey and baseball teams, a number of newspapers and magazines and a cable television network.

Annual turnover of the consortium is $21 billion and stock market capitalization is $42 billion.
Not bad for a poor Chicago kid from an immigrant family equipped with only one thing, but as you can see, the most important thing—the dream big dreams, achiever’s mindset.

As Walt said himself, “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”

That’s what I want to help you do, find the courage to pursue your dreams, your BIG dreams.

Share your big dream with us in comments below. Share this post with others to encourage them to dream big too.

via darrenhardy.success.com

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Success and Abundance: How to Fit In - Tavis Smiley

 

It’s a testament to fortitude when a CEO humbly admits that he isn’t best suited to run a multibillion-dollar company. That’s exactly what John Sculley, former CEO of Apple Inc., did. The best man for the job, he said during an interview with BusinessWeek, was one of the company’s original founders — Steve Jobs.

In 1983, Apple’s board of directors considered Jobs — then 28 — too young to manage the responsibilities of chief executive officer. Sculley, PepsiCo president and the developer of the “Pepsi Challenge,” was selected instead to run the company. In 1985, Apple board members directed Sculley to “contain” Jobs, which led to the visionary’s bitter exodus. Jobs’s departure, Sculley said, almost sent the company into its “near-death experience.”

Of course, Jobs came back, and by 2000, he was once again Apple’s official CEO. It was the perfect fit all along, Sculley said. Way back in the early ‘80s, he told BusinessWeek, Jobs had the “outrageous idea” that computers — which were relegated to the business world at the time — would become consumer products that would “change the world.”

Incidentally, Sculley was no slouch. Under his ten-year tenure as CEO, Apple’s sales rose from $800 million to $8 billion annually. But a few bad development decisions and intense competition from Microsoft and other high-tech companies hurt Apple. Sculley’s forte was marketing. With Jobs, he said, “everything is design.” That successful methodology is evident in products released after Jobs’s return to Apple Inc.: the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad among them.

Had Jobs not come back, Apple would have been “absolutely gone,” Sculley insisted.

There’s universal wisdom in his comments. And it’s not necessarily about the billions Jobs has generated for Apple or himself. To me, it’s about knowing your role, discovering your niche, developing your talent, and multiplying your rewards.

In short, it’s about learning how to get in where you fit in.

USE YOUR TALENTS WISELY

In today’s culture, very few understand the value of perfecting their roles. Everybody wants their 15 minutes of fame; they want to be the star. We forget that sometimes the headliner isn’t the scene-stealer in a movie. Often, it’s a secondary or unknown actor who winds up stealing the picture and claiming the spotlight. The point is, if you strive to be the best in your role — particularly when you’re just starting out — you just might become that unexpected rising star.

The key is homing in on your talent and multiplying it with hard work and deeds.

Why is this so important?

I’d like to use my favorite source, the Bible, to answer that question. The Parable of the Talents, found in both St. Matthew and St. Luke, contains variations of a story that emphasizes the importance of recognizing and using gifts to your best ability.

Here’s the condensed version (Matthew 25:14–30): Jesus gives three individuals some talents, according to their own ability. One man was given five; the other, two; and the third, one. To paraphrase, Jesus basically said: “Take these talents and get busy!”

Sometime later, the men returned. One by one, they gave accounts of their gifts. The first man said: “Lord, you gave me five talents, and look at all I have done with them.” Jesus was so pleased the man had used the gifts given him wisely that he doubled his talents.

The second man showed Jesus that he, too, had developed his talents.

“Thou good and faithful servant,” Jesus replied before giving the man more gifts.

The third guy, with one talent, delivered “the poor me” victim’s story: “Lord, look, you gave me only one gift. I was so ashamed, I hid it in the earth. I didn’t do anything with it.”

“Thou wicked and slothful servant,” the Lord thundered. He took the man’s talent and gave it to the one who had ten — someone who was going to do something with it.

So now, the guy who started with five wound up with 11 talents.

The Parable of the Talents, like so many other Scriptures written thousands of years ago, has retro relevance. This particular parable reinforces the popular belief that we all come into this world with talent — a gift, something that we can do better or different than anyone else. But, as the story illustrates, if you don’t use your gifts, you can lose your gifts.

The moral of the story is to find comfort in our differences and to be pioneering. Don’t worry about your neighbor’s gifts or blessings. Don’t envy someone else’s gift. Discover your own. Remember, the men were given talents according to their own ability. Since we all don’t have the same ability, we have to discover the roles we are destined to play. This may involve trial and error, stumbling before we can stand erect in our individual comfort zones, and even falling flat on our faces.

When speaking to young people, I encourage them to find their own way; discover their very unique roles; and go out and give the world something it needs — something that only they can uniquely deliver.

Whenever I use The Parable of the Talents in my speeches, I remind audiences that although the Bible enumerates the gifts — five, two, and one — it never tells us what those gifts are. That says to me that quantity isn’t important. Quality is.

That one wasted gift could have been the greatest gift given, but the third man in the story never used it, never put it to work. Who knows? That one gift could have been the cure for cancer or the answer to poverty and hunger.

Just because it’s one talent doesn’t mean it isn’t the greatest talent. It’s what you do to magnify your gifts that counts. Be you. Hone your unique gift, work your talent, find your sweet spot, and let God do the rest.

From his celebrated conversations with world figures . . . to his work to inspire the next generation of leaders . . . broadcaster, author, advocate, and philanthropist Tavis Smiley continues to be an outstanding voice for change. via healyourlife.com

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