Dream Killers

“Do not let small minds convince you that your dreams are too big.” ~ Author unknown

Are your dreams being destroyed by the small minds that surround you?  The late Jim Rohn was one of my greatest mentors. One of the things Mr. Rohn was known for saying was that, “you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with”. If that thought just scares the daylights out of you, then perhaps it is time to reevaluate your personal relationships.

But I want to look at this from a different angle. Are WE being small minded about the dreams of others? Wait! Before you answer that with a resounding, “NO! Absolutely not!” consider this. As adults we tell our children, “You can grow up to be anything you want to be.” But then somewhere along the way, usually about the time children finish high school and are in their college years, we begin to tell them, “You need to be more realistic.”

So my message this week is really two-fold, avoid small minded people who want to stifle your dreams and secondly, do be small minded when it comes to supporting the dreams of others.  Let me expand on both of these situations for just a bit.

If we find that the small minds that surround us are doing their best to convince us to reevaluate our dreams, it may seem easy to simply avoid those people, but it’s not easy at all when some of those people might be family members or co-workers. When that is the situation, avoiding these people becomes impractical. That’s when it may become necessary to have a difficult conversation with them. Be courteous but forceful, “These are my dreams. I hope you will support me with them. If you can’t do that, then at least respect me enough to keep your negativity to yourself.” Now, of course you can expect a retort that they aren’t being negative, they are being realistic. Just be persistent that you have made your decision and you are going to go for it. You hope they will support you.

Perhaps the more difficult situation is when we want to “give advice” to someone we care about. This can be quite difficult because we are trying to instill our values and experience onto someone else. Here’s a great example of this; many people have tried (and failed) at network marketing. No doubt, there are many network marketing companies out there that are, shall we say, “Unscrupulous” at best and downright unethical at their worst. But that doesn’t mean there are not some legitimate companies with legitimate fortunes to be made in network marketing. Just because we might have tried our hand at network marketing 2 or 3 or 7 times and failed, that doesn’t mean a friend, relative or co-worker might not be perfect for it.

Whenever we have a bad experience with something, we tend to pigeon hole everything related to that thing as yet another bad experience. The reality is, we don’t all have the same talent level, the same support system, the same dedication or commitment, or the same knowledge base. It’s okay to express your concern, but in the end, give your support. Remember this, people told Steve Jobs he was nuts for wanting to start a computer business.

Monty Rainey

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• Motivational Monday: Take Action on Your Dreams (whiletravelingabroad.com)
• Whose Dreams? (theothersideofugly.com)
• It’s time to dream again (motivationfromtheheart.com)