Now a Word from our Sponsor: Dare to Dream

Something happened when I was a child. I stopped dreaming.

There was something about the way I was brought up, and the way I reacted to my upbringing, that created a hapless young man with no idea what he wanted out of life. When asked as a child, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I’d respond “A doctor or a scientist,” quickly checking my mom’s reaction to make sure that I had answered properly. She liked these two professions, so that was my story and I stuck to it for many years.

I had music as an avocation throughout my youth. I started in a church choir in early childhood, picked up the guitar at about 12, and continued singing, playing and composing music well into my college years. Then I took it too far.

I got an offer to travel with an “Up With People”-style gospel singing group when I got out of high school. After a significant fight with my parents, at the age of 18 I decided to go. My mom pursed her lips at me for years over that decision. What happened to being a doctor or a scientist?

Worse, when I returned from that enlightening year, I dared to dream of embarking on a music ministry. I had been encouraged by the music director of that group – he said I had a natural affinity for music. That was all the encouragement I needed – impressionable youth that I was. So after a couple of semesters of generic calculus and science curricula, I announced to my family that I was changing my major to, of all things, Music. My mom’s lips pursed audibly, they snapped shut so fast. She was not happy.

I did pretty well in music. I was a vocalist with a specialization in composition, and my compositions were featured in a couple of recitals. But the horror of stage fright (which somehow did not abate even after a year-long national tour with a fairly renowned singing group) made it clear that I didn’t want to pursue that career any further.

In the meantime, depression had begun to sink in. In an attempt to find relief from the gnawing disease that was robbing my satisfaction with life, I started seeing a therapist. He suggested that I might be good at being a therapist. That, it turns out again, was all the encouragement I needed. I promptly and enthusiastically changed my major to Psychology.

My mom blew a gasket. She had finally resigned herself to my life of obscurity as a poor musician (and had finally been impressed by my meager success in that arena), but the thought of my deteriorating further into a career of psychology somehow broke the camel’s back. Whatever will become of your music? she whined.

In the meantime, I had begun working as a bookkeeper in a mail order company to put myself through school. It was fun work for me – I had always enjoyed the statistical part of psychological experimentation better than the nether world of psychoanalysis anyway. And my boss said I was a natural as an accountant. That, it turns out yet again, was all the encouragement I needed – I was off again, this time to school in accounting.

Well, at least this was business, my mom apparently reasoned, so she didn’t kvetch with such vehemence any more. And in the meantime, my good grades and diverse coursework in college had earned me a Phi Beta Kappa key, and a Summa Cum Laude degree. My mom, mollified, began to see me progress as a financial analyst and accountant. Soon I was Assistant to the Controller – then Marketing Manager! Then Inventory Planning Director! I was on the go!

Then I quit my job at the mail order company because it was too stressful. I began a six-year nearly fruitless search for a nonprofit that would hire me, deciding I wanted to do something more meaningful than hawking men’s clothing via catalog. I worked at a couple of nonprofits, including a church for eight years. But I never made enough to save any money.

Then I got a job as an Accounting Manager at an engineering services company. In two years I was the Controller! My mom, finally impressed with my success, passed away while I was at that job. At least she died happy (although she never was fully convinced that I was eating enough vegetables, and frequently stated as much).

The final blow to my career, though, was my last job, as a Controller for a defense contractor. As I’ve said, that job left me physically depleted and sick. Thank god my sainted mom died before I quit THAT job. Her head would have imploded!

Have you sensed a theme? Well, now with no mother to disapprove of my decisions (except for the nagging echo of her voice in my mind) I was suddenly thrust into being the captain of my own fate, with no one to suggest any affinities for me to follow. Whatever shall I do? All I know now is accounting and financial analysis.

Here’s the point: Even though I was clearly making my own decisions all along, they were not based on my dreams. They were based on the preferences, suggestions, and observations of other people. I was clearly a man with a lot of promise, but absolutely no internal compass whatsoever.

I mourn at the thought of myself as a child, manipulated by my situation and naïve childish decisions to forego any semblance of real, self-directed dreams. And now, at the ripe age of 53, I have tasked myself to put a “WHAT” with my “WHY.” So I have to learn a whole new skill-set – I have to learn how to dream.

Fortunately, there are resources. Did you know that there are actually certified “dream coaches”? I didn’t. Now I do. One I am following with interest is Marcia Wieder. Check out that link to her free e-book offer. These are some amazing resources.

I will share more about my process of learning to dream in future posts. Stay tuned!

Mission Improbable Part 9: My WHY

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, and I’ll be honest: I ran into a brick wall. I started writing this entry in my blog, entitled “My WHY.” The brick wall: I didn’t KNOW why.

Let me explain. All of the personal development literature I have studied points to the central importance of having a “Burning Desire.” In the life-changing book Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill says:

“Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to burn his ships and cut all sources of retreat. Only by so doing can one be sure of maintaining the state of mind know as a BURNING DESIRE TO WIN, essential to success.”

We must know what we’re working for, and why we’re working for it. And we must have a burning desire for this goal that is sufficient to keep us moving toward it.

Here’s the problem: Becoming wealthy, growing as a person, becoming large enough to master wealth – these things are difficult and take a LOT of patience and effort. Furthermore, the path to wealth and self-mastery is uneven and rocky. Some days it all seems to come together – the path is smooth and the walking is easy. But on other days the path is difficult and covered with obstructions. On these days, effort and patience are taxed to the limit, and discouragement and despair are tempting companions.

It is on these dark days that the driving power of one’s “WHY” comes into play. Unless I have a burning desire to achieve my “WHY,” I won’t find within myself the motivation to stay the course. This is why so many people fail to achieve their goals: They have not brought to their goals a burning desire sufficient to persist through all obstacles, and end up quitting in discouragement before their goals are achieved.

The word “courage” is derived from the Latin word for “heart.” Unless our heart (our passion) is deeply wedded to our desires, we will by definition be “discouraged,” and will not be sufficiently compelled to keep going when the going gets rough.

I recently heard a talk by Darin Kidd, an incredibly successful network marketer. He spoke of his “WHY.” He tells a moving story about a time when his daughter was young, and they had been saving change in a piggy bank toward a trip to Disney World for her. One day, he and his wife were so strapped financially that they had to break open the piggy bank to find quarters to buy milk. While they were doing this, his daughter entered the room, saw what they were doing, and burst into tears.

This demoralizing image haunted him during the early years of his network marketing career. He resolved with deep passion that he would never have to disappoint his daughter that way again. Whenever a prospect said “No,” he’d remember his daughter’s tears, and it would propel him to the next prospect. Whenever a business deal fell through, he’d remember how he felt rooting around on the floor looking for quarters in the shattered remains of that piggy bank, and this profound memory would take him to the next prospect. Now THAT’S a “WHY” with some POWER.

My dilemma: I didn’t have a “WHY” with that much power. I’m not a family man. My tabby cat, April, might enjoy living in the lap of luxury, but her needs are simple. She wouldn’t mind at all if I broke her piggy bank to raid it for quarters to buy cat food, as long as she got the cat food.

So what’s a confirmed bachelor to do? What drives ME? Some people would find such a question easy, but I assure you, this was not easy for me to articulate – certainly not in a way that would provide the necessary courage and motivation to endure the rocky road ahead.

I thought about the things I want in life. Actually, my needs are almost as simple as my cat’s. What captures my passion? Not possessions, beyond simple creature comforts.

I looked at the circumstances of my life. I am a 50-something guy with health problems that could turn south at any moment. For better or worse, this is a fact of life I have dealt with since I was a young man. Honestly, I can’t even believe I’m still alive. My situation is such that I’d NEVER have believed I’d hit 50 years of age. So how much longer do I have? I just don’t know. To build for some distant dream of “retirement” has NEVER been a driving force for me (even though perhaps it should have been).

I looked at my career. I had been a Controller, an accountant, a cracker-jack financial guy. I worked doggedly to build a career that was successful, with little more than native intelligence and a paltry bachelor’s degree. And I was there! But when growing health problems made it clear that this career path was just too stressful for my body to endure, I was forced at the unlovely age of 53 to quit that lucrative job and find another way to make a living. Lordy! What can I do besides accounting and financial analysis? Could a different career provide satisfaction sufficient to create that necessary burning desire? I had no idea.

Then I thought about COBRA, my 18-month stay-of-execution with respect to my health insurance. When that elapses, what will I do? Even with Obama at the helm, the United States is far from unanimous about the need for universal health care, and my situation amounts to a preexisting condition that would deny me coverage almost anywhere, certainly affordable coverage.

And I thought about people in similar circumstances – and I know of many. Some of them have been on SSA disability for years. Unable to work full time, and unable to continue disability if they make even a paltry $800 a month extra, they have watched their nest eggs dwindle to the point that they are in an eternal disability-check-to-disability-check lifestyle that precludes anything but bare essentials, and even these are difficult. One friend struggles to keep his CATS fed. Believe me, this specter haunts me.

I’ve listened to their pain as they describe the demoralization they face being in that disability/entitlement trap. This is a demoralization that I want with all of my heart to avoid, at all costs. I’ve seen what it has done to people I love, and I want to avoid that demoralization with a burning desire.

Not only that, but I’ve thought for a number of years about how people might be helped to escape this trap. It is agonizing to watch people you love trapped in despair by a system that does not allow them to escape its clutches, for fear of homelessness and even deeper ruin.

If there were some way I could avoid that trap and learn how to help others emerge from it, that could be my burning desire. So many of the programs in our country address the needs of children, but few truly address the concerns of needy adults, particularly those broken by chronic physical ailments.

I do not want to watch my body and finances deteriorate to a point that I, too, am forced to worry about having cat food for April (and maybe for myself). This vision, too common for people in my situation, I will not abide.

Darin Kidd said that whatever “WHY” we choose must empower us to say “I WILL UNTIL.” Napoleon Hill said “DESIRE BACKED BY FAITH knows no such word as impossible.” And I say that the degradation of systematically-induced poverty for those already suffering from chronic illnesses cannot be allowed to continue. I will do anything I can to avoid that eventuality for myself, and to help others consigned to such a fate. THAT, my friends, is a “WHY” I can wrap my heart around.

And I will endure any amount of disappointment, fatigue, and discouragement to avoid it. That, folks, is my “WHY.” Next: my “WHAT.”