When my wife and I go to an open house, looking at homes for sale, we picture what we would do with the house or how we might use the house. This is us daydreaming. When I go to Home Depot or get some building supplies made available to me, I start to come up with projects on how I would use these supplies. What I would build, how I would do it, how we would use it and about how long and how much effort it would take to do it. I mainly stick to the tools that I have and the skills that I have. But Home Depot advertises well and they show some new tool doing some amazing things. I start to see the new neat projects I could do, if I just had that tool. Nice advertising Home Depot. My Dreams are expanding with possibilities.
My skills, my tools, my time, my money limit the size, complexity and challenge of the type of project I can picture and get excited about. Even the open house and homes my wife and I look at are limited by many of those things. Now, when Home Depot advertise tools, the type, complexity and size of my projects all of a sudden expands. WOW! My dreaming expands to the tools, skills (capableness), time and money I can imagine. This is how to grow your dreams, pay attention!
What size is your dream? Is it limited by: tools, skills (capableness), time and money? Does advertising get you to push those limits? …. Of course that’s their job, to sell their product. Are you good at selling and expanding Your Dream to You? Do you start to see bigger, more exciting, more challenging projects and how you can do them? Are you a good salesman or advertiser for your Dreams or projects? Do you create and build new habit tools to grow yourself?
Wait, we first have to see if you can do this day dream stuff. Remember how my wife and I would talk about and picture what we would do to a house or how we would use it when we went house looking or shopping? We got this picture in our head of how we might take some dump of a house, clean it up, add a wall or tear one down, paint, landscape, … add,...change, …. I was always seeing what I could do with my skills, tools and limited money or time. My wife would work with me and suggest what about this or that and we would check the feasibility of it. We would also put priorities on things as to do this first, then that. We could actually see these things happening. Can you do that? Do you do that? Where? When? What areas of your life?
Cluttered house, houses with obvious repairs, dirty houses would often distract us and the disrepair would hold our attention. Real estate people know if they get a house cleaned up, repaired and uncluttered it has a higher chance of selling. The real estate agent knows he can’t always get this cooperation from sellers. He knows the distractions are stops. He has to get his buyer beyond them. He points out or acknowledges the disrepair, then paints them as things to be easily taken care of. He then sets the stage to move the prospective buyers past them so they start seeing some vision of them enjoying living there? He has to cement in their vision or day dream. At the end of the tour of homes, he asks which two homes did you see yourself living in the most and what about them could you really see being your home? Tell me more! He wants them to feel it.
Many areas of our life may be in this dirty, cluttered state of repair and make it very difficult to see some amazing thing we might build. Relationship can get like this house in disrepair. Our career dreams might be filled with broken and tarnished experiences. Our garage, backyard and closets are often prime examples of disarray and chaos making it hard to see a productive daydream result.
What’s even worse is an empty slate, creating something from nothing. A big empty lot, a blank canvas, what are you going to build? …… I don’t know. …. There are so many things I could do, but what? I don’t want to build the wrong thing. What if I don’t like it when it’s done? I mean I have this chance of building this perfect house and what if I blow it? Yikes! Too many possibilities and our training of “afraid of being wrong.” A broken down old house has obvious “wrong” stuff and we can be heroes by fixing them in a number of creative ways. But unlimited possibilities and I’m stumped. What if I get it wrong? I’m afraid I’ll blow it and it won’t be perfect! Hey, and you probably will blow it and get it wrong.
It’s something like this: Take the first sheet of a stack of 500 sheets of paper. Draw the perfect drawing. But you say: I’m a kindergarten drawer, step back. I’m just a little above stick figure and I’m supposed to draw a masterpiece, the perfect drawing??? Are you getting how silly this is. We don’t want to set ourselves up, stuck and afraid. You have 500 sheets. Let’s start drawing. After 500 sheets, I know I won’t be very good, still, but I will be better. Dreams always have that sense of perfect, ultimates: My Dream Home, My Dream Vacation, My Dream Job, My Dream Date, My Dream Family, My Dream Prince, My Dream ……
Ok, let's use “Vision”. Is that better? Oh, that’s right Visions are from God! They are perfect and omnipotent and amazing too, aren’t they? All you religious people know you are sinners, right! Well you are far from perfect and neither is the world we live in. We are going to take the fix up the used home approach. It’s a dump and we are going to make it better. Can you get a Dream or Vision on that? Now, the only thing we need is practice. We can grow ourselves and use a little of the Home Depot advertising to keep growing our Dream or Vision. Get your 500 sheets and get after your Dream or Vision.
When we bought our home, we found fixing up our Home was work, but also very satisfying. Bringing any Dream or Vision into reality takes work. Wait, did Disney convince you that you were a Prince or Princes? Are you going for “Perfect”? NO Work! …. and … pooof… PERFECT! Lottery, long lost uncle leaves you money, find money in the attic, oil on your property, ….. Is that how it feels it should be? We even have sayings: It would just be, if it was meant to be. There is this silly rule that says if there is any work or struggle involved, this wasn’t meant to be. It’s just not me. It’s no one of my strengths. And you know what they say about strengths, use them (only). I mean, I tried a bunch of times and I couldn’t do it.
OK, let’s just work hard and save, save, save and buy a turnkey home of our Dreams, a new home! This works pretty good. Now we can focus on the family. But our mortgage is high and both me and my spouse have to work and the kids are brats. Why can’t they behave right? Is there such a thing as a turnkey family. You know, one that I can buy and they act like they are supposed to act. Kids behave like they are supposed to behave and the dog cleans up its own mess. I want the family of my Dreams, my Vision. Why are they so much work? Do I have to create this family. I should have remained single, creating this family thing is too much work.
This creating my Dream or Vision is hard work! I am not prepared for this. I remember back in elementary school and we were supposed to make a card for my Mom for Mother’s Day. We had limited supplies, time and I looked at the blank card and just copied what my teacher told me or a friend. I never had any Vision or Dream before I got started. I could tell my teacher just wanted to get this done. It was going to be from me, but it was one of those turnkey cards from my teacher. They teach and train Disney dreaming, but they don’t teach and train work Dreaming, mistakes Dreaming, Practice and get better Dreaming.
What if my teacher had made me responsible and helped me be responsible for this card project? What if she used this to train and prepare me for making a idea or dream come true. We are going to make a card with these supplies on Friday. She helps us get the objective of making our mom feel special with our card. First go home and ask your mom: What was one thing that made her smile? what things do I do that say I love her, to her? Or some questions like that. We shared and discussed them in class. The next day we draw some things that made her smile or that made her feel loved by us or says I love you to her. Then we talked about what we wanted our mom to experience or do when she read our card (our goal)? Then what kind of card might do that? We then make the card and sign it. She’s already trained us that it may take more than one attempt. We get up to three tries to get the card we feel does the job. Would projects like this at every grade level help prepare students to take on and succeed at their dreams?
When I was a General Contractor for construction, we had many clients that had these very vague visions: A social hall for the church, a added work space, garage for repairing RV’s, storage, hanger for an airplane, sound studio, retail space, …. There were limits, restriction and requirements: the property, the money, the codes, zoning, …. And others. But the first thing that we had to do was get clear on their Dream, Vision or purpose. What were the main things, how many, how often, when, was there a priority, …. And on and on until we got a good idea of what they wanted.
Then we started working through the innumerable ways to do the projects and which ones fit their sense of being the right ones, working within the restriction, limits and requirements. We are selling and advertising to get the job, make it as big as possible and for them to really want to do it. We are clarifying and putting in some hot items clearly, little by little until, this building just has to be built. Rough plans turned into more solid plans, until we finally had plans to price and contract. This is the end of the 1st Work: Clarified, Spiced to perfection and Committed!
As the General Contractor, I then had to get the project done. We had the expertise to do that. When a person starts on a Dream, they may not have the expertise and becoming the expert may be part of building their Dream. I hired subcontractors with expertise and got the job done. A Dreamer may have to develop these expertise to get the job done, as I did with my home projects. Develop means taking the 500 plus sheets and getting into training and developing yourself.
When building, there is the underground, then the foundation. Then comes the structural wall and roof, enclosing of the building, followed by interior walls and structures hiding the electrical, plumbing and air conditioning. Sealed walls, ceiling, paint and finishes complete the building. Parking and landscaping completed in conjunction with interior finish. All this is replete with inspections, adjustments and change. Yes, check and adjust, and check some more. Keeping the building on task and pushing ahead smoothly doesn’t happen by accident. Without written plans or a very clear objective, it’s hard to say what the result would be. Subcontractors can be very creative if not clearly guided.
Let’s see what is your Dream, Vision? If you were building a machine to make dreams come true, what would be some of the characteristics? If this machine was a million dollar project, would you take it seriously. Let’s say you were, would you know what to do? Do kids out of high school or college know what they want or if they did, do they know how to make it happen? Did they get any training? Let’s go back to that card in elementary school. The teacher was the General Contractor and we were the workers. The teacher stole the responsibility from us and we were being trained to be workers, just plain old irresponsible workers.
The school district, curriculum, administration, teachers already did the first step. They clarified and set the plans, they know what they want and are going to use you to build it. Students, what do they want? They don’t know and it’s not worth training them clarify and figure it out, they are just going to be workers. They aren’t smart enough. When kids get out of high school and even college, they still don’t know what they want to do. Someone else built their machine for them, … and not from a student clarified vision. The graduates didn’t even have a chance to envision anything. It was stolen from them. OK, I’ll calm down for a little. Let’s go to the next step. Inspect and check?
Do students inspect and check their work? No teachers do. The students aren’t building themselves, the teacher is building them to some curriculum vision. Hey, not big deal if it won’t take him to his dreams, the student only has to live with himself and he’s been taught to blame. Even if the teacher teaches and train checking and inspections, as that is the students job. The student has to have some vision to see if he’s doing ok. Obviously, as the vision has been stolen, he can’t check and won’t learn how to check.
In elementary school, did you like how your card turned out? What kind of reaction did you get from your mom when you gave her the card? What do you think did the most to really make the card work? Elementary school teachers know how to make this an exciting sharing event. This is exciting. We are learning and growing and developing ourselves, making our Dreams come true.
When is strategizing and planning taught? Math and history might make more sense if children were asked to control parts of their lives and be responsible for things. Let me show you 5 possible ways to pass the spelling test. (of course passing the spelling test needs to be a vision, the student has taken responsibility for). What way are you going to use? Inspect: how did it go? What parts did it work for? Could you use the other methods to get the other words? You are responsible for 100%, what is your plan? Is asking for 100% ok? …. Oh should we train for almost getting the sale. Should we train for being pretty faithful to our spouse? Should we train sort of trying to raise good kids?
Responsibility, is responsibility more important to train or who to blame? If you don’t get your dream, is blaming Ok? …. or would you rather be trained to have your dream, by being responsible for it. Oh, that’s right you’re a worker and don’t get to have a dream, so it doesn’t apply. You just do, like you were trained and only have the option of blaming. Modify, adjust and change, you weren’t deemed important enough to be trained with those skills. Those are higher order skills.
Responsibility is such an ugly word if you are fixed and incapable. Responsibility is such an inspiring word if you are capable and able to grow and change. We are not saying change things outside us, but working within in the limits, constraints and requirements. Come up with a way you can grow and change yourself to get the job done. It’s the old saying: Don’t pray for life to get easier, pray for you to get stronger! It’s funny when you get stronger things become easier to lift and do. Some even preach that our challenges are to help us get stronger and we should train, work out and love this great work out equipment.
Could you start training that in kindergarten? Is that mean? Is that un-kind? Teachers, parents are the protector of their helpless babies and are to grow them to strong, capable, responsible accomplishers of tasks and dreams. Dreamers! Ask kids what they want to be and too many say, I don’t know. Well, what are you going to school for then? This idea of getting a vision and working to make it happen seems so foreign to them. I think we get stuck with the seeing of our children as helpless and needing to be protected, reminded and mothered. Didn’t we train them to be trustworthy? Didn’t we train them to get a vision and make it happen? Didn’t we train them to pick themselves up when they fall?
How soon should we start giving the 500 sheets of paper to our children and train them to hold themselves to it until they master their drawing? They say talented people are just people who put in more time than the average person. They pushed themselves through the 500 sheets and more, inspecting, checking, adjusting, modifying, growing and developing themselves. How did they learn to be so responsible for their growth?
I keep hearing “be kind” slogans. Where did the get stronger and tougher slogan go to? When was it determined humans were helpless and fixed and had to have their responsibilities taken from them? Could they possibly be trained to build themselves up, instead of having to be built up by teachers and adults? Then they could take the unkind real world and succeed. Hey, they might be prepared. Let me save you and tell you that you can do it! Let them believe it themselves and have skills to strategize, plan and act and grow themselves into someone who can. A human that is capable, a Dreamer!
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