I just finished The Dream Manager, a book about life dreams (not the sleeping kind) and how one company helped its team members achieve their goals. I strongly encourage you to read it; it’s a captivating 100-some pages. The story focuses on how one janitorial services company drastically improved their business simply by focusing on individual dreams. The Dream Manager program became an integral part of the team member’s success and the success of the business.
A couple months ago during one of our team meetings, Sze (our CEO/team dad/#1 cheerleader/visionary/chief dreamer) talked about how we’re going to have our own version of the Dream Program. He wants us to dream and wants to be part of helping us achieve those dreams. As I was listening to conversations around the office, I heard some people talking about wanting to buy vacation homes and others talking about wanting to be a developer and create their own app.
As I was listening, and later as I was reading the book, two thoughts came to mind.
What are my dreams? What are the dreams of those around me?
I asked one of my friends about their dreams and was given more to think about after they told me that they don’t really have dreams. Maybe goals and visions…but not dreams. Naturally, I asked why and learned that, from their perspective, people can have dreams without knowing why they want it or because they want to prove something or be seen a certain way. I thought about this some more. Do dreams need to have a clear purpose? Is it okay to dream something simply because? This led me to my next train of thought of the connotation of the word dream. It’s a nice, airy word that floats off of the lips. There are also plenty of negative connotations about dreamers and having your head in the clouds. The book made me think it’s time to reframe the way we use the word.
I did a self check-in to see what dreams I have at the forefront of my mind and what dreams I’ve pushed away out of fear that they’re unachievable. Here are some of them, in no particular order:
- Travel for 3-6 months of the year
- Start an arts center/foundation in honor of some incredibly artistic and musical relatives who have died
- Become a physicist
- Become a lawyer
- Become an architect or engineer
- Buy a house
- Buy my parents a house
- Learn 2-3 other languages fluently
- Make a delicious vegan mac and cheese and enter it into the vegan mac and cheese competition I went to recently
- Cruise around the world
- Go to space
- Become a model
- Teach kids and young adults about the importance of nutrition and good food habits
- Visit Antartica
- Feel consistently strong in my body
- Have a garden
- Regularly host parties (dinner, birthday, etc.)
- Fly a plane
- Become really good at a couple styles of dance
- Design a house the inside out
The list could go on. Some of these can be achieved faster than others, some of them might never be achieved. I’ve started on the path for some of these and don’t know where to start with others. Whether or not I achieve all of these goals, I’m paying more attention to my dreams and adding them to the list. I want to know the dreams of those around me and I want to help them where I can. Dreaming is important, it’s one of the things that keeps us going and allows us to grow.
What are your dreams?
Heh, like heather. 