Nightmares, Dreams & The Determined Entrepreneurial Spirit

Entrepreneurial Spirit

It’s 5:25 am Saturday morning and I’m at my MacBook, typing away, which is not unusual.

What’s unusual is what is on my mind this morning because of the dream I had last night.

In this dream I came home and a friend of ours was visiting with my wife and they were standing in the kitchen. Our friend had one of those plastic bags you get at the grocery store and she was collecting our empty aluminum cans and in the dream it hit me rather hard.

Here was this elegant woman I knew from church and times are so hard she is collecting our aluminum cans for extra money.

It was such a huge shock because I thought she and her husband were doing fine. Obviously looks can be deceiving.

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Then a few things dawned on me, besides the morning Sun:

1. I was mad that they let things go for so long that they had to resort to collecting cans to make ends meet.

2. I was happy that they were rolling up their sleeves to do what they have to do to make ends meet.

3. I was honored that they were willing to “let their hair down” and come to my wife and me to help them reach their goals.

In my short, blurry, harried, adventurous 40 years I have stepped in more than my fair share of heaping, steaming piles of dung, many of which I created on my own.

I have made a lot money and friends and lost a lot of both as well along the way.

I have lost more sleep than Kanye West before he performs at the Taylor Swift family reunion and I have giggled like a school girl at some of the deals I have structured and the resulting checks, some so big I still blush thinking about them.

But through it all, I have found a few constants in my life that give me the courage to hop out of bed each day and produce.

1. The love of my family. My wife, my parents, my sister, my cousins are all happy to see me whether I’m rolling up in my new 4×4 or my broke down mini-van with a transmission about to drop right on their driveway.

2. The support of my friends. Going through tough times you really do learn who your friends are and they, too, are just happy to see you and some have LITERALLY given me the shirt off of their backs. (But those are stories best told bellied up to a bar with a cold drink in our hands!)

3. The love of God. He does not change nor does His love. Being a father (of six) I now understand the story of the Prodigal Son. My oldest two children are boys and they do some boneheaded things from time to time and they can get under my skin but my love for them only grows. While I may not be happy with their particular course of action at a given moment I still love them and, regardless of what they do, if they sincerely apologize and seek to make amends for their transgressions they are welcomed back (I’ll write more on TOUGH LOVE in another post.)

4. The inevitable success of motion over meditation. There are days (and sometimes weeks) when I feel like I’m not getting anything done. When I feel like I’m wasting time or chasing a pipe dream or I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. There are times when I’ve missed my goal or fallen behind on a project and I feel like crawling back into bed and saying “To hell with it all! What’s the point?” Then it happens. A small victory appears. A prospect from 6 months ago calls out of the blue and says, “We’re ready to buy.” Then it happens again. A client calls you with a HUGE referral that closes immediately. Then it happens yet again. A prime office space opens up that’s twice the size and half the rent, enabling you to expand and grow at no extra expense. In football they teach running backs to keep their legs and feet moving because good things happen when you have the ball and you’re moving straight ahead, eyes on the goal, teeth clenched, pummeling your opponent, determined to cross the finish line NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES YOU GET KNOCKED DOWN! Sometimes you’re tackled, but sometimes you’re not. And it’s those 30 runs up the middle for 1 and 2 and 3 yard gains (and sometimes a loss of yardage) that wear down the defense and make the 31st run for a 75 yard touchdown and the win possible. And that 75-yard run is all they’ll show on ESPN! So keep moving.

Today, celebrate your family, your friends and the love of God and commit to taking massive, consistent action to surpass your goals and live your dreams.

In late 2005 I committed to taking massive action to grow my sales when I was with a start-up technology company out of Austin. Steve Clark is the man I turned to in order to turn my sales world upside down, but get this: I was already in the President’s Club.

That’s right. I was at the top of my sales game when I decided to up my game even further.

What are you doing to up your game? 

Market like you mean it. Now go sell something.