What Works: What's your dream?
Submitted by editor on Mon, 01/19/2015 - 11:39am
This morning, on my What Works Coaching Facebook page, I posed a question via a make-up free video (that’s right, I shoot my videos without or filters, including a Cover Girl lense). What is your dream? When you get down to it, when you wake up in the morning, what do you wish you were waking up to?
Martin Luther King had been speaking about dreams since 1960. He repeated his dream to many people, as many times as he could. He recognized the obstacles but he did not let them stop him. He focused on the prize, the end state, civil rights. Three years later, in 1963, he delivered a speech that Malcolm Gladwell would probably agree was the “Tipping Point” for it all. (Great book. Give it a read when you can.)
Here is an excerpt from that famous speech. To read the whole thing, go here.
“Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!”
So, what did Martin Luther King do? Yes, he inspired a nation. But he also did something that Mary Morrissey calls, “writing a check the universe can read.”
He was specific, descriptive, affirmative, and he took action.
That is what it takes. It’s not enough to say, “I want to do this” and let it sit in the back of your mind as you live your daily lives. You have to talk about it. You have to get specific: visualize it, feel it, smell it, taste it, live it in your mind. You have to take actions as if your dream is already real. You have to have courage, enough of it to fill the Washington Mall or entry to the Lincoln Memorial. You have to be persistent. It’s not enough to know what you want. You have to work with the spirit, the universe, and others to make it happen. We all have the power within us to make our dreams happen.
There’s a little Martin Luther King in all of us. Our dreams may be different, but we all have a heart, drive, and ambition, the basic resources to get anything started. So I want to know, Carson City, what’s your dream? If you need help building it out and making it a reality, you know where to find me. The floor is yours, Carson City.
ABOUT DIANE HANSEN
Diane Hansen is the Chief Inspiration Officer of What Works Coaching, a coaching firm that has helped people worldwide with their businesses, careers, mindsets, and profit margins. She brings to Carson City more than 17 years of experience with a wide array of clients, ranging from top corporations, motivated entrepreneurs and individuals hungry for a fresh start. Her column appears every Monday, and sometimes Tuesday, on Carson Now.
