Getting Started

At some point, you may find yourself thinking about a particular Dream of the Week for a while. Depending on your attention span this could be anywhere from two consecutive days to several months or years. But once you notice that your enthusiasm hasn't waned, it's time to start doing some research.

Keep it cheap.

Use all of your resources to find out as much as you can about your interest or idea. Search the internet, go to the library, see what's at the bookstore, look at magazines. Gather as much information you can. You may find out really quickly that it doesn't sound so good after all, or that the timing just isn't right (see Synchronicity post). This research doesn't cost you a thing, so don't hesitate to poke around.

Not too long ago, I had been pestering my wife to get goats. I was getting tired of mowing our half-acre lawn and wanted to find some kind of symbiotic relationship where I wouldn't have to mow. We checked out books from the library, and I read as much as I could about livestock. It took several weeks and many books, but eventually I learned enough to know that I didn't want goats ... I wanted sheep. So began a new cycle of investigation.

Gathering information is an active pursuit. I have found myself researching subjects I never thought I would be interested in. And even if you don't pursue a particular dream, it's fun to learn about new things. It keeps you young, always wondering how things work.

If you are still interested after this preliminary information-gathering stage, ask yourself what other small steps you can take. You don't have to quit your day job to do this. Start small. Are there any continuing education classes offered?  Or trips you could do? Are there any people in the local area that are doing what you want to be doing? Call, ask around. People love to talk about what they are interested in.

Don't let not knowing where to start stop you. The resources are out there.

By researching, you have switched from talking about doing, to doing. So don't get down on yourself if you feel like you aren't moving fast enough. This can take some time, but it's all part of the adventure.

Here is a resource to help you would-be inventors (or product developers) get started toward your Dream of the Week:

I've always had a lot of ideas that I thought would make great products, but didn't want to spend the time to start up an entire company. Being a little intimidated by the process, I gave up the thought of ever doing this. And then I learned about Stephen Key who explains how to be a product developer. And what seemed like a huge process was broken down into its simplest form.

I encourage you to look for ways to do the same for your dream.

Support

To be successful in the pursuit of your Dream of the Week you will need support. The support of your spouse, partner, family and friends.  

They are the ones that encourage you to start, to keep going, to continue through the hard times. And they’ll be the ones waiting when you want to be done with the Dream of the Week and come home and cry. They are your rock, your safety.

A few years ago my wife enrolled to get her Master's degree at St. John's College in Santa Fe. This was THE program for her. It had everything that she wanted, but it was states away and we would have to live apart. We had just bought our house, which was an exhaustive process, and had been taking care of my grandparents for the last couple of years, also a somewhat exhaustive process.

The plan was for her to go straight through school, which meant that we would live apart for 14 months. We like to be together as much as we can, and we knew that separation was going to be really difficult for us , but I supported her because I knew how much it meant to her.

She drove to Santa Fe and immediately found that she didn’t like it. And she felt that, after the turmoil of the past few months, it would be too hard for her to stay in a place that felt inhospitable to her.

She had been there two hours when she called her best friend to talk about coming home. Preparing for her to leave had been very emotional for all of us and she was worried about how we might react to this quick decision. But being away didn’t feel right. 

Then  she called me. I told her to stay and try it for a couple days and maybe she would change her mind. But she was really just calling to tell me she had started driving home.

Her mom took me to the airport and I flew down early the next morning to meet her in Las Vegas and drive her the rest of the way home.

She called her friend, rather than me or her mom, because that is where she felt most certain of support. The call wasn't really about hashing out options, but about being sure that there was an ally with open arms at home.   

Now she laughs about it, because it does seem absurd, but she’s not embarrassed by her choice. It was the right thing to do at the time.

She felt supported as she packed to leave for school, but also felt that support when she came back home. She never felt that the experience was held against her.

This is significant because her Dream of the Week is to return to St. John's, but to their campus in Annapolis, Maryland. And though she was nervous about telling everyone, every response has been  positive.

So here we are.

Things are a little different this time. We are settled into our home, it’s another campus that seems more suitable for her, and she’ll take it one semester at a time.

But that’s it—that’s support—family and friends backing you, even after a fairly epic and expensive false start. It’s not as scary, and you don’t feel embarrassed or self-conscious when you know that while you are doing whatever it is you do, your people are there for you.

This story has become one of the anthems for The Dream of the Week.

Start small. Start talking about your Dream of the Week, and don't worry about sounding ridiculous. It's not. Rally the support you need, even if that means telling your hairdresser or barista first, just to see how it sounds. Eventually you will gain the momentum you need to put words into action.

Synchronicity

Before I go any further, I want to note that the intended purpose of The Dream of the Week is for positive personal development. If you are a jackass who wants to wreak havoc, leave immediately. Now, onto the next subject.

Synchronicity and how to identify which Dreams of the Week to pursue.

If you are like me, and just about everything in the world is exciting, you will no doubt have many more Dreams than anyone will ever be able to accomplish in one lifetime. So how then do we pick which ones to take on? I consider myself a man of action, I have to DO, I can't just sit around talking about something. I can only talk and plan for so long. And for every 20 Dreams of the Week I talk about, I probably only pursue one. So which one is THE ONE?

A few years ago, I tried to change how we view waste in the Pierce County Parks. Recycling rates are terrible (roughly 1%), and I created a business plan that would use recycling revenues to pay for the cost of a recycling program, whereby we could eventually ramp recycling rates to include 98% of all waste generated in the Parks.

During this lengthy research period, my wife and I attended the Green Festival. We got great parking for the festival, which isn't easy in downtown Seattle. When we went to pay for the festival, we discovered it was $15 per person. No way were we about to pay that. As we turned to walk away, a woman came up to us and offered us two free passes that she had bought ahead of time but couldn't use. It was in the Green Festival that we first saw the booth for Bainbridge Graduate Institute -- a school that offers an MBA in Sustainable Business. Interesting.

Over the next month, my wife and I started hearing ads on the radio for the school, and eventually looked at the website. We booked a session to visit the campus and sit in on classes, and I saw people implementing business plans similar to the one I was working on for the parks. It may not sound like it, but we felt surrounded by BGI. All signs kept pointing to BGI. The next thing I knew I was enrolled and working on an MBA.

Do you ever have one of those days when you are driving in the most hectic part of town, but for some reason all the lights keep turning green and you just sail on through. This is how most of the Dreams of the Week I have pursued have felt. They come naturally. You shouldn't have to fight too hard to get on the right track. You'll need that energy when the journey presents its challenges along the way.

Three great dreamers:


Benjamin Franklin– Check out his autobiography; it's a fantastic read about a man who apparently woke up every morning with a great idea.

Julia Child- Who found her passion in her 40s and never gave up on what seemed like an impossible dream.

Henry David Thoreau- He continually sought a pure life, never dusted a thing, and went to jail rather than paying an unjust tax.


Current Dream of the Week:
My wife and I have been interested in local food systems for some time now. We are slowly outgrowing our half acre garden at home, and are now looking for a larger piece of property to farm in our community. Our hope is to provide a unique variety of locally-grown food typically not grown in western Washington. The plan (for this week, anyway) is to focus on herbs, mushrooms, and soft fruits. Keep checking back as I will be updating the evolution of this dream at the end of my weekly blogs.

Prologue

Many, many years ago, my family left the Midwest as part of a wagon train. They were headed toward the dream of a better life in what is now Martinez, California.

When they got there, they didn't like it.

They took a boat from California to Central America, walked across the Isthmus of Panama, and took a boat up the Mississippi home to Iowa — where they spent a winter enduring the worst blizzard anyone had ever seen. The following spring, the exact same group of people crossed the country a second time to settle for good in Two Rock, California.

So what is "The Dream of the Week"?

You know what they are. We all have them. The dreams and ideas that we keep to ourselves because we are afraid of sounding silly, the kind of dreams we had growing up, before reality slapped it's "let's be practical" into us. The sort of dreams that would make us change our major 10 times in the first two years of college.

I never left this state. If you are one of the few who knew exactly what you wanted to do at the age of 8 and took that one track towards your professional career, well, I'm happy for you, and would love to hear about it. However, most of the people I know were not so lucky. In fact, I still don't know what I want to do in a professional capacity, largely because there isn't just one thing that I would like to do for the rest of my life.

I love trying new things and have been able to test out most of my Dreams of the Week. I embrace the Dream of the Week mentality as a part of a wonderful, interesting life.

Dreams of the week can be large, redefining our whole lives. Or they can be as small as a new hobby. Whatever size or scale it may be, often times, we are paralyzed by fear of the unknown. We come up with excuses for ourselves.

If you're worried about looking like a jackass, afraid that you might fail, afraid that you may succeed, or the endless list of excuses that we come up with that prevent us from pursuing our dreams, well ... it's going to happen. You will look like a jackass, you will fail, and you will succeed. And that's great! Don't let these excuses prevent you from trying. You will survive. Life does go on. And there will be another dream soon. Just don't put it off, don't wait, or you'll always be left wondering, "What if ... ?"

I'm here to support you, and encourage you to just go f*cking do it, to fail fast, and to change your mind midway through (or succeed beyond all expectations). Over the course of the next few months, I will be sharing my own stories of both epic failure and surprising success, and developing tools that you can use to go out and do everything you want to do.