In this motivational talk, the speaker emphasizes that while dreaming is free, achieving a dream requires paying a substantial emotional and practical price. He recounts childhood classroom moments where children declared lofty ambitions, illustrating that stating a dream costs nothing, but realizing it demands discipline, sacrifice, and confronting adversity. The speaker outlines several categories of price: the emotional toll of criticism from loved ones, the fear of venturing into unknown territory, and the relentless hard work needed to improve incrementally. He shares anecdotes, including a leader’s wife doubting his vision and Donald Trump’s nausea before announcing a presidential run, to highlight the personal challenges entrepreneurs face. A quoted principle—being 1% better in 100 ways—underscores the importance of continuous, small improvements. The talk concludes with a call for participants to reflect on how these insights affect their companies and themselves, posting their reflections as homework, and teases a future session on tenacity.
Chapters
Hey, my friend, I believe you are doing well. Hey, listen, we are talking about dream. Put your dream to test, test to see if it is exactly your dream. Remember when we was little? I even remember when I was little, the teacher always asked, you know, we have this— I don't know if it was a class or a, you know, at certain time in a day we all lined up and they'll ask, what do you want to become? You know, some would say, I want to become a police officer. Some would be, I want to become the president. Some will say, "Hey, I want to build a company that will employ 10,000 people." Some will say, "Hey, I want to become a doctor, the best doctor." Some will say, "I even some will say I want to become the you know best taxi driver." I don't know why we say all this, but what I'm saying is that it doesn't cost anything to dream. It doesn't. It didn't cost us anything to say that. But the reality, as you whatever you dream to do, just like today Ali will want to train and bring 2 billion people up. Your dream is you have to pay the price, the emotional price. You have to face adversity. You have to pay the price of your dream. If you don't, you know, you're never going to bring it to pass. Sometimes we have a dream, but we're not ready to pay the price. The price may be you're going to lose a friend. You in this class now, instead of being home having fun and watching movies, now you block this time to develop yourself, to nourish yourself, to get more strength, inner strength. That could be part of the price. Some of the price may be to pay your fee, right? Am I willing to pay the price for my dream? Always remember that striving and strength and struggle precedes success. Striving and struggle precede success, even in the dictionary. That's what Sarah says. So whatever dream you have, you have to pay the price. You know, the dream is free, but the journey is not. You know, you can dream, hey, I want to be the president, I want to do this, but you have to go through the journey. While you're going through the journey, you have to pay the price. You have to maybe get yourself in some discipline, stop You may not have to go to every event and eat the way, you know, you just cut yourself loose and eat like crazy. You may watch what you say and, and all that. And all these things constitute the price. You know, at some point, at some point, you have to make the transition from believer, from believer of the dream to buyer of the dream. So you're saying that you're not the dream. From believer of the dream to buyer of the dream. The price must be paid sooner or later. The price must be paid sooner than we think. Sometimes when we start the dream, we start to— we engage ourselves to do something. We're like, well, you know what, I think as I'm going, it's gonna just work out. No, not always. You must pay the price sooner than what you think. The price will be higher than what you expect. Sometimes we don't— we underestimate what it's going to take us to really, really, really get on the top. Um, you know, sometimes you have to pay the price, you know, more than once. You know, not just once, but more than once. It's possible to do that. And John say, you know, it's possible to pay too much for your dream. You know, it's just the truth. It's sometimes you have to pay, you will pay too much for your dream. So when we talk about a price, you have to know that you, you'll be paid. Payment, uh, everybody have to pay the price to pursue their dream. It's not free. The dream is not free. And I will talk about a few price that we will pay. The price of dealing with criticism from people who matter. Sometimes you start your dream and people think you are crazy. You know, your mom will, you know, would deal with you. Today I was talking with one of our great leaders, you know, that the wife want to literally leave him because he think what he's doing is not right. But in his dream, it's his dream, is what he want to accomplish. But the wife want to block, like, no, no, let's go back to our small life the way we was doing before. Let's go back. This thing is too big, you know. Sometimes people will love you, they will Fight your dream. Sometimes you you have to, you know, and these people are people that love you unconditionally. You know, they will people who love you unconditionally. They will criticize you, and you have to deal with that. The criticism is not tainted by his or her personal agenda. You know, sometimes people will really really really come after you just because they don't understand what you are doing. You have to pay the price of overcoming your own fear. Most of the dream, when you dream of doing something, most of the time it's a— you're trying to go where you have never been. It's scary. Trust me. It's scary. Donald Trump said that the day he announced that he wanted to run for the White House, I mean, he went home and threw up. He's like, man, I got myself into trouble. I've never done this thing. Now you have to deal with the world, public figure and all that. So if you really, really, really have a big dream, sometimes you wake up and it's going to scare you. You have to deal with that. The third price is the hard work. You have to work hard. You have to work hard. And then you have to change the way you— the way you handle stuff. Things like, you know, one of the great leaders says that recently after I've spoken to an employee at the company— this is what John said— in company in Denver, an attendant named Rich Melman came up to me and handed me the quote, it is hard to be 100% better than your competition, but you can be 1% better in 100 ways. And he says, I will do more than belong, I will participate. I will do more than care, I will help. I will do more than believe, I will practice. I will do more than be fair, I will be kind. I will do more than forgive, I will forget. That's a good one. I will do more than dream. I will walk. I will do more than teach. I will inspire. I will do more than earn. I will enrich others. I will do more than give. I will serve. I will do more than live. I will grow. I will do more than suffer. I will triumph. is the heart of a dreamer. What about you? I want you to go ahead and put in the chat room on your homework, how this changed you, how could this affect your company and even yourself. The price that you have to pay. The price that you have to pay for your dream. You have to pay. All right. Tomorrow we'll talk about something a lot more important. We'll talk about a question of tenacity. So see you tomorrow.
