The Difficulty of Being a Dreamer

Write the vision, make it plain on tables, that he may run that readeth it. Eleanor Roosevelt once said that the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. So what is a dreamer? It's those that long for more, or they're very aware of what's missing, or maybe they're inclined to know what could be. Maybe they have a prophetic eye and they can partner with Yahweh in seeing his desires and his longings and his heart. I had so many times of being a child, of living in my own world, of having adventures in my head or having these plans that I wanted to achieve that nobody really seemed to get. So it made me a little bit awkward or unique, still being a people person, still being able to be an extrovert in many ways. Just weird enough to not completely feel like you fit in. See, the beauty of being a dreamer is that you see what others don't see, but you also solve problems that people can't solve. You see things, you see the needs, you see the desires from others even, and you figure out, you know, how can we make this happen? It's one of the main reasons why I love living in West Virginia. You know, I have many friends that have questioned why, why would you live in a state where the population is declining, where there's potholes everywhere in the road, where we're almost last in quality of water and healthcare. And there's, there's all these "we don't haves" in there, right? You don't have this. You don't have that. As a dreamer, we don't think that way. We see blank canvases. We see the opportunity to create. And it's actually more fulfilling to have the opportunity to create than just to consume. [FOREIGN] But on the other side of being a dreamer, there's a downside. Sometimes it's really hard to be able to see things and know this could be beautiful, this could be meaningful, we could really accomplish something here, and yet feel so overwhelmed in how to get that done. I've wanted to open a business since I turned 20 years old. I remember sitting in our rented house with my roommate and we thought about, you know, we love eating at such and such restaurant, but we hate driving there. I wonder if we could figure out how to create a delivery service that you could get on your phone and order this food and the food would be delivered to you, right? Sounds familiar, huh? Well, we never pursued that. We fell into that stuck feeling, right? And then life moved on and you become to dream about something else. Many years later, as you know, you see Grubhub and DoorDash. Now, granted, their plans were much better than ours, but what if we just started? That's the hard part about being a dreamer. The hard part about seeing a building or seeing landscape and knowing what you can make it be, you have these dreams in your heart, then this just overwhelming feeling that makes you almost regret having the dream in the first place. The feeling of being stuck is one of the most overwhelming feelings that you can go through. I remember finally getting some momentum and opening up a coffee shop, right? I love coffee. I'm probably addicted to coffee. I wanted to start a coffee shop that revolved around an experience. I wanted people to come in my little small town of West Virginia and be able to get coffee and be able to see a comedy show and to rent office space upstairs and maybe start this entrepreneurial hub. I wanted to be the answer to the problem that I found. The lack of resources or the lack of mentorship in living in a rural area. I had everything planned out, and then all of a sudden, 2020 happens. The pandemic happens, and then everything shuts down. And then I feel defeated, and I didn't get over that defeat for a few years. And here I am now, finally. Launching my first business, having my first clients, helping people see a way of life that's full of joy, being a resource for other dreamers, being the mentor that I didn't have. For the rest of this video, I'm going to give you 5 ways to get over that hurdle, just dreaming to being proactive. Number 1, it all begins on who you believe you are. What is your identity? Do you find your fulfillment in the things that you do or the things that you have? For me, it took me some time to understand that I was loved by Yahweh before I did anything. Before I achieved anything, that my place was always to be in his lap and loved and cherished. If you're operating as a dreamer outside of that reality, I want to tell you it is unhealthy and abusive for you because your identity will always be found on how you execute. And I hate to burst your bubble, my friend, but you will have some bad days. So how will you handle those bad days? It's the beauty of the gospel. He that knew no sin became sin that we may be called the righteousness of God. Which leads to the number 2 way of getting over that hump is realizing and understanding that provision actually comes from Yahweh. Now yeah, I already know that God provides all of my needs. No, really. He actually is the provider for your family. We put all this stress on the head of the household to create wealth, put food on the table. In the West, this is nostalgia. It's found on all the old school movies that it's the dad that goes to work and comes back with a broken back by the sweat of his brow. So that we can eat. And I want to say to you that it is God that gives the means for men to create wealth. Am I saying that you're to be lazy and, and have zero activity? No, this actually frees you up to chase after the things that you know that Yahweh's put in your heart, because there's this exchange that Yahweh gives you the blueprint He gives you the means for creating wealth. As we investigate that transaction, it ultimately says that God owns the provision. To better understand this point, we should think about the other side of the pillow. When you operate in a place where you are the provider and you have to make things happen, that becomes a breeding ground for confusion. For stress, for anxiety, for getting outside of the realm of your true identity. Flip the pillow back over, you now have a business partner, and having Yahweh as a business partner is a pretty good plan. Number 3, as the verse in Habakkuk suggests, you need to write this stuff down. I'm looking at this notebook right here, and I've got so many things from podcasts to business ideas to mentorship notes. This is my dream journal. Now it doesn't say dream on the front of it, but this is an expression of how I see, how I operate. Why is it important to write it down? Because you make the vision plain for those that read it, not just you, not for you to come every day and see it and, and agree with the promise and agree with the plan. But a way to get you over the hump of having the dream to being proactive is the people that you surround yourself with. There are people that are uniquely made by God that don't necessarily dream the way that you dream, but they execute the way that you don't. And they help you. I love— there's a passage of scripture in the Bible where people are— have the gift of helps. And those people that I find are usually stuck because they don't know how to dream. So what do they need? They need a dreamer. They need to be able to look at what you're writing down. They need to look at the vision. It needs to be plain so that they can help you get over that hump. So practically, what's this look like? You write a business plan or you write down metrics, how you can measure where you're going. For me, I love to-do lists. I love to have a list of things that I need to accomplish written and prepared before the day even starts. So in the evening, I'll write down a couple things, which leads to my next point. Number 4 is you plan, you plan for the future, but you focus on today. You have these long-term visions and long-term dreams, but you have to break them down to where You focus on the day to day because if you focus on the long term, then you get disappointed. You're not going to achieve your long-term goal in a day, but you can give up in one. You're not going to lose that 50 pounds in a day, but you can give up in a day. If you're following this day-to-day mindset, and you have a bad day and you have a day of failure, pick yourself up and focus on the next day. How do I get back on track? A good strategy when you write down your to-do list, write something on there that you know you're going to do. Maybe it's already even done. You just need a little bit of a nudge to push you over the finish line. What's that doing? That's giving yourself a dose of dopamine. That's giving yourself the motivation to keep going down the list. And this especially is helpful when you're in that rut. Dreamers get in ruts. They have all this wonderful, romantic, elaborate dreams, and you're not there yet. It's easy for you to get stuck in the long-term vision, and you don't see the importance of what you have today. You're dreaming of the large and you're not appreciating the small, the humble beginning. This tactic will help you. Write down something achievable, realistic, that you can achieve that day, and then do it again the next day, and then do it again the next day. And the last thing, number 5, be authentic. In the world of AI, right? Even creating this video, all of the well-known influencers will tell you, you need a script, you need AI, you need to help it develop your message. And I'm not saying that that is wrong, but I would really love to have a conversation. I'd really love to know that I'm speaking to someone from their inner being and not from what they're reading or what ChatGPT is creating for them. So the question is, what keeps you from being the most authentic you? The biggest thing would be opinions, right? The fear of someone else's opinion about me or about my endeavor or about my dreams. And maybe you've been hurt so many times that you have that defense up to where, "I don't want to release this to the world. I've lived in a glass house before." and so many people threw rocks at it. I just don't want to put myself in that position again. It's fear. It's that fear of failure. Because when the other things are screwed up, like your identity and knowing that Yahweh provides, then that pressure comes on your shoulders. So what if I really go for it and it doesn't work? It's not just a simple failure that you can learn from. It's devastation. It is a question of who you believe you are. We were created to run. And one of the biggest problems that I personally had is I would get to the starting point of this race and the gun would go off and we were ready to run the race and I just would be still, frozen, stuck, overwhelmed. And I would justify it and I would victimize myself. I live in West Virginia. I've never had a mentor. I've never had some of the things that these other people have in building their businesses. I want to tell you, being a victim will get you nowhere. Just sympathy. And I want to tell you, sympathy does not pay the bills. Sympathy doesn't bring you into a place of wholeness. Sympathy doesn't get you over the hump of being a proactive dreamer. Proactive dreaming is my new obsession. It's what I believe I will spend the rest of my life nurturing. It's why I live in Appalachia. It's why I love this place. It's why I love the mountains. It's why I love all the blank slates of creating. And I'm not saying in an arrogant way that I'm the only one that can build something beautiful. There's already beautiful things. But what I do know, if I keep running, I'm setting up my great-great-great-great-grandchildren. Am I saying I will change the world with my dreams and my activity? You know, you always hope that you'll make a huge impact. If I continue to run and I continue to partner with Yahweh, I do know that my great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren will change it. There's so many things I want to say. There's so many things I want to show you that I've learned along this journey. There's all kinds of practical next steps and deep revelatory next steps. But a simple one is dream away. Have the courage to dream again. Have the courage to be vocal without being afraid of someone's opinion or saying, "Here we go again." If you like this video, please like, subscribe, share, do all those amazing things that I'm supposed to tell you at the end of the video. But if you want more, if you want real relationship, we love connecting with people all the time. In the show notes is our online community, absolutely free. Click the link to join. Or visit the website, send me an email. I'll see you next time.