Take a look around you. Notice the chair you’re sitting on, the screen you’re looking at, the music you’re listening to (and the instruments that made it) or the TV show that’s on in the background, even the room you’re in. Think about successful people in any field – politicians, celebrity chefs, movie stars, recording artists, and professional athletes just happen to be the most visible. Now ask yourself, what do they all have in common?
Each and every technological invention, successful career – and every single accomplishment, great or small – were all created twice. First, in someone’s imagination, and then (usually after much trial, error, and refinement) later in reality. The one thing they all have in common is that they were all once dreams that eventually became reality. Their creator’s individual paths may have been different, but they all followed a similar process to make their dreams come true. I would love to help you take the steps to turn your dream into reality.
With the right combination of coaching and practice, I probably could have overcome those challenges. I could have lost weight and improved my physical fitness and my athletic ability (all of which eventually happened many years later). I could have spent time on focused practice and developed my baseball skills. I might never have overcome my lack of depth perception and other physical limitations to play professionally, but I could have improved, maybe even had a career in baseball.
But I also lacked something else that kept me from ever trying out again.
You see, when I was 14, I didn’t know how to turn my dreams into reality. I didn’t know what steps to take, and I didn’t have anyone in my life to teach or encourage me. My parents meant well, but they were focused on me going to college so that I could get a good job – not on achieving my dreams.
And who could blame them?
You see, my mother wanted to be a priest and a drummer when she was a little girl. She learned to play the piano, the organ and the viola, and was such a fine musician, she could have played viola for the Philadelphia Orchestration. But her parents died when her two younger sisters were still teens, and she had to support them (not possible on a musician’s salary in the early 50’s). All my father ever wanted to do – from the time he was four or five years old – was draw and paint. His talent was portraiture; he could capture his subjects personality in his paintings. But he didn’t know how to support a wife and four little ones painting portraits in the age of Kodak.
So my mother played the organ for church every chance she got – weddings, funerals, and Mass (sometimes two or three) on Sundays. My father spent Saturday or Sunday afternoons painting landscapes of the vacant lots around the corner from our house or the flowers around our house. They both deferred their own dreams in favor of other responsibilities.
I wish I could tell you that high school or even college taught me how to turn dreams into reality. If they had, I might have lived a very different life. By the time I learned how to turn dreams into reality, I had missed the critical window to achieve those early baseball dreams.
Fortunately, I can share what I learned with you, and you can achieve your dreams.