A few days ago I was waiting on my car for an oil change when this kid came running around me making a buzzing noise pretending to be some kind of a spaceman on an epic journey. I wondered what that kid was thinking. What world had he dreamed up? Where was his mind taking him?

I asked myself: what happened to our imaginations? When we were kids you could give us a ruler and we could pretend we were pirates. Somewhere along the way we stopped and were crushed with a big fat dose of reality. Life happened. We get kids to feed. Jobs to work.

No more lands to conquer. No adversaries to fight. What happened to us? When did we lose the ability to imagine? Our power to visualize something not there? As we grow older our imaginations leave us. They get stuffed away in a closet in the backs of our minds and replaced with life. We forget how to play and create great new lands out of thin air. I wonder if this is why so few start businesses and go out on a limb in pursuit for their dreams. Perhaps they have forgotten how to imagine great distant lands in their minds. Obviously if we saw a grown man buzzing around pretending to fight pirates we would put him in a straight jacket. Quickly.

But what about the ability to imagine an idea or dream up a better world? Perhaps our loss of imagination keeps us from not seeing what isn’t there. Imagination is what lead to every great innovation, creation and revolution that was ever created in history. Our leaders had to see a better world through imagination. If you want to make a difference, you have to fight for your imagination. Bring it back. Let out that kid in you and dream up something incredible.

What are your thoughts?

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Why do we settle? Is it for fear that we may not reach great heights? Perhaps a lack of conviction in our ability to succeed? Why do we allow ourselves to accept less than what we are worth? Is it that we believe that we do not deserve to have the best that there is in the world?

I saw something amazing today. It was an old couple holding hands. A rare find today. There was something there though, which I couldn’t help but notice. The man looked like he still had the hots for her. And her, she looked like she was the happiest woman on the planet. They had this look in their eyes that was just incredible to see. Passion. Love. It made me smile. Driving home, I thought to myself, wow. Why don’t more people find relationships like that? I think in today’s world, people settle for a lot less. We settle for security. We stay in relationships when we have better prospects that could make us happier. We don’t leave a job when we hate it. We never start that business or act on our great ideas or opportunity.

Why choose to settle for something you don’t really want in the first place? At what point do we let go and justify something less than our true desires? It got me wondering, why is it that people don’t believe that they can have the best that there is in the world?

We all have a choice. We can accept the status quo or be the ones to set the bar where we truly want. Every time we settle for less a piece of ourselves die with it. Our true desires are not fulfilled. You may learn to accept where you are, but inside you will always have a longing for more and it will slowly eat away at your soul until you act on it.

Maximum security equals minimum experience. – Dan K.

The most secure place on the planet is a prison cell, but the problem is that it is just that, a prison. You are behind bars, held back and aren’t free to reach your true desires. You won’t find that person that is truly right for you, you’ll settle for someone that doesn’t make you feel fully alive. You won’t start that business idea you had, and it will sit lonely locked away in your mind’s attic collecting dust. If our history’s great leaders had settled, would anything great ever been accomplished?

If you really want to be happy you can’t settle for less. Another great quote: “learn to say no to the good to allow room for the great.” Learn to not accept mediocrity and shoot for great heights. Don’t settle. Follow your heart.

It is out there; you just have to have enough patience to find it.

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Have you ever seen someone so plagued by the past that it haunts their entire being? Where the past has such a firm grip upon the soul of them that it takes control of their life? It’s like they are dragging this massive weight behind them that is holding themselves back from moving forward.

I am a firm believer that if you want to have a future, you must let go of the past.

The past is a double edged sword. It can be a great thing and a terrible thing. In some senses, the past can give you experiences that can keep you from danger in the future. I’m not saying you should forget those. Learn from them. However, the past can also keep you from living a full happy life as well. Have you ever dealt with someone who has had a terrible unhealthy relationship? The past can take control of their life and hurt all of their future relationships by making people pay for other’s mistakes. We can be so worried about not letting the things that happened before, happen again, that we forget to live the life we have right now in front of us. Before we know it, we can look up and it’s over. Don’t be that person that one day realizes they have wasted years of their life due to the past having reign over them. It can be helpful, but it can also suck the life inside out of you.

Don’t let the past keep you from having a future. It’s your choice if you give the past power over you. Yours and yours alone. You have the choice to build yourself up again and move on, or let it keep control over you. You can let the circumstances shape you or you can do the shaping.

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I hate saying it but many people out there just live a life to merely exist in our world. They just live to get by with their dreams and lives unfilled. For some reason that is enough for them. I truly believe that we should exist for a much bigger reason. We should have a great purpose that inside we MUST fill. Our own individual thing to master, move and stake our claim. Not to just get to next week’s paycheck and to “to get by.” I think life should mean more than that.

Is just getting by living a real fulfilled life? I’m not saying that everyone should go out and build a massive company or do some incredible feat. Greatness can be defined in many ways. I don’t necessarily mean money either. Everyone should however have more of a purpose than to get to the next day. We shouldn’t be living for the weekend. We should work to find our why in life. Our purpose for what we are supposed to do on this planet. Have you ever asked yourself what your why is?

When you were little you had such grandiose dreams of great aspirations. We all wanted to be astronauts and were told to shoot for the stars. We thought we could do or become anything. Somehow along the way, many of us settled for mediocrity. We lost our why and haven’t acknowledged it since. We lost our passion and we settled when we could have soared.

What happened to those dreams of greatness? What happened to our why? What your life is about? What impact do you want to have on our world? How will your life be remembered by those around you? What would they say about your life after you are gone?

Find your why again. Don’t live your life asleep. You don’t want to wake up one day and realize you lost it entirely.

You have a masterpiece inside you. One unlike anything that has ever been created, or ever will be. And remember: If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you. – Gordon Mackenzie

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I love history and learning about our great leaders, innovators and producers of the past. Here’s a few from this month:
January 4
1972 Willy Wonka’s trademark was registered.
January 5
1965 HOME OF THE WHOPPER was trademark registered.
January 6
1925 Agronomist George Washington Carver was granted patent #1,522,176 for cosmetics.
January 7
1913 Patent #1,049,667 was granted to William Burton for the manufacture of gasoline.
January 9
1906 Campbell’s soup was trademark registered.
January 10
1893 Thomas Laine patented the electric gas lighter.
January 16
1984 Jim Henson’s copyright claim on “Kermit, the Muppet” was renewed.
January 17
1882 Leroy Firman received a patent for the telephone switchboard.
January 21
1954 The first atomic submarine was launched. The USS Nautilus was christened by First Lady Mamie Eisenhower.
January 24
1935 The first canned beer, “Krueger Cream Ale,” was sold by the Kruger Brewing Company of Richmond, VA.
January 27
1880 Patent #223,898 was granted to Thomas A. Edison, for “an electric lamp for giving light by incandescence”.
January 31
1983 Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was copyrighted.

When can I add your creations to the list?

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Look at the great innovations, revolutionary ideas or talent from our history and you will find one commonality: they were all discouraged or ridiculed in some form or another before they became a success. Not one had the red carpet rolled out for them with a parade of fans encouraging them to go on. They all faced opposition and were often attacked. (Ask any entrepreneur, they all have their “you’ll never be able to” story.) Why do people do this? Fear. Fear of uncertainty. Fear of change. Fear of the unknown. Fear of a shift in power or relationships.

Get used to it. People will fear our genius. Those who are our world’s creators, that bring forth new ideas and push the envelope with their talents or ideas need to realize that society fears them. Why? In my opinion, because they were too weak or mediocre to pursue their own talents. So they attack others in this messed up sense of justification to make them feel better about themselves.

The sad truth is that many walk away from ideas or talents simply because others have discouraged it. They are not strong enough in their own convictions to see the fear behind the discouragement. They can’t see the underlying envy and jealousy. Why would you walk away because of a silly reason like a little discouragement? If you succeed, that changes things with those around you. They either can change with it or stay the same. The balance of power changes, then in order to justify it in their own minds that they are ok where they are, they attack others. Whether they admit it or not, they downplay other’s talent because of their own selfish reasons.

Don’t sacrifice your talents and dreams simply because someone (who was mediocre in their own pursuits) disagreed with you or discouraged your passion. Do you think our history’s greats were worried about opinions of mediocre minds or efforts? No they were too concerned with what did matter: their creations on their path to greatness. Are you afraid of looking like a fool? What will really make you look foolish is if you become one of the attackers and start justifying yourself for where you are.

If we all waited around to get approval from people in life, nothing would ever get done. Unknown

“Some people are leaders vs. followers, some hunters vs. farmers, some creators vs. users. If you want to be a leader, hunter, creator, you must learn to be an individual. Let the followers, farmers and users join the collective.” MQ

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When I was in high school we had this thing called a senior project. You had to pick a topic you were interested in, find a mentor and create something with them in hopes of learning something out of it. It was a really neat project that I truly enjoyed and still use what I learned today (I think this is one thing every school should do). I have always been a huge fan of art and creativity, so I choose painting and a lady by the name of Jan Crouch to be my mentor. Jan Crouch was a painter from Asheville NC and was an incredible artist. It amazed me what she could do with a brush. She made it seem so simple.

Jan was different then most teachers as she was suffering from alzheimer’s disease at the time. So it was always an interesting time going there to learn from her. She would give me the same tour of her house and show me her paintings every time I went there never remembering I had been given it several times before. I wouldn’t tell her I had already seen them because I really enjoyed watching her tell the stories about them and the brightness in her eyes that came out from talking about her creations. It was always a treat for me to see such passion from the meaning behind the incredible works of art. Jan did an extremely cool painting of the Thomas Wolfe angel statue (pictured above) which was inspired by his book: Look Homeward, Angel. I will never forget Jan’s lessons on painting and passion. It was an inspiration. I use her lessons every time when I get a chance to stop and paint. This past week Jan passed on to a better place.

Jan, you were a great teacher that I will never forget the lessons. Thank you so much for helping fuel one of my personal passions.

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The world is full of dreamers that have been brave enough to dream big dreams in this world of doubt. All of the great innovations and creations have blossomed from our great dreamers. Apple, Disney, and every single one of our great companies all started from nothing more than a dream from one person.

Dreaming big dreams is great, and an important first step in the process to greatness, but the dirty truth is that in order for your dreams to have significance, you must have action too. You must take the steps necessary to make them a reality. I think sometimes we get so caught up in our dreams by thinking about what life will be like one day when we reach a certain level of success, that we lose sight of what it will take to get there. It gives us enough satisfaction to keep us going on and to continue dreaming, but we fail to actually take the action to get us there.

If you really truly want to become great, you cannot simply have a dream or vision. You must combine your vision with venture and action. Vision is not enough. Dreaming is not enough. Dreaming is nothing more than a thought when it is not combined with action. It holds no power and has no force to push it beyond a simple thought. The greatest, coolest, most innovative, ingenious dreams will never become anything without action.

The world is full of people that dream big dreams. That long inside for something better. We have all seen the people who are going to “one day” write that book, or “one day” start that business. The truth is that their dreams will never formulate to more than a dream if they fail to take action. You can spend a lifetime of dreaming and never producing anything. They have not reached that point where they are tired of just holding onto a dream. They need to reach a point where they have that burning desire inside to make it a reality.

I believe you must reach a boiling point inside yourself. That point inside where you become fed up with just dreaming and want to actually make your dreams happen. Where you lose the “one day I am going to be…” and start saying, “today I am going to be.” It’s no longer about “becoming great” it’s about “doing what it takes to get there.”

Real success is never given. It is taken by those with the willpower and the determination to ACT.

Although having dreams are extremely important, they hold no power without action. You have to step out of that dream state and walk through the door. Reach that boiling point inside yourself, where you will stop dreaming and start doing.

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Do your friends give you permission to stay where you are? Or do they encourage you to be what you are truly capable of being?

In my opinion, a real true friend is not someone who simply agrees with you. Or never tells you that you can be any better. Instead, a good friend encourages you to tap into your greatness and do what they know you can accomplish. I believe a true friend is someone that pushes you to follow your dreams and pursue your deepest passions. To become the best version of you possible. A friend is someone who is there to celebrate your victories as if they were their own and would expect the same in return for theirs. They are there for you when the world is caving in. They also tell you what you really need to hear when you need it, not necessarily what you want to hear. I believe a true friend is someone who will snap you back to reality and kick you in the tail when you need it most.

To be honest, I’d rather have one true friend like that then a hundred phony ones that don’t push me any day. What’s the point of a fake friend? Are they even a friend or simply an acquaintance?

I believe there are many of us out there that give our friends permission to stay right where they are. To linger there lukewarm, never growing. Why do we do this? To be dead honest, it’s because many of us have become complacent in our own lives and if our friends grow, then it makes us “look bad.” It takes away that excuse we use for us not succeeding and becoming better ourselves. No longer can we say “well everyone else is the same, I’m not that bad.” We no longer have that comparison anymore to justify our lack of greatness in our minds.

“For every person seeking greatness, there are dozens more charged with safeguarding their mediocrity.” -R.G.

I challenge you to step out of that comfort zone and encourage those around you to become the best they can. Stop giving them the excuse to stay where they are. Let me be clear: I’m not saying run out there and judge everyone and start telling them they are a screwup. That’s a fast track way to lose all of your friends. Just don’t let them become complacent and settle when you know they can aspire to do great things. Encourage them that they can become incredible in their endeavors. Tell them when you know they are capable of doing something amazing.

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