You must take ownership of your passion.

Remember that feeling you got when you were a kid on Christmas eve? You could barely sleep, so excited about the next day. That’s how you should feel about your work. If you aren’t there yet, then you are probably in the wrong field and deep down will always long for something more. I think that we all should love what we do so much that we can’t wait to get out of bed and start working on it. We shouldn’t live a life where we are dreading the morning or going to work.

Opportunity doesn’t wait for you to act, it’s ready now for someone to take hold of it and run. If you wait around, it will move on to someone else. When I was 19, I had an idea for a job website company. Basically, it was youtube mixed with monster.com, mixed with advice on how to get the job you want. On this website, you would be able to search for any job you wanted, and find video interviews, articles and more from experts that already have that job. They would give advice on how to get started, what their experiences were, things to watch out for, what qualifications you needed, and how to get hired etc. It gave you insiders information right there on the internet. Picture having an internship that taught you everything you needed to know, packaged in a nice box with a big fat red bow on top of it, all for a small fee. I saw a much needed opportunity and failed to act on it though (In fact, I let a $20-30,000 a year college career education “expert” give me advice on why I shouldn’t do it).

7 years later… I look back to see that within the last year, a huge company just funded and launched something similar. Damnit, cue knife straight to my heart. I Shoulda, I woulda and I coulda… but I didn’t. My idea was 7 years before another company had the same one and acted. I saw a huge opportunity and didn’t pull the cord. Because of my failure to act, opportunity moved to someone else that was actually ready to run with it.

Opportunity is all around us and there for those with the strength to step up and take ACTION. The world is yours, so take it. Don’t lets fears or doubts make you wait. Waiting rarely accomplishes much. It leaves you no better than you were the day before. You’ll look back and regret not moving forward on it.

“Orville Wright never needed a pilots license.” – Gordan McKenzie

I think it’s interesting how people think they need qualifications to start their big idea. I have met tons of friends that want to start a business, but they think they need to go get a fancy MBA before they can move forward. When I first started my business, I had $50 in my pocket (which I spent on brochures and incorporation), no official college degree and a dream for something better (thank God for Bekah who fed me!). I was simply armed with my brain and not much else. If you look at most big business founders, you will also find the same to be true. They don’t have the qualifications, traditional education or permission for their ideas. They lack what the world thinks they need. They simply have desire and drive. They don’t need permission. They don’t need that fancy MBA. They don’t need approval for their ideas. They just start and move forward. Stop seeking permission for your ideas and just get started.

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

I am a firm believer that inside every person there lies a king. To a few, this king is full of life with the world within its grasp. In others, it lies dormant just waiting to be unleashed. I believe we all have it inside of us to become something incredible. If we could only discover it within ourselves, then our possibility could be endless. However, it’s us that must make the decision of whether or not to search for it.

I believe that no matter who you are, where you were born, what your parents were like, what your circumstances are, there is only one limit on your entire future, YOU. One of my favorite authors and mentor, Mark Qualm puts it this way: If you permit life to walk over you, or worse, just pass you by, you deserve it. You are not a helpless pawn, at the mercy of forces out of your control. You are exactly the opposite. You are you, and only you can CREATE your future. Do not let life happen to you, create the life you deserve.

We live in a world with limitless opportunity. It’s out there, you just have to find it by letting out your inner king. I have personally seen the most undereducated, poorest people find riches and success. They aren’t superhuman, they didn’t have advantages, they simply saw a better world for themselves. They let out their inner king. Recently, I met with Ryan Blair for dinner. Ryan is a serial entrepreneur, multimillionaire that came from nothing. His father was a drug addict, sisters and brothers were in and out of jail. He had ZERO advantages. Yet he saw something more in himself. He let his inner king. Inside of you is the ability to become anything you want. You just have to let it out.

Dan Kennedy has a great quote: “I’m an overnight success after 20 years.”

If it took you 5 years to achieve all of your dreams would it be worth it to dedicate that time? Of course! There is another saying I live by: “I will dedicate the next few years of my life towards achieving my goals so that while others have to work to survive, if I choose to I can be permanently lazy.” If you want to be successful in anything, put in the time. Make the dedication. As with most things in life, you get what you put in. Put in the work and time, you’ll get there. Don’t put in the time, you won’t get much in return.

This is me as batman as a kid! Ha.

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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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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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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