It’s never too late to follow your dreams

2021 is slipping away

The past 20 months have seen significant changes that continue to shape our lives. These changes have left some people worried, others worse off, and some have used the changing times and the restrictions to create new beginnings.

Today is a great time to decide to make little changes that will make a difference in your significant relationships, health, and dreams.

Make 2021 the year you care about the right stuff.

Start with your dreams.

  • What do you want your future to look like?
  • Where are you going to take your life, career, family?
  • How will you start?
  • How will you make sure, this time that you don’t give up?

Dreams change as life shows up, and we see new value in things we didn’t understand. For instance, when you have kids. When I was young, I didn’t consider having children this idea was a vague part of a possible future. But when my son arrived, and I held him for the first time, my dreams changed in ways that had a profound effect on my future. I decided that it was time to set up my own venture and get what I wanted. I saw a time when he would travel the world with me and see my work as well as experience things as a child that I hadn’t until I was an adult. Together we visited the USA, Australia, Japan, most of Europe and some parts of Africa. All because of a dream; this was my new normal, and it started in September 1991.

Push past the drama 

Don’t let the drama that surrounds change obscure your view and stop you from staying connected to what is important or even essential to you and your happiness. If you are not careful, you could find yourself making compromises that seem inevitable, but maybe nothing more than a Hobson’s choice, i.e. no choice at all.

The good news is, today, you are older now and wiser too. You can examine your life choices and compare these to the dreams you have for yourself and decide where you want to go now. 

When you do this, focus on your heart’s desires, your passion in life and not material possessions. In the final analysis, stuff won’t bring meaning to your life, whereas purpose and passion will.

Age is no excuse

For those of you who are going to use age as a reason for not chasing your dreams, being older could be your advantage. 

If you need some inspiration, check out this list of awesome people who didn’t launch their dreams until they were older.

In their 40s

  • At 40 Donald Fisher, with no experience in retail, opened the first Gap store in San Francisco in 1969 with his wife, Doris.
  • Vera Wang only entered the fashion industry at 40; now she’s a world-famous designer.
  • At 43 Samuel L. Jackson had only had bit parts and then in 1991 he landed an award-winning role in Spike Lee’s film “Jungle Fever”.
  • Sam Walton was a retail manager through his 20s and 30s. He was 44 before he stepped out on his own and opened the first Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1962.
  • Henry Ford was 45 when he created the car that revolutionized the auto business – Model T.

In their 50s

  • Jack Cover became a successful entrepreneur at 50 when he invented the Taser gun in 1970, before this he worked as a scientist for NASA and IBM.
  • Betty White was 51 when she joined the cast of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” in 1973, this was the break that leads to her iconic status today.
  • Tim and Nina Zagat were both 51-year-old lawyers when they published their first collection of restaurant reviews under the Zagat name in 1979. It eventually became a mark of culinary authority.
  • Ray Kroc was 52 when he decided to leave his career as a milkshake device salesman and bought McDonald’s which, as everyone knows, he grew into the world’s biggest fast-food franchise.

In their 60s

  • If you grew up loving the TV show “Little House on the Prairie,” consider that Laura Ingalls Wilder published the first in the “Little House” books at age 65 in 1932.
  • Harland Sanders was 62 when he franchised Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1952.
  • Anna Mary Robertson Moses, better known as Grandma Moses, began her prolific painting career at 78.

Look into your heart, find your dream again, and start a new future today – make the next 12 months stand for something truly positive. Write your own history. 

 

If you are interested in learning more about MGL or how to implement any of our models with your team, please contact chris@makinggreatleaders.com or call +1 203 253 2836.

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