What To Do When People Shit On Your Dream
By Bryan Ward, Husband, Father of 4, Inc. 500 Entrepreneur, and Founder of Third Way Man
Your moment has come.
With fluttering stomach and sweaty hands you sit down and tell them your vision:
The business you want to start…
The radical life change you want to make…
The 180-degree career path change you want to take.
Whatever it is that has seized you body mind and soul and won’t let go.
You finish your spiel and look into their eyes, waiting for the look of awe and excitement to wash across their face.
Instead you get stupor.
An awkward shifting in the chair.
And then they open their mouth and the stream of soul-numbing effluent begins:
"I don’t want to burst your bubble, but I’m not sure you’ve thought this through…"
"I don't know why you'd throw it all away to go do X when you're SO GOOD at Y…"
Or, worst of all:
"I don't understand: you have a great job and a family who loves you. What do you have to be unhappy about?"
And so you leave the room in a fog.
And with astonishing speed, the anger and disappointment that stung you as you walked out that door is gradually displaced by a seeping self-reproach:
Maybe they're right.
Maybe my idea WAS a bit grandiose.
Maybe I just need to be more grateful with what I already have.
And in that moment, your tender green shoot of ambition--the embryonic mission that could have electrified your entire life--gets mashed by the boot of other people’s sage reasons.
...
Here’s the thing:
They don’t know shit.
Through some combination of personality, experience, and luck, you’ve caught a glimpse of the invisible.
Something no one else sees.
That means the rest of us are categorically unequipped to judge.
ONLY YOU know what you are capable of.
ONLY YOU know what latent powers you’ve been incubating in secret.
ONLY YOU get to decide how far your ambitions reach.
They don’t get a say.
Because it will be YOU, not them, who has to live with the regret of playing it small.
Here's how to turn your dream into reality
