Dreams, goals and courage. These are three things that lead to awesomeness, that give our lives purpose and more meaning than anything else.

Last month I was watching old footage of one of the greatest motivators I believe this world has seen ‘Zig Ziggler’. Zig was talking about dreams and the ownership we must have of them. There is no point dreaming if it is just ticking a box, it’s got to be powerful enough to make us want to move and make them our reality. When dreaming and then goal-setting Zig said “one night write down all the dreams you have, and then the next night write down what those dreams mean to you, if you can’t articulate it in one sentence, then strike that dream off the list as it’s probably not going to get the attention it needs.

I believe dreams to be a human right, but we must never take them for granted. I recently spoke at a low decile school in the central North Island and it was absolutely awesome; the passion, respect and warmth of everyone within the school was up there with some of the best schools in New Zealand. The thing is outside of the school gate life was quite different for many, homes were broken, jail visits to parents were normal and loneliness occurred far to often, I know this from what the principal told me but also when I asked the kids (aged 7 - 11) what there dreams were, only a handful within a group of 90 put up their hands, I assumed the other 85 were shy and rather be elsewhere, until I asked… “would you rather be out there playing ball” they all shook their heads side to side… NOOO, then one kid responded with… “we’ve never been asked what our dreams are before” .

Don’t be afraid to encourage yourself or others to dream, dreams are not “airy-fairy”, they are the centre-piece to awesomeness if, and only, we follow them with goals. The goals of a dream involves things, dates, people… for making those dreams happen and then the rest, where we can then sit back and smile at the success of a dream is courage!

My dream is to deliver 100+ speeches a year because I absolutely love seeing people becoming accepting, accountable and embracing. To exceed this I have the goal of 60 points of contact every week, over the years this has given me momentum that I don’t really need to do it, but I still choose to for the reason of busy-ness is a reflection of what we put into it, and making contact continues to be uncomfortable but this is where I grow and you can to.

I remember walking along a footpath in Takapuna and seeing a business card lying on the ground. I picked it up to be a tidy kiwi and then I saw it was a company I knew would have conferences and would be looking for speakers, I saw it was the card of the company director and that as a company they were all about creating opportunity. So carefully (not wanting to intrude) I articulated an email introducing myself as a speaker and now have a gig speaking with 600 people within that company in August.

So be inspired to dream and inspire others to do the same, turn those dreams into goals so that one has direction, and have the courage to embrace every opportunity that the world presents.

Dream big achieve more!