Hi guys! Welcome to the 26th episode of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast!
I hope this finds you happy and feeling fulfilled in your life. Do you ever feel as if your dreams are elusive? Or maybe you landed your dream and now you are looking for more? Feeling fulfilled, having success…have you ever really thought about what this means to you? To be sure it means something different to each one of us.
I love the way that Maya Angelou defined success. She said success is “liking who you are, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”
I had an epiphany when I heard her definition. I thought to myself, Wow, According to that definition, I’m already successful and I wonder how many of you think that too?
I think it’s hard to argue with her definition. My idea of success has evolved, just as I imagine yours has. As you grow and adapt and achieve, don’t you find that your idea of success evolves with you?
I was having a conversation with a friend lately and she said “Don’t you think its a bit disingenuous to tell people that they can achieve anything they set their mind to? That if you have a dream, that dream is for you? I asked her if she wanted to be the one that tells a 10 year old boy with a dream to play in the NFL that he isn’t ever going to do that because he is small? How about someone that desires to be President of the United States or an Olympic athlete?
If you’re good enough to play football in College, You still only have a 1.0% chance of being in the NFL
You have a 1 in 562,000 thousand chance of being an Olympic athlete
You have a 1 in 300,000,000 million chance of being president
I use these goals because they are BIG and the odds are low. When I say to go after your dream and you will achieve it….this is what I mean. I truly believe that we all have a god given talent, something we were born to do. Something that feels natural when we do it. It may be you haven’t found yours yet. It may be that what you are doing now is part of your journey towards finding it. When you have a passion for something. Something that you enjoy so much that it doesn’t feel like work. Something that you are naturally good at, that you feel you were born to do, that you would do even if you weren’t getting paid…that’s when you know you are on the right path, the right journey.
My journey has evolved from real estate to home building to interior design to Lifestyle Entrepreneur where I now have my very own podcast and I help inspire people to live a “life by design”. It all came in a very natural progression. Each one of those things I LOVED doing and it just kept evolving into the next thing because as I became successful, my dreams just kept evolving and getting bigger and bigger. Another example…
My husband was in the air force and dreamed of being a pilot. The rules at that time were that you had to have 20/20 vision to be a pilot. He didn’t have that, but that didn’t deter him. He just knew he was meant to fly planes. Ultimately, he was offered a navigator slot instead of a pilot slot because he didn’t have 2020 vision. He also knew that navigators could become pilots eventually if they were good enough. He knew he had to be at the top of his game though for that to happen. Before his senior year finished the air force changed the rules for vision and because he never gave up his dream, he was awarded a pilot slot. He ultimately ended up flying jets in the US air force for 10 years and now he is living his dream of flying for FEDEX as a wide body captain, instructor and check airman. All because he never gave up.
So let’s say you have a dream to be President? Or an Olympic Athlete? Let’s say you work your butt off in school and you work harder than everyone else and you ultimately land in a job that you love so much you couldn’t imagine doing anything else! Maybe you’re VP or a governor? Maybe your dream of being an olympic athlete or a pro football player turns into a dream of ultimately being a podcast extraordinaire just like Lewis Howse? His dream turned into something he never imagined it would but he is living the version of his dream that was meant just for him!
You make yourself into someone that could be President and you may end up the CEO of a fortune 500 company? I personally think that would be better than running the country.
Are you following my line of thought here?
Norman Vincent Peale says “if you shoot for the moon, Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars…
He got it. Follow your passion and ultimately you’ll end up somewhere awesome!
Your personal version of a Wildly Successful Lifestyle! So go have the biggest dream you can think of, follow it relentlessly and you’re likely going to end up somewhere amazing!
Ok guys! As Maya Angelou said, I hope you like yourself, you like what you’re doing and you like how soured doing it! A beautiful definition of success…I love you all and hope you enjoyed this episode! If you did, you could show it with a 5 star rating! And also follow me on Instagram @theheididawson for lots more inspiration and I will talk to you in a few days!
