The Dreamer’s Dilemma: Prevent Your Dreams from Turning into Nightmares

Silicon Valley is full of dreamers. Crazy dreamers. Lazy dreamers. Brilliant dreamers.

Silicon Valley is also full of even bigger piles of money to hyperloop those dreams into tomorrow’s reality.

This past week, the Valley’s leading dreamers and their backers, and others from around the country who want to be just like them, trekked down to a small resort outside Los Angeles to dream big at D: All Things Digital.

The format is simple.

During the day, the ringmasters, Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, pepper CEOs with questions as their targets do their best to stick to talking points and avoid sweating out.

At night, dinners and drinks move to poker and pizza upstairs, where billionaires, founders, journalists – and even a few bankers – talk about the future of the internet, technology and the world.

This year’s interviews featured Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook), Dick Costolo (Twitter), Ben Silbermann (Pinterest), Barry Diller (IAC), Jeff Zucker (CNN), Tim Cook (Apple), John Chambers (Cisco), Jeffrey Immelt (GE) and Kazuo Hirai (Sony).

But one session – Elon Musk – captured my imagination and still has it in solitary confinement two days later.

Walt and Kara’s discussion with the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX and cofounder of Paypal simultaneously inspired me to dream bigger and reach for my baby blanket.

I questioned the importance and relevance of the projects and companies I’ve spent my working life working on, and the goals I’ve tried to achieve.

I’m not going to even try to put the session into words. Watch it here and I imagine you may feel the same way as many in the room shared the same feeling.

Loic LeMeur, the founder of LeWeb and a longtime Silicon Valley leader, tweeted:

A whopping 82 others agreed by retweeting or favoriting his sentiment.

Elon made dreamers feel like first graders held back for another year. Or 10.

Dropouts of the game of “change the world” we all signed up to play.

Milli Vanilli winning a Grammy Award, knowing we’d have to give it back after we were ousted for being phonies.

And to make matters worse for our collective egos, we awoke yesterday to news that Elon may be dating Cameron Diaz. Sickening, yes. But also power marketing for why our youth should become scientists, entrepreneurs and creators.

The contrast between Elon’s presence and every other CEO was stark, and sad. For an hour Wednesday night, it felt as if Steve Jobs had returned to the D conferece, as Shervin Pishevar so eloquently pointed out as he asked Elon about his hyperloop project ("a cross between a Concorde, a rail gun, and an air hockey table.")

The others talked about smaller versions of their current products, new ways to get theme park visitors to spend more money, arcane tax strategies and alternative ways to distribute today’s content.

Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, for the record, shined. Her insight into gender issues in the workplace was awesome and human and important. But just as the crowd and Twitter was jamming to her inspiration, she was asked about hate speech on Facebook, the company’s mobile strategies and what it’s like working with Mark Zuckerberg.

Elon, on the other hand, discussed our existential need to create more fuel-efficient transport. He painted a vivid picture showing why we needed to make cars THAT PEOPLE WILL ACTUALLY BUY that are better for the collective us. He is focused on transportation that will get us from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than 30 minutes so we can spend more time with people we love.

Elon helped us all dream about why multiplanetary life would be so cool.

“It’s a fixer-upper of a planet but we could make it work,” Elon says so matter-of-factly.

“It’s difficult but achievable, and I think we should really try our hardest to make it happen,” he said, before adding that it would be kind of cool to die on Mars.

This would seem like mere science fiction if it weren’t for the fact that he has already done the “impossible” on multiple occasions.

The other CEOs refused to talk about specific news while Elon announced that by the end of the year you’ll be able to drive from Los Angeles to New York solely on electric power. That’s cool.

Elon announced that the US government is now paying his company, SpaceX, billions to haul stuff back and forth from the space station. For any other entrepreneur, this would be the accomplishment of a lifetime. For Elon, it’s a sidenote.

Elon mentioned matter of factly that he has cut deals with both Toyota and Mercedes to supply electric car technology to the companies to power their own fuel-efficient vehicles.

That’s nuts! These historic companies rely on Elon to make their cars more efficient!

Most of us are driven by the laws of reason. The only laws Elon holds sacred are the laws of physics.

Elon talked about doing the impossible while just hours later I found myself in a hotel suite engaged in a heated debate about whether or not a young entrepreneur should turn his social software company into an ad network. [He thinks he should yet refuses to actually call it an ad network as ad networks are out of favor.]

What the fuck is going on here?

Or for those in Silicon Valley, are we in a giant A-B test whose sole outcome is to help us optimize the monetization of the time we have left on the depreciating asset we call our planet?

What if Kara and Loic are correct? What if our biggest minds are actually focused on the smallest, or even non-existent, problems?

Do we need another photo-sharing application?

Do we need another social marketing platform?

Do we need another site to let strangers rent our houses?

Do we need another dating app that takes the friction out of meeting new people, or finding someone to have an affair with?

Actually, do we need any of the above?

Who knows?

But what really scares me are the bigger questions. Like, what if we’re no longer capable of doing better? What if we don’t want to do better?

My kids won’t want to create new technologies that help us live better, explore new planets and leave the world better than when we entered it.

They’ll want to create the next Minecraft. And then flip it for a few pairs of Google Glass and free food.

What if our kids continue to drop out of the sciences, like I did? What if our kids are like me and can’t remember 4 of the elements on that table that hung on the wall of my high school science class, mocking me like the impenetrable bastard it is?

I bet Elon knows every one of those elements by name - and dated at least a dozen of them.

That scares me. And makes me feel so stupid.

I pee my proverbial bed dreaming my cute little dreams while Elon combines a few Hs and Os from the chemistry set that is his life.

I fret about which mobile phone to carry while he builds his dream home on Mars.

My dreams are black and white and released direct to DVD.

His are directed by Jerry Bruckheimer and shown on massive IMAX 3D screens.

What if we continue to create the world’s best engineers at our world’s best universities and continue to send them home to another country to create the next generation of the world’s best companies?

What if we are so far removed from our roots in creating stuff that matters that we don’t even know where to start?

What if we create political organizations to do good but mess it up so royally that people pull out right away? What if Elon pulls out first? What does that say for the rest of us?

What if I'm not invited back to D?

What if I'm ousted as the phony entrepreneur I am who just got lucky building stuff that wasn’t important?

What if? What if? What if? What if?

Man, how do I start answering those questions?

I have no fucking idea. And you don’t either.

But what I do know is that I can’t keep writing like this and thinking like this. Because it’s hard enough to accomplish my own dreams that it makes my brain melt trying to comprehend Elon’s.

I’m focused on Elon’s dreams and not my own. I need to stop.

Focusing on Elon’s big, fat, hairy, awesome dreams makes me want to eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food and punch the guy in the face, which isn’t a good idea. Because in addition to being a multibillionaire, and a sick Tony Stark-like inventor/entrepreneur who owns companies that makes space ships and rocket ships and having a model/actress lady friend who was in There’s Something About Mary, he’s ripped and would probably beat the crap out of me.

I can only focus on my own reality. It’s the only way to live the life I want to live. And it's the only way you and everyone in that room this week can live.

I know a few things about the internet and marketing and starting companies. And that’s about all I know. So my dreams fit me. They work for me. They put me in the best position to succeed and make the most use of my time on this planet.

And my dreams aren’t just business related.

I dream about being a great husband.

And that means being present both physically and mentally for Kass. This isn’t something that comes easy for me and I want to continue to try to be better. Sometimes, doing this seems harder for me to do than building a vacation home on Mars like Elon.

I dream about being a great dad.

A dad that is patient and doesn’t lose his cool. A dad that is trusted. A dad that doesn’t roll his eyes or shake his head too many times. And that puts on the kids in their own rocket ships that take them on their own journies to dream their own big or small or weird dreams. I’ve had my dreams. They need to have their own.

I dream about being a great friend.

A friend that is present and dependable, two things that have been easier said than done over the last few years.

And I dream that one day I’ll be part of the large movement that kicks cancer once and for all.

This is my Mars dream. Do I think I’ll see 100% of all cancers cured by the time I die? Not really. But that shouldn’t be an excuse stop me from trying. You can dream with me here.

So here's the deal with the dreamer's dilemma. It’s easy to dream big. But it’s hard to turn those dreams into reality.

Success can only happen if your skills and drive are equal to or greater than the scope of your dreams. And even then, you have a 50-50 chance, at best, of getting there.

This intersection of dreams and execution is where the magic happens for Elon, and all of us.

Elon didn't get into the electric car business because he wanted to. He got into it because no one else would, or could, and he had a dream that we could have cars that are better for us. And he was smart enough to see that he had the innate skills and drive to make it happen.

Who are we to worry about, or compare ourselves to, others’ dreams when we can’t even execute on our own?

So all I can do, and all you can do, is dream what you dream.

Dream about the world you want to create. Dream about the person you want to become.

Dream about how you can help make the world a whole lot better tomorrow than it was today.

And never stop dreaming.

And don’t let ANYONE or ANYTHING get in the way of your dreams.

If you think your dream should come true and you’re not violating any rules of physics (or basic human ethics), go for it. Tune out the critics. Or better yet, turn those critics into the electric power to fuel your dreams, as Elon did.

“They had written off the Tesla Roadster as a niche product for techno-geeks (another shout-out to the audience) but we’ve moved beyond that,” Elon said Wednesday last night. “After the Roadster, so many people called bullshit on the Model S it was ridiculous, but then we brought it to market. Then they said you’ll never make a profit, and then we did that. So I hope they will observe there is a trend here. “

I imagine Elon will have fewer doubters in the future. And you will have fewer doubters if you also tune into your dreams, whatever they are, and bring them to life.

Let Elon, and everyone else who have made some of their dreams come true, give you the inspiration you need to dream in your own way and, as Gandhi said so eloquently, be the change you want to see in the world.

Some of that change will be great for the world. Some will be great for just your own little world. Most will be somewhere in between. But all of these dreams are important.

And with that, I hereby declare my two days of being completely depressed about Elon’s inspiring work over.

Congrats, Elon, and thanks for making all of us dream a little bigger.

Photo: Asa Mathat/AllThingsD

I write about how to achieve the success and happiness you want - however you choose to define it - at home and at work.

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