Rethinking Dreams as Process and Commitment

If you’re reading this, congratulations ! You’ve already taken the first step to making your dream a reality; namely, approaching your dream as a process.

I got a-thinking after this one TEDx Speech on Commitment. Cliched as it might be, I was sort of inspired by the idea, but noticed something more covert in the video- the idea behind the commitment, and the story it told. There's a tinkering that happens to put all this together and create an organization- what is it?

Everyone has ideas; it is a universal human ability and yet one we do not fully understand, or exploit. So how can we take our castle from the air to the ground?

It begins with doing things a little differently, because that’s how we create change!

1. Allow yourself to have bad ideas

Reasoning

First step to getting a good idea is not being a perfectionist. A radio show host once told me that the best way to find your voice as a radio announcer is doing all manner of crazy things, recording them, and then knowing exactly what not to do.

Ideas are creations of our inner voice – the things we want to make tangible.

Method

Allowing an uninterrupted flow of good/bad ideas is important; discuss them to the end. How would each one work? Would it work? Would it fail? Why?

In avoiding perfectionism, we not only weed out bad ideas, but also actually allow good ideas to ‘bubble up’ and withstand our self-skepticism. Then, they ‘stick’.

2. Find the right words to express your idea

Reasoning

If you’re like 65% of North Americans, you’re probably a visual thinker. This is wonderful in that you may be able to clearly ‘see’ an idea and many of it’s facets, but the downfall may be that no one else can ‘see’ it with you.

Method

So in short, draw it. Use flowcharts, Venn Diagrams, simple bar graphs… anything that represents the process or model you have in mind. Do not be embarrassed by your stick figure drawings, no one is here to judge!

Now that the idea is down on paper in rough visual form, let’s translate it into verbal form, in a single sentence.

Think of the idea in terms of nouns, verbs and adjectives.

For example, if it’s an invention,

‘It is a [ADJECTIVE & NOUN] that [VERB & NOUN] by [VERB & NOUN].’

Such as:

‘It is a personal app that measures health improvements by calculating BMI.’

Huh, might work!

3. Test your idea out by explaining it to...

A Non-expert

Reasoning

The joke goes around that a young man tried explaining how Twitter works to his Father. His friend asked, ‘so did you manage?’ and the man replied, ‘nope, his single response “Why would anyone do that?” was quite bullet proof.’

The key thing here is that the person hearing you out has no background knowledge of the topic, and is not already sold on the idea, or even the genre it belongs to.

Method

If you’re explaining something and a ‘Why?’ stops you dead in your tracks, there’s a few things you can do when revisit the wording in your explanation.

• First, is the need for the product/idea not clearly explained?
• Second, if it does, are we not convincing the audience to take quick action?
• Third, if your lay audience cannot understand your jargon, can you find effective metaphors and comparisons to visualize it for them?

4. Tie your idea to a Story

Reasoning

People see themselves in other people. Most people are sympathetic – ‘It could have happened to me!’ – some are empathetic – ‘I can’t believe what happened to you!’

More importantly though, we psychologically prefer stories to work out our real-life problems through metaphors, rather than face terrifying realities as they are.

A story ties our past (memory), present (reality) and future (ambitions) together, so we relate to it so much better than any plain explanation.

That’s why we listen better to stories, and that’s what will get your idea sold.

Method

Focus on the problem you are solving. Someone is inconvenienced, suffering, struggling, with no clear solution, and therein lies the ‘need’ you are pointing out.

This need is one you are observing and narrating, but experienced by this ‘someone’.

We feel we are like this someone, so we, your audience, start liking this someone.

And of course, every story must have a happy ending, or at least, the promise of one.

That is your solution; if we believe in the story, the struggle, the need, we will likely believe in the promise of your solution, and support it.

5. Allow your idea to…change.

Reasoning

This is the scariest part. You’ve had this idea for so long, crafted it, built a story for it, got support and partnerships too. But somewhere there may be a genuine need to change the idea in specific ways, due to market research and feedback.

You may react with anger, confusion, and frustration.

Why should we change the idea? What if we don’t believe in it afterwards?

Method

Go back to the story you told. The need it made us see.

Is that need still there? Are we still solving it?

If so, then good.

What about the solution, though? How has that changed?

If the new change makes us better problem solvers and gives the solution a longer life, embrace it.

If the new change helps more people, makes more profits and includes smart people on the team that now feel part of it, embrace it.

There is only one thing you should not compromise on: the story you told must carry the same feeling, the same truth, and the story must still belong to you.

It is this feeling of ownership, fulfillment and commitment that will take you all the way to the end of the finish line, and never give up on the dream.

Never.