My Dream to be an Ice Cream Man

Call me philosophical, but I used to love the smell of the earth as it rained when I was younger, I still do. Sometimes that same smell takes me back to my infant years, when I still had the unlimited ability to dream. I did not have limits imposed, I essentially had a blank cheque and no one could limit the amount I wrote on it. I first wanted to be an ice cream man because the possibilities presented by it were enticing at the time. My unexposed mind went to its limits and concluded that the best thing a person could be was an ice cream man and dream to be one I did. I was 3 or 4 perhaps. Later as I was introduced to the wonderful world of books I marvelled at the things I could become. I certainly did not want to be an ice cream man at 10. I would be a scientist. Stories of the experiments of Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Galileo, Marie Curie and the inventions of the Wright brothers, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Alva Edison made me want to be part of that elite group. At that age I wrote in one of my books, “I'm going to be a scientist”, and I smile when I look at the thought because it was an open ended declaration with no specifics. I did not know science was so broad. I still had a blank cheque and could be anything I wanted to be. What I would want to do is go back to those days in my mind and project it now so that I can still have unlimited possibilities.

You could do the same, look back and see what you saw in the playground. How you progressed from being a bus driver, to Hulk Hogan, to McGyver until the time you began to be presented by limitations. I know much later on money began to play a part; parents began to coerce us into fields like medicine and accounting and started limiting our free spirits. I believe that is the tragedy of the world. It is the limitation on the dreams that would be achievable if we persisted on them and life didn't happen. Before girls and boys and love started being a variable, and money and cars and houses and people’s opinions mattered, we were free spirits willing to change the world and our equations were much simpler to work out. Now we factor in limitations and integrate poverty and differentiate from the people we went with to school. It doesn't bring out the right solution most of the time, more often than not it leads to complex numbers. Back in the day, before someone told us we were stupid or that ice cream men didn't earn much, the equation could be solved. Maybe I would have grown to be owner of the ice cream company. I am fortunate I became something close to a scientist, an engineer, but what I want to capture again is the essence of why I wanted to be the scientist. Why did I memorise the first 40 elements of the periodic table when I was sixth grade? I want to wonder and maybe it will drive me to doing what I would do for no pay.

Reading biographies and profiles in all literature from the Bible to Fortune magazine, I see that the men and women who kept in touch with their inner kid, that kid who dreamed of being king and made it against all odds. I see ordinary men and geniuses alike whom God’s providence endowed with a gift and they used it. Not always affecting their pockets but fundamentally changing the world. If not the whole world, everyone should make an impact on his 'world' and this is through simply living up to your best potential. This is easier said than done when we look at the limitations but looking at history I find no excuse for being mediocre. In the annals of time I have looked and found no support for laziness and no accolades for the average performers. As I grow older and think of my ice cream man dreams, I know it is these that made Bill Gates and Steve Jobs dream of putting a computer in every home. These are the dreams that drove men to conquer the electron and put information on the web. Its dreams that drove Henry Ford to push his engineers to do what seemed impossible, to build an 8 cylinder engine. They toiled for it hanging on a man's dream. One visionary. I can safely say most people's livelihood hinges on building a few men's dreams. I want to be one of those few.

When mortal man does extraordinary things, I marvel at their brilliance and its effect on the world. The things many take for granted are a wonder if you take the time to search their history and the men behind them; there is always a man or woman behind it. Everything takes a visionary, a man who can visualize and execute the vision with focus and clarity. Great Zimbabwe was built by a visionary, the very structure that has stood for century is testament of an architect who was relentless until every stone was in its place. You are wearing a designers dream, I'm not saying you are wearing designer wear, but it took a designer for you to wear the clothes on you back whatever their quality.

Seeing the innovation that is taking place in the IT world is also fascinating; you see the wonders created by the modern day Thomas Edisons. They are more complex than the light bulb (although will never surpass its impact perhaps) and they stagger the simple mind. Apple's iPhone, the iPad, cloud computing, skype and yes, facebook are the product of modern day dreamers. Visionaries like Steve Jobs of Apple, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google and closer to home South Africa's Mark Shuttleworth (Linux Ubuntu and web certificates) are some of the men whose dreams we utilise. The modern day Marie Curies are now more visible and multiplied as the limitations that enveloped women have largely been lifted, despite some still persistent. It is not only these that are my new ice cream men, it is the people behind the scenes, for example Apple Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook is the guy now running the colossal technology giant while Steve jobs was the visionary. If I am not the dreamer of the bigger picture, I will dream of ways to make the other man's bigger picture come to pass. Some know the whole product and some can break it down into bits (pun intended) to make sure every gear or every transistor is in its place. The operations visionaries doing the everyday work for companies are comparable to what I would term the big picture visionaries see the forest from the trees, they see how

So as we embark on new journey exploring new frontiers we need new light to see the world. The same light I saw myself when I saw the ice cream man and then later the scientist. The same light you saw yourself as a child when uninhibited by the world's perceived limitations. To make a difference we can be visionaries wherever we are, finding ways to build what other people see or seeing what other people will build. It does not matter what you do or where you are. Be a visionary.

Biggie Tafadzwa Ganyo is an engineer and a technology enthusiast, he writes on technology trends and strategy. Contact: [email protected] and Twitter: @btganyo