Put your dreams out there.

On September 15, 2021, Dr. Sian Proctor was launched into earth’s orbit as the pilot of the Crew Dragon Space capsule as part of the Inspiration 4 private orbital space flight, thus becoming the first black woman to pilot a spacecraft.

It was a dream come true, a feat that had been a long time coming.

Sian’s dad had worked at a NASA tracking station for the Apollo 11 space project; she was born eight months after Neil Armstrong took those famous first steps on the moon. She grew up dreaming of being an F16 fighter pilot and, thereafter, an astronaut. However, she got glasses at age 15, which disqualified her from being a military aviator as 2020 vision is required there. She went on to get a PhD and teach geoscience at a community college.

Her space dream was dead, right? Wrong!

In 2009, she nearly joined the NASA space programme, making it down to the last forty seven finalists from the initial thousands who applied before being dropped.

Then, in 2021, she won her seat on Inspiration 4 by reciting a poem she wrote, (she became a space artist during the COVID lockdown in 2020) and was selected as the pilot.

What we #dream of really does come true, but maybe not HOW we thought it would.

What dreams do you have that seem so far-fetched they feel like #moonshots ? Do you dream of doing something that has never been done before, or not by someone LIKE you? Something you feel you could never be qualified for in the natural course of things? Dream anyway! Dreams have two qualities: they are free and they are valid. So allow yourself to indulge; do not disqualify yourself, because only you can!

Some of us are intimidated by the audacity and size of our dreams, so much so that we have not even expressed them. This is the main point of this letter: put it out there! Who knows about your dreams? Does your family know? Do your friends know? Sian’s friends were always the ones who found out about opportunities and advised her to apply. Expressing your dreams recruits an army of scouts to look out for those opportunities for you. Sure, not everyone will support you, but the few who do are more important than the many who do not.

Take the opportunities that do come, even if they do not seem to directly lead to your dreams, and keep doing the things you love doing. Sian became a geoscientist and an analogue Astronaut, got a pilot's licence, and is scuba certified. She is also an artist and a poet! The last vocation led directly to her winning her seat on the Inspiration 4, but everything else contributed to preparing her for when the opportunity finally came. Never stop doing what you love and what comes naturally to you, even when you are not sure where it is leading, or when it is not what is ‘putting food on the table’.

Lastly, understand this: You are not in charge of making your dreams come true. By putting it out there, you are placing a demand on the #universe ; there is ample provision for your demand. Just put it out there, and you will be granted the opportunity to qualify to be the person who lives that dream. Putting it out there is the first step to making your moonshot a reality.?

Till next week, keep growing.

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