Red Roofs Melt. You know that, don't you?

Red roofs melt. You know that, don't you?

When I was a child I think I recall seeing some graffiti that stated "Red Roofs Melt".

You know, that ridiculous statement rattled around my head almost daily when I was a child.

I used to walk to school. I saw a few red roofs.

I'm sure it is a natural part of children's thinking to have unusual statements rattling around their heads for a long time.

I have also noticed that some adults get a thought or statement and just keep coming back to it and declaring it out loud.

One of the funniest examples of this I'll borrow from a famous speaker.

This person's mother was born in 1913. She had two boys, as far as I know.

One of them had an IQ of 4 points above Einstein.

He was a genius.

So Andrew (the speaker) gets to wondering, "What about me?"

He asks his mother. She retorts, "You're two points above an idiot!"

So Andrew Womack, of Andrew Womack Ministries, a 55-year veteran of public life thought for years that he was 2 points better than an idiot.

Well, his mother was getting near the end of her life and he raised the topic with her.

She said, "I didn't say that!"

When it was confirmed to her again she said, "Well, I was just kidding".

It's estimated that 1,000,000,000 people listen to him on TV every day somewhere in the world.

The concerning thing I have noticed is that some adults get a thought or statement and just keep coming back to it, and declaring it out loud.

And here is another interesting statement my wife hasn't forgotten.

My wife comes from Tōkyo. Rural Tōkyo, but still part of the greater city metropolis.

Everyone is in a hurry, even if it is Sunday afternoon.

So my wife drops into a retail shop to pick up some supplies for the farm.

You can feel the very air in the shop struggling to move from point A to point B. The atmosphere in the room was so sluggish.

It's late July. It's winter, it's not sunny out there. Not another soul can be seen on the shop floor.

The gentleman shuffles his feet moving his weight from one side to another.

He breaks the silence as my wife bustles up to the counter with her needs.

"Well, summer's coming..." The words roll out like a meandering stream. Followed by a sigh.

It seems he had been mulling over the coming of summer, all winter long.

So, as I was saying, I was thinking about red roofs as a child.

I can only imagine the author of the statement, Red Roofs Melt" wanted to express themselves. They probably thought it was funny, too.

Perhaps they wanted to do something a little different.

Later in life, after my wife and I were married we built a brand new house in the countryside. We made the roof red.

She came up with the idea. It's noteworthy that my wife had not heard about my childhood thoughts.

My wife, Junko, wanted something a little different, and her family name, while growing up had the idea of red in it.

Her father's adoptive family's name shares the same name as the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. Akasaka.

Now, spell that backwards!

Aka is red in the Japanese language.

So the roof was red. When we were choosing the colours at the Stonewood Homes office the colour sample looked so innocent.

But a whole 5-bedroom home with an attached double garage? That was a bold move.

The house on the corner, in the middle of Deans Road, Homebush had red ColorSteel on the roof.?

The colour may as well have been called "Rooster Comb Red".

Scoria was the actual @ColorSteel colour.

It turned out 10 times brighter than we ever thought possible.

There were other thoughts that I had during that childhood time frame.

Thoughts of how I wasn't speedy in running, writing, and, as for spelling and as for mathematics, I?don't think we need to comment much there.

I had allowed what we all may be able to relate to as a "poverty mindset" to get established in my mind at an early age.

I felt like others had talent, and I didn't.

But I could talk...

Yes, I could. And I talked to myself about what I would like to see happen in the future.

I curated a gallery of ifs.

I had a desire.

I had an?enthusiasm for those dreams.

But I remember using the word if, a lot.

The thought didn't occur to me that some of those desires were achievable with a few adjustments.

All those "if I" statements were not based on belief. Imagine if someone had told me how to unlock those ifs.

I hadn't created a space for my brain to make them part of my future.

I hadn't fully let my mind accept one of those things, settle on it, and claim it for itself.

I've heard that fortunes often ebb as swiftly as they surge. So do great ideas that are not curated and cared for properly.

They can fall from our consciousness as fast as holders off a mountain face.

In fact, on the morning of one of my children turning 17, I had a dream of a bolder suspended above two other holders and it suddenly slipped and fell.

And speaking of letting things slip. In a future article, I'll introduce you to a School Official who let time slip...

But for now, let's recap what was talked about in the first article in this series.

In the previous article, "If I were famous", we explored the idea that the type of content that comes across our feed of information on devices affects our thinking.

Sometimes this leads us to want to give up. We asked a question about that.

In this article, we talked about how ideas or phrases can rattle around our heads.

So can ideas.

But sometimes we entertain those ideas as we might speak to a roadside cow. But the cow is not ours any more than those ideas will become our reality.

Now I'd like to hear from you. Do you think you've had valuable ideas that could have propelled you forward to where you'd like to go, but you let them slip?

Do you get great ideas that don't propel your life to where you want it to be?

When it comes to bringing those ideas to life, your brain is already at "no". You don't have to do anything to let those ideas slide into a forgettable memory.

Neil Smith posts and writes articles to connect ideas, people and products together. He is a farmer by choice. He has a full-time job, off-farm and along with his beautiful wife and children they farm goats, make and market handmade soap. www.PalmOilFreeSoap.com and www.GoatMilkSoap.co.nz

Why do we need to curate our dreams? They'll slip away unless you do.

The world is already at no. You don't have to do anything to get it. You have to do a lot to get to a yes.

Neil is a member of Link.Ability - For those serious about LinkedIn. Should you join it too? https://www.dhirubhai.net/groups/12700165/