Saturday, September 20, 2014

The Dreamer

Continued from the previous post...

Joel 2:28 (NIV) “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”

From where I come from there is a proverb which when loosely translated says “An old man seated on a three legged stool see farther than a young man atop a tree” In business, you must have that element of the young man who sees visions on one part and the element of the old man who dreams dreams and who see far on the other part.

Let us talk about the dreamer.

I see myself owning a conglomerate of welding workshops that spreads across all the major towns of Kenya and beyond. Think Southern Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, Egypt and South Africa. I see myself as the president of the group of companies running the workshops. Under me is a think tank of sharp minds who deal with the strategy of the business, a set of crème de la crème top notch managers reporting to me. And that private chartered plane that enables me to hop from one city to the other, one country to the other. And you know I love playing golf. Windsor golf and Country Club will just be my local, so you will once in a while find me in the cascades at Soma Bay in Egypt, Heritage Gold Club in Mauritius, Lemuria Golf Courses in Seychelles and once in a blue moon the Pine Valley Golf Club at New Jersey. And the top notch managers need not see me to report to me, with technology I can just meet them via teleconference and also get those high level reports through any of the myriad of gadgets at my disposal.

Otieno, it is time to wake up, you have dreamt enough. The reality is that Otieno does not even have a passport, the farthest he went beyond Kenyan border is the contentious island Migingo. But dreaming he ought to have dreamt. The voice of the dreamer in every entrepreneur is as wild as it gets. It is infinite! Someone said that the dreamer imagines what might be possible, is an opportunist, believes in the dream and finds creative outlets. And a healthy dreamer knows ways to make that dream come true. Dreamers talk about their dreams in a powerful way, with clarity and intention. Serious dreamers build Dream Teams as they get others excited about their vision. And most importantly, dreamers take action to make their dreams a reality.

Let us not talk about Martin Luther King, for you know he dreamt and he articulated his dream with a lot of clarity. 'I have a dream……'

Then a small voice is heard from a far off saying “I don't think that's a good idea. ….bla bla bla". Now, if you crank up the volume of that small voice from a far……it gets clearer and you realize the voice is boldly saying "Are you out of your mind?"

Shakespeare once said:, "Our doubts are traitors."

Carlos Casteneda said, "In order to experience the magic of life, you must banish the doubt."

Kahlil Gibran said, "Doubt is a feeling too lonely to know that Faith is its twin brother."

Mwalimu says: “Ïf you jumble together the small voices of doubt and project them into your dream, the dream will be dead before you tell the story.”

What is your dream? Next post we shall talk about the important companion of the dreamer, the thinker.

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