Reality check time!Here is the most important notion I've learned during the last five years: you are responsible for making your dreams come true. That's it. The truth. You can wish for help, you can pray for assistance, you can even believe in somebody who says they can make your dream come true. But they won't. They can't.
In my first book - a business book for women entrepreneurs called REAL YOU INCORPORATED - I emphasize the fact that to make the business of your dreams become a reality, it all starts with you. Knowing who you are, and what you truly want. Knowing what you are willing to sacrifice to get there, and knowing what you won't.
And, I'll tell you what. It's the same whether your dream is to become a small business owner, or a published author, or a (fill in the blank). It is up to you. My youngest son is 17 and pursuing his dream, wholeheartedly, as I write this. His dream, most would say, is the impossible dream of making it as a singer/songwriter. Not just making it as in playing a few gigs in the garage after he comes home from his real job. No, he wants this to be his real job. Yikes, right?
Wrong. You see, I wish I had gone for it earlier, my dream of writing a novel. I didn't have the confidence. I took the "easy" path of journalism and marketing. I learned a bunch and enjoyed a fabulous career. But I always wanted to write books. Oh, and live at the beach. I'm finally doing both, but it took me a very long time to get here.
So that's why I'm wholeheartedly watching my son Dylan make his dream come true. (People tell me he looks like James Dean and sounds like, well you decide!)
Dylan wrote five original songs, recorded his first EP and released it a couple of weeks ago. He has stepped out into the world, and out of his high school comfort zone. It takes courage. It takes amazing perseverance. Sure, his family is all behind him - but he must make this dream come true. And I believe it will, because he believes it will. And he wants it, more than anything.
What do you want? What's your dream? A group of authors have joined together to help you make your dreams come true by giving you a jump start - and a chance to win a fabulous prize! So enter the 101 Dreams Come True contest created by my friend, the novelist Marci Nault and featuring two of my books - HERE, HOME, HOPE and REAL YOU INCORPORATED: 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs. Both books are about making dreams come true - and both will remind you it all starts with you.
