“How are you doing on your dream?”
I was scrolling social media on my couch after a fun, but long day of work when I heard Tony Robbins ask that question.
My thumb instinctively hovered, and I watched a video where the celebrity coach was telling a story about asking his daughter, who was 19 or 20 years old, how she was doing on her dream of becoming a Broadway dancer. She told him all the cool things she was doing in college in LA, and he was like, “Cool, but what about Broadway? New York? Your DREAM? How you doin’ on that?” He was bummed to see that her dream seemed like it was dimming. He urged her if it was still her dream to not lose sight of it, don’t think it was too big or too silly and to take action NOW. (Spoiler alert: she ended up figuring out how to move to New York, make the right connections, and work hard….and she became a Broadway dancer.)
His story was packaged-well, and the point was to:
Not lose sight of your dream.
Take action. Do not wait.
“That’s nice,” I thought. I clicked my phone off, went to town, ate pizza with friends, and then went to bed.
And yet…
I woke up this morning and walked my dog at sunrise. I love the combination of morning light, hot coffee, and cold, quiet air. As I watched my dog prance ahead of me, backlit to perfection, that Tony Robbins question floated into my head.
How are you doing on your dream?
Turns out I like this question very much.
It requires clarity on what exactly Your Dream is.
It requires a check-in, almost an inventory of circumstances, and it evokes gratitude for what has gone right. It quiets the little “life” things like deadlines or bills or the crack in your windshield or that sketchy mole on your arm. It reminds us to look at what we are really doing here.
I’ve had several dreams. Dreams are allowed to change, but I think we all know what it feels like when one sticks. That one is worth chasing.
As a little kid, I dreamt of becoming a zookeeper and spending my days taking care of monkeys. It was simple: I wanted to hug a chimpanzee. I also knew with certainty in my heart (and had the under-the-bed shoebox stash of completely full Lisa Frank journals with cheap locks and lost keys to prove it) that I was a writer and would write books. I didn’t want to be one because I just… was one. It wouldn’t get in the way of the monkeys.
In high-school, I wanted to write screenplays. I wrote a full-feature film by hand in a notebook and my twin sister (forever the biggest champion of My Dreams) spent an entire summer typing it into our family’s first computer. I bought my first video camera from Best Buy with money I earned by bagging groceries, and I became obsessed with creating scenarios, filming my friends, and editing for hours until I had 3-minute features that played on the school TV show. I was addicted to sharing what I made with the entire school and having inside jokes with everyone because of it. For fun and not the public, my sister and I produced music videos every Wednesday after school. She starred in them and I directed and produced them. I wanted to do this forever. I wanted to go to NYU, write for SNL, and eventually write a screenplay that would hit the big screen. I couldn’t think about anything else.
Then life happened, as it does. I had absolutely no money and was relegated to living with my parents, saving money, and going to the university in my hometown. It had no film school, so I bitterly picked graphic design as a major because it was easy for me and I could go snowboarding more than I needed to go to class. Because fuck it. I dedicated myself to snowboarding and realized I could make money with graphic design, which I needed to do, and it was convenient that I could do this at night when the lifts stopped spinning. Life, baby.
A decade and a half later, I own a really cool creative agency, can snowboard out my door, have a Golden Retriever, a mountain home with a view, the friends and community and personal life I have always wanted, and all things considered, I am living The Dream. I’m stoked and full of gratitude. I have everything I’ve ever wanted, and it’s awesome. I work my ass off, but my life is outrageously fun, and owning an agency has taught me more about business, culture, and impactful creative work than I ever could have imagined.
But My Dream still vibrates in my chest when I stop flinging myself off snowmobiles and cornices for a few hours and sit in silence.
My Dream is alive in there. I can still feel it.
The writer. The author. The screenwriter.
The obsession with long-format narrative.
The connection to story, the knowing that narrative arcs and scenes and characters and feelings flow through me simply because they always have. They have to. I’m wired this way.
Maybe it’s too “woo” to admit, but I believe that I am a human body on this planet with massive creative energy running through me at all times, and I believe I am made to articulate things people feel but don’t yet have words for. That is my purpose. It makes me a very, very good creative director, and I love the work…. but I have a sneaking premonition that my purpose would blow my mind (and have massive impact) if I let it work on My Dream, if I gifted myself the luxury of long-format narrative with my voice (not a brand voice) at the helm of the keyboard.
Hell, that’s what this Substack is. A toe in the water. The connections I have created through this platform alone, the emails, the exchange of words and deep connections and responses to putting my voice out there has been shocking. It’s real.
I have most of a book written. We’ll see what a publishing house does with it, but I’ve titled it The Business of Imagination. It’s non-fiction. It’s funny and true and philosophical all at once. It’s full of little phrases I use to guide the creative process like “All things in small things” and “Gotta see it to be it.” It reminds me what I’m made of, how to ideate, sell, and build imaginary worlds for a living, and its pages contain all my values packaged into relatable scenarios equally as artfully as a Tom Robbins story. I need to finish my book. It’s a good one. I can start NOW.
Then I might try fiction. I have stories in me that want to get out. Fiction is rowdy. Movies are largely fictional, and they provide both escape and relatability. That tension is cool. I want to see what happens if I give it a shot.
I think about purpose and how we all have unique “gifts.” They are called gifts for a reason (seems so obvious when you think about it, right?).
What if JK Rowling never gifted the world Harry Potter? What if Brene Brown spent her time checking her employees’ time clocks instead of writing Dare to Lead? What if the Wright Brothers ignored Their Dream and we were all still cruising around on ocean liners as a legit form of transportation?
What if YOU ignore Your Dream???
It’s a fun thought exercise to check in on what we wanted, what we have, and what actually feels true to us individually. Even if it seems unruly or unrealistic or wildly different from the way life is at the moment, it’s fascinating to see what happens when we intentionally get still, hold our hearts wide open, and take note of what shows up.
And so, I gotta ask:
How you doing on your dream?
Make sure you still have one.