A Message To Fellow Dreamers (Part 2)

Becoming Fully Alive

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Gil Bailie

Fully Alive

Have you ever been fully alive? So invigorated with life that when you wake you’re invigorated?

When you’re fully alive, you can’t wait to get to your mission, work, or whatever it is that’s on the agenda for the day. You find yourself working on the weekends because it energizes you. If you have felt this before, it’s how you know you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. It’s how you know you’ve found your purpose.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll continue this writing series, that will hopefully inspire My Fellow Dreamers.

The picture below was taken last year in Salt Lake, Utah, 10 years into taking a leap and beginning my entrepreneurial journey. Almost every day I wake up fully alive.

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After bringing on new leadership, The Warriors Refuge went through a radical change for the better. We focused on holding proactive programs for veterans, teaching leadership and entrepreneurship. We changed the name to VEL INSTITUTE. Every quarter we held VEL Keynotes, and at the end of the year, we’d host the Legacy Awards. Below are few highlights:

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Big Thinkers

One of my favorite memories from this chapter of my life was a good friend saying, “We need to think bigger and bring in a big name for a keynote.”

“How big?” I asked. “Let’s bring in world champion, Daniel Cormier,” he said.

If you want to dream big, surround yourself with big thinkers.

I was scared. Questions flooded my mind. What’s it going to cost? How will we fill the room? Hell, what will the room cost?

We rarely paid for our keynote speakers, and up until then, the most we’d paid a speaker was $500. My big-thinking friend reached out to some of his connections and told me, “DC is willing to give us a huge break because we’re a veteran org. He usually charges $50,000 but he’ll fly in and speak for us for a cool 10K.” The venue and additional expenses would cost another 10K roughly.

Big challenges can scare you, wake you up from your sleepy existence, and bring you fully alive, or you can run from them.

I remember having a mini freakout session. My big thinker friend said, “Terry, don’t worry. We can make it work.”

Despite the fear, we rallied the troops, set a date, and began working hard. A new challenge is exactly what I needed. We had the CHAMP Coming!

The event went very well, in fact, we added three additional speakers; it ended up being our most-attended Keynote of all time and we raised a little money for the organization.

Always pay attention to that still small voice. It’s usually your guiding light.

THE NEXT CHAPTER

(You can usually feel it coming)

I’d probably known for a year before I told my co-founders I was planning to leave the top spot in the organization I’d started five years earlier. I wasn’t sure what I would do, so I began praying a simple prayer, “God use me to shine your light.”

All of this transpired because I listened to that little voice back in 2013 at the AA meeting. If you missed that story, you can read it in Part 1 of this writing series.

Do you have a dream?

I am referring to a dream that fills

and enlivens your waking hours, not the dream we

sometimes experience in a deep slumber. A vital

component to a fulfilled life is having a dream,

something we look forward to. Dreams invigorate us,

help stir up our passion, and give us fuel to move through

life with purpose.

When we have a dream to chase, our days are filled with

motion, energy that helps propel us forward toward a

prize. The human mind has the ability to construct new

ideas for the future, to dream of alternate realities, to

paint a picture of a better tomorrow, but many of us fail

to dream. Many have abdicated one of their most

powerful abilities, the ability to dream.

Hope is the substance that fuels our dreams; it is essential

to life. Without hope, the future dims and our journey

through life becomes merely a belabored walk, in place

of an epic adventure. When we have something to look

forward to, a dream to chase down, our lives become

impregnated with meaning. When someone is inspired

by a dream, everything changes, there is a cadence to

their movement. Each day becomes a point on a map that

leads to a great destination.

When we discover a dream born from hope, our days

weave together to create a passion-filled journey. But

without a dream, life becomes something less

meaningful, a march of indifference, something plain,

void of emotion. Without the passion of a dream to

charge our days, life feels more like a trudge toward

mediocrity, an existence without the thrill of endless

possibility.

Earl Nightingale was one of fifteen surviving Marines on

the USS Arizona, one of the ships attacked on December

7th, 1941, at Pearl Harbor. His experience taught him a

lesson about the fragility of life. Nightingale went on to

inspire millions of lives before passing in 1989; his

words meet us today: “Never give up on a dream just

because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time

will pass anyway.”

Dr. Albert Schweitzer explained the vital importance of

having a dream when he said, “The tragedy of life is what

dies inside a man while he lives.” When we fail to chase

our dreams, something deep down inside of us dies, day

by day.

If you are reading this and realizing you lack a dream, it

is never too late to start dreaming again; begin today.

Oftentimes, dreams are somewhere inside of us, only

needing to be unearthed. Dreams are often covered in

fear, lying dormant, but they are still there awaiting a

resurrection. If this sounds morbid, that’s because it is––

to kill a dream is the same as snuffing a piece of our life,

a heinous self-crime. Unfortunately, many teachers,

coaches, and parents are dream killers whether they

know it or not. But dreams can be brought back to life;

to do so, one must autopsy their hope and do everything

within their power to regain it, for hope is the voice of

our dreams, and however faint the voice, it calls us to

better things.

Without a dream, one cannot be fulfilled––we need

something to strive for, to reach toward, because to chase

a dream is vital to happiness. It leads to a life bursting

with vigor and purpose. Without a dream, our lives are

hindered––thrown out of rhythm, and we are left longing

for vitality. A dream can wake us from our sleepy

existence. Do you have a dream?

Terry Weaver ~

The excerpt above is the opening chapter from, ALL MY BEST, one of my most recent books. If you read it, it will help fuel your dreams.

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Read Part 3