From the category archives:

Dream Big

Your Recession-Proof Inner Child

by Jason on 2/19/2009

in Dream Big, Have Faith, Maintain Perspective

not_the_economy

Old people are often accused of being stuck in their ways.

“Old” is a relative term, though. It does seem to be that as our age climbs, we tend to get more comfortable and less open to change. But that can begin to happen just as easily when you’re in your twenties as when you’re taking advantage of the senior citizen discount at Applebees.

This little trait doesn’t usually serve us all that well. Even less so during economic recessions.

The doom and gloom is everywhere. The media gleefully heaps on the bad news daily. Politicians are wasting trillions of our money on false promises and passing the problem to future generations. There are a number of reasons why we got into this mess, and plenty of people who can share the blame, but ultimately, there’s a certain cyclical nature to it all. Just as summer can’t exist without winter, booms can’t exist without the busts. 

But this post is not about the struggling economy and who’s to blame. It’s about you and what you’re going to do about it.

Frankly, there’s not a whole lot you can do about the macro situation. But in the micro situation, all of the shots are called by one person: you.

The way I see it, you have two choices. You could resist change, hunker down and fearfully wait for the worst to happen. Or you could look at this situation as a child would, with big dreams, boundless optimism and a vision of what’s possible. 

Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb in the middle of the Panic of 1873, a six-year recession. He established GE (General Electric Co.) in 1876, which is now the third largest company in the world.

In the late 1970s, we experienced a major energy crisis and inflation ballooned out of control, causing a major recession, which lasted for 30 months. In the midst of the economic storm, Applebees, Ben & Jerry’s, Olive Garden and Fuddruckers were founded. In 1981, IBM sold their first personal computer.

In fact, all of the following companies were formed during a recession: Burger King, The Jim Henson Company, FedEx, CNN, Hewlett Packard, MTV, Hyatt, Trader Joe’s, Sports Illustrated and Wikipedia.

The first Apple Store opened in the recession of 2001 and was declared dead upon arrival. In the recession of 2008, many consider it to be recession proof.

The people who will survive this recession are not the frustrated ones hoping for things to get back to the way they were. Not gonna happen. The ones who will survive — and thrive — will be the ones who embrace the changes and take advantages of the plentiful opportunities that abound.

Unfortunately, no politician or trillion-dollar buyout can give you the ability to see through new eyes and find the opportunity that is right under your nose.

Fortunately, there is a child inside of you that is already well-suited for the task.

5
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jack

The World’s Tallest Snowman (I Mean Snowwoman)

by Jason on 1/8/2009

in Dream Big, Play

Is it possible for a whole town to be Adultitis-free? I don’t know about that, but Bethel, Maine sure comes close.

In 1999, the ski town of about 2,400 residents set the record for world’s tallest snowman.

In 2008, the record was finally broken.

By them.

This time, they built a “snowwoman” and she was no dainty lass. Her name was Olympia, and she clocked in at a towering 122′ 1″ tall (about 30 feet shorter than the Statue of Liberty) and a scale-tipping 13,000,000 pounds. She featured eyelashes created from discarded skis and bright red lips made from painted car tires. Schoolchildren made her huge red hat and her 8-foot long “carrot” nose. She sported a 100-foot-long scarf and her eyes were made from giant wreaths. Her arms were 30-foot spruce trees!

Olympia was built with a series of concentric circles with the help of over 100 volunteers. A crane dumped the snow into frames, and volunteers climbed in for long hours shoveling and packing the snow. It took a little over a month from start to finish.

I think this is the coolest thing I’ve seen in quite some time. (Thanks for passing it along, Marilyn!)

I wonder how many people scoffed at the volunteers who contributed to this whimsical project. “An epic waste of time and resources!” I can imagine them saying. Another example of taking things too seriously.

Lots of people live in areas with snowy winters and the ones with Adultitis spend a big chunk of the winter grumbling about it. A snowy day is an exciting one for kids; a cause for celebration. I know that there are a lot of extra hassles that come with the snow when you’re grown up, but it sure is nice to see a community that still knows how to have some fun with it.

How are you doing in that department?

6
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jack

What Did YOU Want To Be?

by Jason on 12/4/2008

in Dream Big, Live Passionately

One of the questions that Kim and I almost always ask when we interview someone is, “When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?”

Sometimes the answer to that question is the best sound byte of the whole interview. It’s certainly always interesting, and it never ceases to amaze me how often it ties in to the life’s work of the interviewee. Particularly the ones who are doing what they love.

Our friend Brett Farmiloe is making a career out of getting people to think differently about their career paths. We interviewed him a while back (listen to it here) and when we asked him that question, he told us that his favorite video game growing up was Cruisin’ USA. Well, he and the gang at Pursue The Passion have driven an RV all around the country and interviewed hundreds of people who love their job. They too, have found an interesting connection between what people wanted to be when they were kids and the career they pursued as adults.

A shoe designer who began drawing shoes on little 3×5 notecards when he was in the seventh grade.

A park ranger who loved the outdoors since he was born.

A director of communications who was hooked at the age of five when he picked up a horseshoe crab and touched it.

The video below offers a compilation of people they interviewed who have taken a childhood interest and turned it into their career.

If you’re in a dead-end job, or a career that’s sucking the life out of you, maybe it’s time to ask yourself the question: “When you were a kid, what did YOU want to be when you grew up?”

It might just send you off in an exciting new direction.

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jack

Ginormously Fun Goals

by Kim on 10/11/2008

in Dream Big, Maintain Perspective

Even in this “supersize it” culture, there’s something magically childlike about seeing the world’s largest pumpkin. Steve Connolly turned his hobby into a passion, setting a personal goal of growing the biggest pumpkin in the world!

How childlike is this?!

Apparently the conditions were “just right” this year in Sharon, Massachusetts, which helped to bring his record setting pumpkin to a whopping 1,878 lbs… and its still growing about 11 lbs. per day! Yikes! The coolest thing to think about, though, is that this very same pumpkin started from a seed just five months ago. Whew… I’m sure glad this baby of ours isn’t growing at the rate. Although I do feel like I’m carrying around quite the pumpkin, I’m thrilled it’s not the world’s largest… or is growing 11 lbs. a day!

There are two lessons that jump out to me from this story.

1. It’s important to set fun goals.
Life can be so darn serious. It seems every five minutes I’m hearing about the dow dropping or some other pending crisis. Yes, it’s important to be responsible and set good goals to get through the challenging times. However, as we set our goals for the future, it’s important to remember to interject some fun ones, too. Kids are setting fun goals all of the time… like loosing a first tooth, riding a bike without training wheels, and catching that first fish. The fact that Steve Connolly set the goal to grow the most ginormous gourd says a lot about him. That is simply a fun goal! So, what kind of playful and childlike goals can you set for yourself? It could be attaining something new, like a tandem bike to ride with your best pal. It could be the goal of throwing a surprise party for someone you love. It’s good to think beyond the seriousness of finances, degrees, responsibilities, weight management (all important things, mind you!). Are you having fun with your goals?

2. When conditions are right amazing things can happen.
In a different summer this pumpkin would never have grown to be 1,878 lbs. It’s good to remember that sometimes it’s all about timing and forcing things will do no good. In fact, forcing things is a very childish action. The trick is knowing when to be persistent and when to let things go. For me, the answer is usually found in silence… listening to the small whispers from above. The key is to be aware and keep asking yourself if the challenge you are facing can be faced successfully now or in another timeframe when conditions are better. Are you forcing something that needs to be filed for later?

UPDATE: A special thank you goes to one of our Club K&J members from IL, Sarah Tipperreiter. She sent us the latest news about Steve’s pumpkin…

A world record was not to be for Steve Connelly of Massachusetts after his 1600 pound pumpkin “sprung a leak.” A half-inch crack in the base of the pumpkin disqualified him from the Giant Pumpkin Grower’s annual weigh-off, and now Connelly has to decide the fate of his pumpkin (nicknamed The Beast From the East): sell it to a buyer from New York who wants to carve the world’s biggest jack-o-lantern, or put on his apron and bake it into 5,000 pies. What would you do?

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jack

Jump off the Conveyer Belt

by Kim on 8/30/2008

in Dream Big, Live Passionately, Rules That Don't Exist

We recently started back on the road for a fall filled with speaking gigs. One thing Jason talks about is to “Stop living by rules that don’t exist.” This is a major way to fight your Adultitis. Living by this philosophy is exactly what gives the typical two-year-old the bad rap as “terrible.” In defense of parents of toddlers everywhere, let me point out that two-year-olds are in the business of testing everything, discovering the world around them and how they fit into it… which doesn’t always look pretty. Jason and I joke that inevitably there’s always a two or three-year-old throwing a major fit on the floor in the airport security line stubbornly objecting to take off his shoes for the TSA staff. We smile because they are the only ones who have the naivety (and guts) to stand up to the TSA, even if it is a losing battle. I secretly cheer the toddler on… how I wish I could refuse and throw a fit one of these days!

There is a lesson to be learned from the stubborn naivety of the terrible twos. You must challenge the status quo. Most of the time the “rules” that you insist on following are either insignificant or they simply do not even exist. As I think about our life, I smile at the opportunities when Jason and I have bucked the system, jumped off the conveyer belt of life, and taken our own path. It’s very childlike and with any lesson taken from our younger years, it creates a life of adventure and spunk.

Here are a few examples of how we’ve demonstrated that childlike grit by living by our own rules…

Rule: Get a job with good solid benefits. We ultimately rejected the safe school district insurance for the high deductible life of self-employment.

Rule: After you get married you should invest in a home. We chose to delay owning a home, and decided instead to invest in our business, ultimately gambling our house fund for a lifestyle that we love.

Rule: Professional speakers travel alone and keep a schedule that puts them in and out of cities in a 36-48 hour cycle. We set our own company policies that dictate both of us travel together. We fly in the day before the event and fly out the day after. If we are visiting a new area, we tack on a day or two for sightseeing. (Sidenote: Unfortunately, there is a high divorce rate in the lives of professional speakers, largely in part to their consistent absence from home.)

Rule: If you decide to move somewhere, you should have a job lined up or at least have contacts in the area to help you secure employment. Our first apartment in Madison was cosigned by our parents, because neither one of us had jobs yet. We came to Madison because we felt a strong pull to be here… it didn’t really make sense on paper but it did in our hearts. It’s been home ever since.

Rule: GenXer’s in Madison, Wisconsin must channel their generationally stereotypical cynicism towards the war, the government, and the environment. Jason and I are two of the few proud conservative thirty-somethings in this city.

Rule: You must prepare for childbirth with a doctor and deliver in a hospital. We are thrilled to have found an awesome fit with an excellent team of midwives at the Madison Birth Center.

You get the idea. It’s exciting to observe others breaking the rules as well. Jason’s brother and his wife maintain a lifestyle with two careers and yet only have one car, even though they work in different cities. They share the car, allowing them to save hundreds of dollars every single month. (Rule: You must have a car for each driver.)

Friends of ours sold their newer, four bedroom home and moved into an older, three bedroom home, so that she could quit her job to stay home with their children, avoiding daycare. (Rule: You must have two salaries to provide for your family.)

Here’s the dirty little secret… most people like it when they aren’t the only ones playing it safe, so it’s hard to find others who will challenge you to step out of your box. If someone they know starts rocking the boat, it’s often met with gossip and criticism because it challenges everyone else’s decisions. What a boring life! I’m not advocating you go to the extreme of childishness and shirk all responsibilities just to “make your own path.” Just do yourself and your loved ones a favor by asking yourself some hard and honest questions, “Why do we do things this way? Is this what’s best for me today and down the road?” Ask these questions and have the childlike spunk it takes to jump off the conveyer belt if you’re unhappy with your answers.

So, what rules are you breaking?

7
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jack

Tip of the Week: Daydream Believer

by Kim on 7/21/2008

in Dream Big

This week’s Escape Plan challenge (aka our Tip of the Week) is #6: Daydream Believer: Write down one big dream of yours. Draw or find a picture to go with it and put it somewhere you will see it often.

This is such a fun challenge! Who doesn’t like to dream about the future? It’s inevitably filled with hope and possibilities of wonderful blessings!

The law of attraction is a mysterious thing. I had a neat moment last Friday when I was cleaning out some papers near my desk. I found two copies of Wisconsin Women Magazine, one from October 2007 and one from December 2007. I remember picking them up with the conscious mindset that I wanted to be in there somehow. Maybe if I looked through them closely, I’d find a connection. Of course, as life happens the magazines got placed under some papers and weren’t seen again for what ended up being seven months… the exact same day that the August issue of the magazine came out, with Jason and I on the cover. The cool part of this story is that we were approached by them to be on the cover. (Read the article here.) By the way, Jason broke records with this… being the first man to ever grace the cover! Don’t you love his socks?!

Don’t skip this challenge! It could truly impact the details of your future.

Share with us in the comments of the Escape Plan blog what dreams you’re recording this week. Be sure to stop back and let us know when they are accomplished.

2
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jack

How To Be An Action Hero

by Jason on 5/14/2008

in Dream Big, Have Faith, Live Passionately

One of my blog posts recently received a very intriguing comment. It was loaded with interesting observations and great questions and I wanted to address them here.

As much as I love reading your website, and others like yours, I have realized that reading about it, and actually doing something about it is 2 different matter. Believe me, I’ve been a long-term reader of sites such as yours and am always comforted by the fact that there are people out there like you. I also talk about your sites, and my thoughts with my friends.

But lately, my friends have come to the conclusion that, yes, many people out there ditch their jobs to chase their dreams (or something less dramatic), but there are also just as many out there who go to work like we all do, live a 9-6 life and enjoy the weekends.

They’ve actually concluded that I’m torturing myself here because I read all these encouraging articles, dream all my dreams, but still am miserably stuck.

Don’t get me wrong. I love this article. And your site is very inspiring. But HOW do you actually get people out there to ACT and DO it? How are we to ditch our salaries, health benefits, career prospects, etc, and go, say pursue our dream of volunteering in a third-world country?

I know it’s illogical, and I know all the arguments against staying at a job just for the money, perks, whatever. But still we are not taking action.

If we are, there will no longer be visitors to your site!

So how and where do people finally say and go, right, enough of reading….I’m gonna do it!? How do you get to that point?

First of all, it’s never a bad thing to read or listen to things that inspire you to make positive changes in your life. Encountering the stories of people — people just like us — can help us to see that impossible things are actually more possible than we realized. And they can help us build up the courage we need to launch off on our own epic journey. However, a good many people go out of their way to avoid — and even criticize — these sorts of stories. After all, it can be quite unsettling to have your own self-limiting beliefs challenged, forcing you to face the possibility that you’ve settled for less than your best.

One of the things I was fortunate to learn pretty early on in my career as a professional speaker and writer was that I can’t get anyone to DO anything. Not one person. Not one thing. It’s easy to forget that sometimes — because I really wish I could — but remembering that truth has saved me a lot of frustration. Conversely, if someone is waiting for some speaker or some book or some fairy godmother to wink twice, twitch her nose, and magically transform their life for them, well, that person will be waiting for a very long time indeed.

What I can do is try and live by example and use emotion and intellect to communicate a message that serves as a catalyst for someone to make a positive change in their life. Believe me, that’s the ultimate. But when it all comes down to it, nothing I do or say can make them do anything.

All that being said, one thing that seems to be very effective in getting people to take action is bad news from their doctor.

As enticing as a dream may be, the good ones always involve some sort of uncomfortability and a certain level of risk. Two things most human beings aren’t too fond of. Change and risk are scary things, and most people choose to stay in their current situation (which although admittedly not ideal, is at least a known quantity) than set off into the unknown. Bad news from a doctor, or a near death experience, or a sudden death of a loved one does a pretty good job of helping people realize that the things they worry about are not really worth worrying about after all.

I also think people get so caught up in the big picture that they forget that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. It’s a cliché, but it’s true. It’s understandably overwhelming to consider the concept of quitting your job, abandoning a career, taking a pay cut, giving up benefits, and moving to a third-world country (or whatever the dream requires.) But in most cases, dreams are accomplished in baby steps. Books are filled with examples of people who began chasing their dream while they were still in school, still had a family to support, still had kids at home, or were still working at a job they didn’t care much for but at least paid the bills.

Indiana Jones is a hero because he takes action when most of the people around him are too afraid (or cynical.) That’s not to say he isn’t afraid (snakes, anyone?), just that he moves forward in spite of the fear. He doesn’t always plan everything out to the last detail (that can become just another form of inaction) because he knows that unexpected things are going to come up anyway. We, too, can expect the unexpected on our journey. Just like Indiana, our quest for the holy grail — our “dream,” if you will — is wrought with peril, lonely paths, and bad guys. Undoubtedly, it’s an adventure of a lifetime and the journey is totally worth it.

But nobody can do it for us.

If you’re feeling stuck, maybe you just need a little bit more courage to take that first action step. A baby step. You’re closer than you think.

6
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jack

Tip of the Week: Future Forecast

by Kim on 4/21/2008

in Dream Big

This week’s Escape Plan challenge (aka our Tip of the Week) is #19: Future Forecast: Spend 10 minutes visioning yourself 10 years from now as having accomplished one of your biggest dreams. Be as detailed as possible; imagine in all five senses.

Every time Jason and I end up at a mall he makes a joke about the “Ice Cream of the Future”… you know, Dippin’ Dots. This frozen treat company has been claiming this title for over 20 years.

When is the future, anyway?Dippin dots

And speaking of the future, when is our transportation system going to mirror that of The Jetsons? Speaking around the country would be so much easier if we could just fly from one place to the next in our own vehicles, or better yet- teleportation. Beam me up, Scotty!

All joking aside, in order to see real change in your reality you have to know what you’re going after. You have to have a vision. Otherwise, you end up drifting from one year to the next.

One of the questions in the Adultitis intake is as follows:

This is what I think about following dreams…

A. I do have dreams, but I try to keep them realistic.
B. My dreams are so big, I think most people think I’m mental.
C. Three words: Get. A. Job. People should spend more time with their feet on the ground than heads in the clouds.
D. I don’t really have time for my dreams.

What would your answer be? I know most kids would answer letter B. If you don’t believe me, just look at their Christmas lists. It’s time to start spending time visioning your dreams coming true. Engage the senses… and most importantly- have fun with it!

So, let me get you started. The date is April 21, 2018. Will you be flying to the nearest ice cream shop to eat frozen dots of wonderfulness?

Share with us in the comments of the Escape Plan Blog what you’ll be doing ten years from today.

1
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jack

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