By Michael Partnow
DREAM
“If you can dream it, you can do it.”
– Walt Disney
Think about that quote for a moment. How many times have you said to yourself, Hmm…. I wonder if this dream would work?”
What happened next? Or the real question here is, what did NOT happen next?
Did fear get in your way? Did you have doubt? Did you think this is too hard? Or perhaps… you turned to Netflix and just started to binge?
Perhaps you shared your dream with colleagues, friends, or family members. Did someone else think it was silly or too hard? Did that deflate your excitement?
When I have these dreams (and I have a lot of them), I write them down. This article for example is one of those dreams. It is something I’ve wanted to put out to the world for quite some time. I know, it may not seem like a big deal. But I wrote down what I wanted to do, and I’ve now made it a reality, even though it may not change the world like Walt Disney or The Beatles did. Who knows! Maybe it will inspire the next person to truly change the world!
But what was common among luminaries like Walt Disney and The Beatles? They had a dream. They worked tirelessly toward making that dream a reality. They were rejected time and again. However, they kept going. They did not stop until their idea – their dream – was EXECUTED!
Now, I know what you might be thinking. “My dream is not that important.” Or perhaps, you are having apprehensions that nobody would care about your dream. Or maybe you’re just scared putting it into action.
How do you know unless you put yourself out there?
Here’s an easy way to start – simply jot it down. This is the first step toward executing.
Take out that pad (yes, although I am with a leading technology provider, I still use a pen and pad), or grab your phone or tablet, and title the page ‘Dream to EXECUTION’!
Next, start writing. Bullet points are fine. Now that you’ve jotted down the ‘What’, if you have done some thinking around the ‘Why’ and the ‘How’, then write that down too. If you are not there yet—and most are not—that’s ok!
Then, take some time. Not too much time. Take a month, maybe. Set a reminder for yourself on a given day at least once a month to spend some time on developing your idea.
Here’s the key: identify one idea, one dream to execute on. Don’t be hard on yourself. If the idea or dream you selected is big, do not feel the need to select another at the same time. Focus on one at a time. And when I say focus, I mean execute. Execute on that one idea / dream.
Best Practice Tip: (Take out that list you are tracking)
- Write down the definition of a successful execution. Clear your mind. What does it look like? If you are stuck, follow the Amazon approach. When poking at an idea, they write the press release first and then back into the steps below to achieve the desired outcome. Time-box the execution. What are the key milestones? What are the deliverable dates? Write those dates down.
The best part is that you’ve completed the hardest parts. You thought up your dream and mapped out the execution path.
Now, go DREAM!
Michael S. Partnow is the Head of Wealth Management at JIFFY.ai. JIFFY.ai’s intelligent automation platform enables enterprises to build business applications that run their processes end to end. Using cognitive capabilities such as intelligent document processing, AI, RPA, ML and advanced analytics, these apps learn and adapt to changing situations impacting the business landscape, and even mimic human thinking and actions intelligently.
Contact Michael at [email protected]
