The future belongs

Eleanor Roosevelt said that the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

Do you dream?

Do you believe?

I think that dreaming is an essential survival skill in business, in work, in life.

I’ve just come through a month without dreams. A month of projects, tasks, requests, work. Basically, stuff.

The problem with stuff is that stuff happens. Stuff accumulates. And then stuff obliterates.

Passion dies. Enthusiasm fades. Curiosity subsides. Joy flees: stuff has conquered. We have seen the enemy, and the enemy is us.

In case the problem for business, for work, is not perfectly clear, here it is: creativity depends on all those good things I’ve just mentioned. Just try to be creative without passion, enthusisasm, curiosity, joy.

Good luck.

Without creativity, nothing new and exciting happens. Without creativity, you are just one more drone in the faceless masses. Without creativity, your business is just one more me-too nothing-new ho-hum big stinking deal.

You need dreams.

You need big beautiful dreams.

And then you need to believe.

When a company has no dreams, there is no belief. Without belief – in something, anything – the company has no soul. Without a soul, it’s a dead man walking, an empty automaton … a skeleton that’s still, somehow, stubbornly, moving.

But don’t expect anyone get excited about it. Not the people who work there – to them the company is a payment on a car, on a mortgage. And if not the people who work there, why the wider world?

You must have a dream. They must be beautiful dreams. And then you must believe. Otherwise, what’s the point? Go flip burgers, and ask would you like fries with that.

This morning, at 6:07, I found a dream. It is beautiful.

And I believe.