Are you living out your dream? Most people aren’t. Most people had dreams and ambitions at one time in their life or another but because of the worries, stresses, pressures, and struggles of life, those dreams were beaten out of or pushed so deep inside of them that they can hardly identify with that dream anymore. Too many people are living drab lives because they’re living a nightmare instead of living their dream. You owe it to yourself, to this world, and mostly to God to recover your lost dreams and pursue them with all of your heart. If you used to have dreams and are afraid to pursue them because people have let you down, sneered at you, broken promises they made to you, and have rejected your dream, then this series is for you.

“Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers; and they hated him even more. v. 28 “Then Midianite traders passed by; so the brothers pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. Genesis 37: 5, 28

Joseph is the famous dreamer of the bible who had a great dream but experienced so much unjust pain in the process of achieving it that it’s a miracle that he reached it. The first and most important thing that we see with Joseph is that God gave him the dreams that he had. You know if God has given you your dream if your dream is too big for you to even imagine. You know that God gave you your dream if you can’t even understand the dream yourself. Joseph was too young to truly understand the magnitude and ramifications of his own dreams. Joseph was the youngest member in his family and yet had dreams that his family would bow down before him. If you want to pursue your dream and actually achieve it regardless of what ever struggles you may have in the process, you must pursue your God-given dream.

So Joseph was pursuing a dream in life that God had given him. So many of us have vain ambitions and want to rule the world for our own glory, but if you possess a dream that is bigger than you, one that you couldn’t achieve on your own, and one that involves helping others, then you know that you’ve got a dream that has been given by God. So then, the next thing that you need to do to get on track to pursuing your dream is to awaken the dream inside of you. Some of us have been through the pits of life and have lost the courage to dream at all, let alone pursue that dream. It hurts to dream about doing something great or being someone significant. People try to hurt you when you pursue dreams just like Joseph’s own blood brothers did to him. So many people have trashed their dreams and settled for whatever career opportunity or job came to them.

You don’t want to be a person who’s been defined by your circumstances. You’ve got one life to live, you better gain the courage, the backbone, and the passion to go after your dreams with the time you have on earth! Don’t you want to be useful to God? Don’t you want God’s best for your life? I’ve found out that Peter experienced a part of God that none of the other disciples experienced when he stepped out of the boat and walked on water. You need to awaken your dream from the dead like Jesus did Lazarus, pick it up out of the trash can of lofty memories, piece it back together with the super glue of hope, and go after it with determination in your eyes! Awaken your dream.

Once you’ve awakened your dream from the dead and revived it in your heart you need to start proclaiming it to people. Joseph proclaimed his dream to his family. This was actually a weakness in Joseph and he was probably being boastful or naive by telling his dream to the people that he did, in the way that he did. You certainly don’t want to go around flaunting your ambitions to people, making them look bad in the process. But you can share your desires and the passions of your heart to certain people you know who will encourage you to pursue it and hold you accountable to it. You don’t want to be a ‘show off’ or a ‘goody two shoes’ but you do want to confide in a select few people who most likely won’t get jealous of your dream. These are people who are successful themselves and who are confident in their own lives.

My wife and I share a dream together so we confide in each other every day. We only share certain things with other people so we don’t provoke people to jealousy or doubt of us.

If you do these things you will be well on your way to achieving those once lost dreams in life. You need to at least be on the road to achieving your dreams if you want to live a fulfilling life, give the world the best of you, and maximize the gifts that God has given you in life.

Anthony Obey is the publisher and co-compiler of the women’s inspirational book series entitled Refined by Fire with his wife, Crystal Obey. There are currently 3 books within the women’s series which includes inspirational testimonies and messages from 61 leading women around the nation. This message is inspired by the Refined by Fire Book series. Find out how you can become a writing contributor, sign up for our mailing list, and order books at RefinedbyFireWomen.com RefinedbyFireWomen.com

I am going to tell you the basic formula of how to get everything you have ever dreamed of, everything you have ever wanted, and I am going to do it free!

Yes, FREE!

Thats right, Im not going to charge you an astronomical amount to buy my book, Im not even going to ask you to make 3 easy payments over a period of time for my CD’s. In fact, I will tell you the secret to success in the next few sentences.

There is however only one catch, are you ready for it?

You must believe with all your heart and soul- you have to believe with all the essence of your being that you will be successful! That’s it, that is my price, or should I say -our price. Its not much to ask for, but in order to carry on, and truly become a success it is absolutely necessary. Without this, their can be no success, no growth! Without belief there is nothing!

Think about where we would be now as a human race if Einstein didn’t believe he could invent the lightbulb? What if the allies didnt think they could win the war? Ok Ok, Im not saying belief is enough, but what I am saying is that without it, success is impossible.
So now that you have the pre-requisite to succeed, I am going to tell you how to succeed. Here is the secret that is as old as man himself ! Here it comes…

Take Persistent, Effective Action!

Thats it! Take Persistent Effective Action!

I know what some of you are thinking, thats crap- I want the secret!
Well my friends that is the secret! If you believe in a project down to your bones, and you take Persistent Effective Action you will Succeed! It is proven time and time again by the great men and women of our time. That is all that every successful person has done! that is the formula! Sure, there are a few lazy bastards that got picked out of a queue and made famous- but that is the exception and not the rule. If you do this you will succeed! It is so simple!

Is it? The trick is training yourself to be persistent, despite the bad results and the obstacles! If it were easy to take Persistent Effective Action then we would all be rich and successful, but it really is all that is required.

I am challenging people to take on this Success Project along with me. I am going to prove that if you follow the secret you can be a success. I will post my progress and I will pass on any techniques I have used to overcome any obstacles, Mental or otherwise. I also ask that if you are a success that you share your story and relate it to this article. This site will be dedicated to passing on techniques and information to help you apply Persistent Effective Action! YOU will succeed!

“Success seems to be connected with action. Successful men keep moving. They make mistakes, but they dont quit.”
–Conrad Hilton

R. Leal

Ricardo Leal was born in Portugal in 1974 on the dawn of the Revolution. He immigrated to Canada with his parents at the age of 6 and studied in Canada. He obtained a Business college Diploma in Finance and Marketing and launched his first business at 22- Conquest Productions, an Event Planning and Production Company. He then opened his 2nd Business at 25, a nightclub called’Mambo Bar & Grill’. He sold his share in 2001 and moved to London, England. In england he has worked with large Leisure Companies and has coached and produced great Managers and Leaders for a wide variety of Businesses. He is currently writing his first Non Fiction Book, and has recently launched 2 new businesses, Tappy Toes, a childrens Dance/Movement Business, and his first Internet Venture still under construction. Check out his Success tips at thesuccessproject.blogspot.com thesuccessproject.blogspot.com

Scooter Poetry

Cartoonist and ‘thinker Michael Leunig writes the prayer -

Dear God. We pray for another way of being:
another way of knowing. Across the difficult terrain
of our existence we have attempted to build
a highway & in so doing have lost our footpath.
God lead us to our footpath: lead us there where
in simplicity we may move at the speed of natural
creatures & feel the earth’s love beneath our feet.
Lead us there where step-by-step we may feel
the movement of creation in our hearts. And lead
us there where side-by-side we may feel the embrace
of the common soul. Nothing can be loved
at speed. God lead us to the slow path; to the joyous
insights of the pilgrim; another way of knowing:
another way of being. Amen (Michael Leunig
When I Talk to You, Harper Collins, 2004)

Could this be a kind of “scooterist prayer”? Could part of the attraction of buying a scooter for many, be an answer to the call of ‘the slow’? Could purchasing a scooter for some be their attempt to move into the slow lane of life, to say to the world, “sure drive on past, zoom off on your way to life, but I am taking the slow way, I will smell the flowers and hear the waves beating against the sandy shore”?

In his fantastic book “In Praise of Slowness“, Carl Honore believes that we are living on the edge of exhaustion. He says our pace of life is spinning out of control & that most of us live in an accelerated culture of our own creation. Honore recommends we consider the facts—we spend 40% less time with our children than we did in 1960s; the average American spends 72 minutes every day behind the wheel of a car, & that adults across the west currently devote a meager half hour per week to making love. If we’re honest, most of us are caught in the same vortex. Honore says, these days the whole world is time sick. In a survey of five thousand UK workers, 60% said they would not be using their full vacation entitlement in 2003. In Japan they even have a word for ‘death by overwork’—karoshi. In 2001 the Japanese government officially reported 143 karoshi victims.

I wonder how we can connect with people in genuine relationships when we move fast. I wonder how we can know ourselves well when we go too fast to be able to stop and reflect on where we have been, where we are going and who is with us on the journey. In fact, as Leunig advises in his prayer, nothing can be loved at speed.

For a while I was searching for a 250cc GTS i.e. Vespa, one of the core reasons was that it got me ‘there’ faster, I could ride on the freeway, keep up with the traffic. Of recent days I have been reconsidering this drive, this ‘need for speed’. Sure a bigger engine will be cool…but the biggest? The fastest? Maybe a 150cc or 200cc will suffice. In fact, a friend said the other day she had her 50cc up to 88km/h! It is true that we end up in a rush and hurry at times, but is that not a matter of lifestyle choice? I love leaving extra early for an appointment, taking a book, taking the long way or taking a train and having a read. I arrive early, relaxed, I can read or do some work or make a call with out that gut churning feeling of letting people down or having to speed to make the appointment, and in doing so missing the day as it speeds on past.

Missed Opportunities

No doubt there are things that are important to you. Values, morals, whatever you want to call them. So often these are the things that go amiss when you rush.

Take for example the person who is high in mercy or compassion who always like to stop and help someone in need. This person is rushing along, late for an appointment and sees a mum on the side of the road with a flat tyre and crying baby, with no sign of a mobile phone…Too busy to help. This only causes what is called cognitive dissonance, a conflict in your head between what you value and believe in and how you act and behave. If you live like this something’s gotta give!

What about someone who loves a good conversation, a deep chat. So often these type of conversations are unplanned, spontaneous and happen just as you were about to leave. When you give yourself space in life, these conversations find their way into your daily routine.

I live my life from appointment to appointment, I do life coaching for a Youth Work organization called Youth Vision. I could quite easily fit 4 or even 5 appointments into a day…at a push. Maybe if I set up ‘camp’ at a cafe and had people turn up all day one after the other and rushed them through. If I was moving about, meeting them where they were, then I would do less as I have to fit in drive time. BUT – packing appointments in like that rips me off as well as the coachee. I have no time to reflect on the conversation, no time to reflect on my own feelings and responses in relation to the last conversation nor any time to consider the next meeting and what it was we spoke about when last we met, what goals we had agreed upon and so on.

It is an illusion. It actually looks like I fit MORE into my day by rushing, but based upon some of the factors in that last paragraph, I believe I fit less in. The day become less valuable, less fruitful and less satisfying for both myself and my clients and friends. So I need to choose to pace myself, steady as she goes! Both feet up on the scooter, knees together, eyes on horizon…twist and … GO! Well that’s if you have a twist and go scooter…maybe you have a ‘release the clutch and go’!

So I have to say that my desire to purchase a scooter is indeed connected to my desire to live more slowly, to live a more simple life, closer to home and more deeply with the people around me. Yes, image, cheaper fuel, fun, and much more comes along with it, as well as being wet and cold in the winter, but I think the slow movement has got me captivated.

Time to slow down, get my bike licence, get my slow scooter and go for a ride…slowly.

More information at scootersnoop.com

scootersnoop.com/?page_id=2 scootersnoop.com/?page_id=2

What do creativity managers do?

Replace the word management with the word optimisation.

That’s what creativity managers do: they optimise the quality of the idea pool (creativity) and the implementation process (innovation).

There are many methods of optimisation and the creativity leader must be aware of all of them, in other words, he or she must synthesise them for optimal effect.

Areas [within creativity] that need managing include motivation, organisational culture, organisational structure, incremental versus radical effects and processes, knowledge mix, group structures, goals, process and valuation.

Areas [within innovation] that need managing include idea selection, development / prototyping and the art of commercialisation.

It is worth noting that 4000 good ideas result in 4 development programs, which in turn results in 1 winner.

The value of tacit knowledge

Knowledge can be categorized as tacit and explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is that which is easily coded: the directions to your home etc. Tacit knowledge is that which is not easily communicated, for example, the experiential knowledge of having engaged in a particular endeavor for some time.

High rates of tacit knowledge will lead to higher creativity scores (the number of ideas produced, their diversity, their novelty and the frequency of their production).

The above is one reason why diverse and novel group combinations are more effective (they are more easily able to frame break, be less path dependent and make linkages between different domains). In effect, they intellectually cross-pollinate easily. A group of only white, middle class, angle-saxon males (the make-up of many boardrooms) will reduce overall scores.

However, this statement is made with some serious caveats: tacit knowledge does not rate over and above many other criteria for successful creativity management, for example, organizational culture, organizational structure and so forth. To optimize the quality of the idea pool and the implementation process, all the other elements of the framework must be managed effectively.

Learn more…

Download the MBA research, learn about this topic at creativity-management.com/ creativity-management.com/

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Kal Bishop, MBA

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Download the MBA research, learn about this topic at creativity-management.com/ creativity-management.com/