Seriously. Whatever dreams you have? Put one in their gut The Killing Joke style. Watch them cry out, shrivel and finally cease. Set them aflame in your memory and remember how you feel while you watch them burn. Dreams are lofty conjurings of wants. Don't dream. Aspire. Set goals, make realistic plans and get your ass out there to achieve them!
I've been busy perfecting some things, keeping the stove warm as some like to call it, cooking up some pretty interesting projects for you guys while practicing what I'm preaching. As you're reading this, my artistic side has begun to take over, and I am allowing it. I've downed a ton of beer, wallowed in confusion, observed my surroundings, talked with friends and become inspired; thus transforming my pit into a plateau. We all have a choice to sink or swim; it's so much easier to accept excess baggage and flounder to the bottom of our personal fights to success.
My challenge to you as someone vested in your success, an associate in your corner, is to stop allowing the societal "norm" to dictate your process to achieving whatever it is your heart and mind desire. A lot of the oft-repeated mantras of generations preceding us don't jive with the current landscape. That much we can agree on. Where I feel many people differentiate is that people believe the "American dream" still exists in all its former glory with the same road in reaching it. Just take a look at the statistics, we've seen years of economic turmoil; still, expectations have not changed. You know: go to college, get good grades, land a good job that pays reasonably well, save up and get married, buy a dog and have kids then live happily ever after? That doesn't really exist anymore for most of the world, much less young Americans. So, once you create that vision board (which is mandatory by the way) and do your research on how others like you have recently made it, make a tangible plan complete with solutions to common obstacles for your path to success.
As always, dedicate yourself and prepare. It's not luck if you're prepared for it.