Top 10 Traits That Will Turn You From a Dreamer into a Doer

To often, we talk, talk, talk about our dreams - and never act on them. I'm reading a book written by the Disney Imagineers (the people responsible for Disneyland, Disney World, etc.) and I came across a list of 10 traits that will turn us from dreamers to doers.

1. Maintain a clear vision.
2. Be optimistic - it's more fun!
3. Make curiosity your search engine.
4. Be confident - believe in your ideas.
5. Celebrate your ideas.
6. Use storytelling to involve your audience.
7. Wear your guests shoes!
8. Organize the flow of people and ideas.
9. Avoid overload - tell one store at a time.
10. Take a chance.

from the book The Imagineering Way: Ideas to Ignite Your Creativity by the Imagineers

Sonnet 1 by William Shakespeare

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

The first two lines really hit me. Chew on them with me and let me know what you think.

For Once, Then, Something by Robert Frost

I seem to be on a Robert Frost kick...This poem is deep (pun intended).

Others taunt me with having knelt as well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
My myself in the summer heaven, godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths-and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What as the whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

To Be Remembered

I went to a funeral yesterday. It was for someone I knew from afar. He was a special person - impacted many lives. And he couldn't move. He was bound to a wheel chair and couldn't care for himself. Yet he cared for others.

We live in a day and age where everything - everything - is about "me", is about "I". When in reality it's about others.

Mickey Rhodes reminded me that to be remembered will only come when I have first remembered others and acted on their behalf. Thank you, Mickey.

The Hidden Treasure

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant
in search of fine pearls, who,
on finding one pearl of great value,
went and sold all that he had and bought it."
- Jesus Christ (Matt. 13:45-46; ESV)

A Psalm for Life

I love this poem. Makes me want to run around and shout.

A Psalm for Life
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!-
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,- act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

The Pasture by Robert Frost

Here is what inspired this blog. Might seem a bit ambiguous...

The Pasture by Robert Frost

I am going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha'n't be gone long. - You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young.
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha'n't be gone long. - You come too.