Below is Secret #75 from the book 101 Secrets for your Twenties by Paul Angone Reality Checkers are everywhere.
And they love dishing out doses of reality like they’re a doctor and this is the prescription you need.
You know the kind.
Where you share with them your Everest-Sized Dream and before you can even finish they rattle off the seven reasons your dream won’t work. Reality Checkers lather you in their own fear and insecurities, and call it sound advice.
God bless them, they’re just trying to give you a dose of reality to save you the pain of making a mistake, or so they say.
Well yes, God bless them–because sometimes the only things worth pursuing are the things way beyond what we’re capable of. Where it's 100 percent guaranteed we’ll make Hummer-sized mistakes to make anything happen.
I’m not saying don’t take advice. Sure, sometimes we need some plain good sense. Sometimes we need that wild old sage to get all sage-like on us.
But that’s not Reality Checkers game. No, you’ll know you’ve been Reality Checked when you leave the conversation feeling like you’ve been slammed against the boards by a 250-pound Russian hockey player named Pavel.
Instead of Pavel the Reality Checker, give me the person who’s going to take in all the insurmountable facts of my dream and tell me, “That’s awesome. Heck, I say you go for it! What do you have to lose?”
Nothing. You have nothing to lose. Reality Checkers want you to believe that your plans will fail. And you know what, they’re probably right.
But the point of life is NOT to not fail.
Reality Checkers want you to believe that failure is death, but it's not.
In-action based on fear, the possibility for embarrassment, and the all-encompassing "what if," leads to death–a long, slow demise where you make as much of a wake as a dried up leaf falling into a puddle of water.
We must be willing to try for Everest-sized dreams, and we must be careful who we tell about it at first.
Be strategic who you tell about your Everest.
If you tell everyone your big dream in order for them to affirm it, your dream will be crushed way before you reach your Everest.
You need to plant the idea of a big dream in soil where there is room to grow.
Because maybe a dose of someone else's reality is the last thing you need. Maybe you need to take a heaping spoonful of a truer reality based on the dreams and vision inside of you.
Maybe where you’re headed is more important than where you’re at.
Reality is what you decide reality is. If reality is a scarce, dismal place where opportunities go to die, well get ready to spend a lifetime watching sweet opportunities take their last breath.
If reality is this crazy abundant place of opportunities galore where you’re walking through an exotic orchard of hybrid Plum-Mango-Strawberry Trees with this Giant Juicy Fruit just waiting to be picked (even though in reality such a tree doesn’t exist), then by golly, you’re going to be eating opportunities by the mouthful.
Maybe reality is really a choice each of us makes: which reality is going to be more real?
I’m taking bites from plum-mango-strawberry trees on top of Everest.
I’m done getting reality checked to death.
Who's with me?
I'd love to hear from you in the comments below:
Have you ever felt like you were reality checked to death? What's one big dream you'd like to see come back to life?
About Paul
Paul Angone is the creator of AllGroanUp.com and the author of 101 Secrets for your Twenties. Snag a free sneak peak of 101 Secrets for your Twenties here and buy the book.