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How do you get others to believe and help you? The secret is in enlisting support for your grand dream.
Monday Motivations


 Enlist Support for Your Dream



"Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.” 
 Jorge Luis Borges
  

 

 
All the quick flight home, I'm thinking about the core of motivation: how to get people to do something they don't want to. 



At the start, my quiet Charlotte leans over in the seat next me and says, "I haven't been on a plane in 5 years, Dad!" I ask Sheri. Apparently, she's right. And the way she continues sharing everything she's noticing--the runway lights, the control tower, the numbers and letters on the indicator signs--there's no doubt she's all in. And it makes me remember the joy of flying. 

She's just doing something she wants to do.

It makes me think of Katie, the bride at the wedding we've just been to.

We'd never met her, but at a quarter to 4, we'd parked out front to enter the restaurant they've rented out on the lake for the evening. The wind, snow and sleet had become a light sprinkle and my dad who's come early to run through the ceremony had texted to say we could still be heading out to the dock if the storm let up. 

First snow of the season, October 25th.

We headed inside for drinks and the uncomfortable milling around and saying hello to assorted distant family and friends and family of family. When the news finally came that the ceremony would be held out on the dock, we were a bit incredulous. But you know what I didn't hear anyone say?

"Really? Do we have to
?" 



There were heat lamps and blankets. And the 50 umbrellas bought the day before when the forecasted snow hadn't changed. 

But umbrellas wouldn't help. This was a bid to willingly suffer a bit of chill, something no one would choose to do. Convincing everyone to go along with this, at least mostly agreeably, was a compelling challenge.

The marketing book I'd just read on the 10-hour car ride was meant to help a client. But it made me realize the big challenge for any writer, editor, coach or inspirer is this big job of getting people to do what they don't want to. 

The book said I need to make it abundantly clear what I'm offering. 

I thought, Well, that's easy. I motivate authors to know and do what they need to do. 

As we congregated out on the slushy dock lined with several chairs, huddling under the heat lamps, it's bitter, but the patchy light over the blue water is amazing. And the procession is excited, if shivering and moving at a fair clip. No question everyone's far from comfortable, especially the bridesmaids.

But something is keeping the smiles frozen on their faces. And it's not the chilly wind. 

Why are they so obviously delighted to be doing something so crazy, so unadvisable?

It's the secret, what the marketing book encouraged me to think about what I really give people, the specific help I offer. I reveal and make visible my tangible insight, experience, and focus on what's most helpful to the most people. And I do it with powerful story. 

And I don't always want to. So what makes me keep doing it?



Isn't it the same thing Katie knew? That to grab people on page one and get them engaged in your vision, ultimately, it requires more than a simple formula, some pill you can pop or magic word uttered. It's a deep respect of the proper focus, of having the right perspective. And getting your audience to agree requires a clear, well-expressed, purpose. 

That purpose is wanting to help others. And the secret is simple and counter-intuitive: enlisting their help in supporting our dream. 

Practically speaking, one of life's greatest challenges is gaining the skills to communicate well to build relationships with the most people we can. That's why writing well matters, and why editing is H. A. R. D., and why we have to focus first on our own freedom

And you don't hear this just anywhere--but the best way to do that is to enlist people in supporting your freedom.



It's a paradoxical truth: loving well means loving yourself enough to decide your dream requires others and they deserve the chance to see it happen with you. This is a mystery, but when you engage them in your dream, people want to see you succeed. The truth I've slowly been realizing more and more for nearly four years has trained me to pay attention to the ongoing story beneath my life, this quest for the deeper and higher purpose, and my need to fight for it. 

And to drag people out onto the icy dock for it sometimes. 

I don't always want to do it because it takes work. But the truth is, I've been changed by the amazing art and insight my authors have brought me, and it's been my true delight getting to hear and help shape the sharing of their dreams.



We need a stronger appreciation of the art that goes into great writing. And we need more people who know how to do it well. 

My big manifesto is still being written, but if you've felt this drive to support the belief in this work I'm doing, to continually connect with the higher purpose of what we do, then you are a true freedom fighter. Because you help me when I lose my focus. You accept the challenge to remind me it isn't about me. It's about helping as many people as we can to get free through embracing the hard work of writing. 

You can help others if you just show them your dream. As Tim Grahl says in Your First 1000 Copies, "Choose to see and interact with the world through the perspective of abundance and soon you will experience that abundance as well."



On the airplane, I look over at my daughter's pure enjoyment. I always hear people say they don't have time to write. But when you're not writing for anything but the pure joy of enlisting others in sharing your dream, do you have time not to write?

"You can get everything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want in life." - Zig Ziglar 



Can we really help others simply by sharing your dream? Can we enlist their support of it, knowing it proves that when one acts on faith and believes in their great dream, it inspires others to believe in theirs as well?

When have you recently had the chance to be a part of someone's wild dream? Did their sincerity and optimism sell you and rally your support in return? 

Share your dream and enlist their support. People will suffer with you to help you realize it.
 
 
 
"Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer."

―  Barbara Kingsolver


 
Mick

P.S. If you have a story about enlisting others in your dream, I'd love to hear from you: micksilva@me.com

 
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