By Tara Mibus
As a kid, I remember constantly dreaming about what I would be when I grew up – on the playground I imagined our small balance beam in an Olympic arena; on long summer days I dove into piles of books and pictured my own stories in print; on weekends I groomed my model horses and looked forward to the day I would train horses for a living. My dreams about what I would be when I grew up may have varied wildly, but each and every one was filled with vividness and passion. And that excitement motivated me to do something. I took gymnastics. I wrote stories, bound them, and “published” them to family. Being horseless, I saved my allowance for technique books and practiced my horsemanship skills on a barrel.
So far, I haven’t grown up to be any of the things I dreamed about. But more importantly, somewhere along the way I stopped dreaming about those things at all. I started to dream small and act small – or, as I would have put it, I became realistic. I met with high school counselors about my career path. I fretted over what job I could get after college. I focused on what seemed practical and achievable, and I forgot about my dreams. They didn’t seem to serve a purpose anymore.
Has your life, like mine, become too small for big dreams? Have you bought into the line that they’re a waste of time when real life is pressing? When was the last time “dream” made it on your to-do list? As adults, we don’t often think of dreaming as a practical priority. But there is a critical reason why you need to put it back in your life, as Ann McGee-Cooper and Duane Trammell explain.
“Ann McGee-Cooper and Associates are a perfect 'fit' for our organization because they live and breathe the Servant-Leadership philosophy. The concept of Servant-Leadership is not new to Southwest Airlines. Our Leaders are passionate about taking care of our Company, and they understand that the best way to do this is to serve others. Ann McGee-Cooper and Associates have become a partner in learning for many of our Employees through the motivational and uplifting presentations they make to our Culture Committee members.”