Success Starts With a Dream

Naturally we are all dreamers. When we were children we dreamt of being superheroes and dared ourselves to live in Dreamland of a fairy tale novel where the princess and her prince charming would ride into the sunset and live happily ever after. However when the traditional and conventional world show its true colours with negative mind conditioning through signs that read like “Hey, are you crazy? You can’t do that! You can’t be that! Wake up and stop dreaming!” After years of being reminded of what we can and cannot do, we will start to live a routine life and success is measured through the eyes of people around you. We start dreaming and quit building our dreams.

Well, there is nothing wrong with becoming a dreamer. Thomas Edison had a dream. And his dreams light up the whole world. Alexander Graham Bell had a dream. And his dreams made it so easy for people across the globe to communicate. The Wright Brothers had a dream. And their dreams made people fly. Colonel Sanders had a dream. And his dreams gave people around the world the KFC “finger lickin’ good” franchise. Tun Mahathir Mohammed had a dream. And his dreams made little Malaysia a big nation standing in the eyes of the world. Prophet Muhammad SAW had a dream. And his dreams gave eternal light of guidance to mortals until the end of time.

Realities of today were the dreams of yesterday. If we have a dream today, hold on to it and work on it, because one day those dreams may just come true. There is nothing wrong with becoming a dreamer. But it is wrong to let dreams drift and swept away by the passing of time. More importantly, don’t let others steal your dreams away.

Dreams need to be crystallized and cannot be left floating without proper direction. The inking of dreams need to be translated in the form of vision, goals and objectives. We need to have the courage and the guts to formulate big dreams. Dreams big enough to challenge all our senses. Dreams big enough that will boggle the mind, that will make the heart pound, that will inspire you with every breath you take and every step you make. Dreams big enough that every obstacles and resistance seemed small and insignificant. Just remember that every objectives accomplished, every goals achieved, every obstacles lifted and every resistance ironed out takes you closer to your dreams. Even if you achieve only 80% of your dreams but that 80% could mean an achievement of many lifetimes for some people. Think about that!

Lets not waste our time toying with small dreams. Small dreams are for people with small hearts. But a man without dreams is a man without soul. Merely living through time without proper purpose is a waste of bountiful resources.

Success : Believing in the Invisible

We have to understand that success is a choice we make. Life is the result of choices that we make and time merely enable them to happen. Nobody else can make us successful except us. We have a personal obligation to our own self to be successful. At the same token, we can choose not to be successful. We have probably seen this happening around us and there is nothing we can do about that. If we choose to be successful, we need to first of all believe in the Invisible. You may say, “What?” I say, “YES”. You see, success started out as invisible because we are not there yet. Success needs to be built over time. We started out our quest for success with nothing and all we have is time. I always say that the most critical resource that we need to manage is not money but it is time. With time we can find or make the money. But money could not buy back for every lost time. What we do with the time that we have will very much determine our level of success. But, time is invisible.

To be successful, we need to have our priorities straight. We need to have the discipline and perseverance to see things through. We need to have the undivided commitment and the endurance to make our dreams a reality. Again, priorities, discipline, perseverance, commitment, endurance and dreams are all invisibles.

Life is about believing in the invisible (ghaib). Life will loose its soul if we stop believing in the invisible. In Islam, the basis of life is the total submission to the Invisibles outlined by the Rukun Iman. Allah is the All Invisible but we believe in Allah as if we can see Him Bestowing His Blessings. The Angels, the Holy Book and the Scriptures, the Day of Resurrection, the Prophets and His Messengers and the Qada’ and Qadar are all Invisibles. The Rukun Islam, through the physical evidence of “ibadah” (practice), realizes the manifestations of the Invisibles. The only way to see the Invisibles is to see things with our heart and our soul will live to believe … until the end of time. Seeing with the heart will penetrate all barriers of sight.

Therefore, since success is invisible, we need to see success with our heart. If the heart could see the light at the end of the tunnel, if the heart could taste the sweetness of success and if the heart could believe then the mind, body and soul could transform the ray of hope into powerful actions that could shake and move the world around you. Believe in ourselves that we can make things happen and let the Almighty with all His Blessings take care of the rest.