How To Get Unstuck And Back To Your Dreams

0:04This is the Ed Milet Show. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So grateful that you're here with me today. Today's question was very simple. Ed, how do I change my present right now? By the way, if you have a question you want answered on the show, you can submit it on my Instagram, at Ed Milet, E-D-M-Y-L-E-T-T. You submit it there, we get thousands of them, but there's a chance your question will get answered on the show. And so today is all about leadership and vision and dreams, because I've been asked about this topic a lot. And don't discount yourself. If you have a child, if you have a company, a business, if you are a human being, you're a leader in the context that I'm going to cover today.

0:43Okay? So today's topic is this. I want you to write this down. Here's the title. It takes leaders with vision to help people with dreams. Let me say it to you again. This is big stuff. It takes leaders with vision to help people with dreams. That's not my saying. I heard it somewhere many, many years ago, but I've lived by it. It takes leaders with vision to help people with dreams. What does that mean, Ed? Well, here's what it means. The first thing is it's a reminder that everybody you meet has a dream. Everybody's born with a dream. There's a heart that dreams. As we get older, those dreams can change.

1:18They can evolve. They can even die and get buried. But every human being has a dream. That dream could be to be a multimillionaire billionaire. That dream could be to lead millions of people. That dream could be to be a mother or a father. That dream could be a particular career. That dream could have a particular body. That dream could be to live with a particular set of emotions. For some of you, your dream's as simple as, my dream is to begin to be happy. I'm tired of living sad or down or worried or angry. But remember this, every human being you meet has a dream. It might be a big one that's long-term, and it might be just a short one.

1:54Their dream might just be, man, can I get through today with a little bit of peace, with a little bit of bliss? But everybody's got a dream. And I reminded myself of that when I meet humans, that they have dreams. Every precious person has one. And like I said, there's millions of them and there's varieties of them. And some people have lots of different dreams. But this is a context and a syntax that you begin to see your brothers and sisters differently. That server at the restaurant that's serving you, that you don't make eye contact with when they ask you how's the food or what would you like to order, that person's got a dream.

2:28That dream might be just that you acknowledge them. That dream might be that they want to be the best server that's ever lived. That dream might be that they want to have a big YouTube channel someday. That dream might be they want to write a book. That dream might be that they want to meet the love of their life. But that person's got a dream. That's why they were born. You were born to live a dream. You were born to make your dreams come true. And I know this. And so what those people are looking for is a leader. And all a leader means is I can help you. I see something that you don't see. I see a potential.

3:04So as a leader in a company, many of you run companies or businesses. Remember this. It takes leaders with vision to help people with dreams. What does that mean? That means that you need to begin to work on your vision because everybody you meet has got a dream. If you're a mother, what's the vision for your family? What's your vision for your children? Are you sowing seeds in them of vision and visionary leadership in them? I read a book a long time ago that really changed my life. It's an old book. It's written by a guy named Guy Kawasaki, and it's called Selling the Dream. And what he was really writing about was Apple.

3:40He was the guy that kind of marketed the old Macintosh for Apple. The entire book is the context of what Apple was doing to become a great company. And if you really understand and study that company, Steve Jobs was a great dream seller. See, selling the dream is a skill and a talent you build. Listen to me. But most people are oblivious that it's important. Most people think that's only for the Steve Jobs of the world or the Ed Milets of the world. You want to be a great father? You get great at selling a dream to your children and your family and your spouse. You want to be a great business person, entrepreneur?

4:12You get great at selling the dream and having a vision for where you want to go. You want to be a great anything. You want to lead yourself in life. You better have a big-time vision. You'll be able to sell yourself on that dream. Life's about vision. That's why the Bible talks about where there is no vision, the people will perish. They will literally die. You're a dead human without a dream. You're a dead human without a dream. So you should constantly be working on your dream muscle, your vision muscle, and your ability to sell yourself and other people on that vision. I am talking to you today because I had a dream and a vision that I could help millions of people, that I could use an ability I thought I might have to communicate to reach people.

4:54Remember this. We constantly move in our life towards what we're most familiar with. We move to the familiar. We gravitate to the familiar. We develop patterns and behaviors that are familiar. That's why when you drive home, usually from wherever you work, you don't even have to consciously think about how you're getting there. You just kind of pull right off the freeway when it happens, don't you? You're not even thinking about it because it's familiar to you. You get in the shower, you don't think, you know what? Today I'm going to soap here first and then shampoo. You got to root. You just do it unconsciously.

5:24your life most of it is unconscious because your brain is trying to save energy by creating habits that are repetitive and that are familiar well if you're only familiar with the tasks you have to do or as a mom or a dad familiar with i gotta cook them lunch i gotta get dinner i gotta pick them up for school and you just do the monotonous stuff and you never have a family that's loaded with a vision or a dream of where they're going or for each individual child you have or for your spouse, that you're selling them a dream and a vision of who they could be and how much you believe in them. Of all the things I'm not very good at, I'm amazing at selling people on themselves.

6:01I'll tell people that all the time. Server in a restaurant is a great example. If I say, man, you're awesome. You are awesome. You're amazing. Thank you, man. You're not even going to be here someday, are you? You want to do something out of here. I could see you. I could see you out of here doing more. Or if they do want to be there, I'll say, man, I could see you running this place someday with my kids since they were little. I was selling them a dream and a vision. I used to say that, my let's are going to do something awesome. I'm telling you, hey, listen to me. The my let's are doing something awesome.

6:28They still get text messages. Hey, let's do something great today. We're going to do something freaking great as a family. Woo. Kick some butt today. Making a difference. The my let's are leaders. We got a vision and I'll sell them that dream over and over again. Think about all the people you admire in your life. Think about them. What's one thing they all have in common? They had a big old dream, a vision, and a dream that they sold either themselves or you. Let's go through a few. And by the way, when I'm saying this, what about you? What vision are you constantly selling yourself on? What vision are you selling your colleagues on?

7:03What vision are you selling your spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend on, your children on, your parents on? Do you do that? Are you conscious of it? Because that's called being alive. The ability to grab a vision and develop it is a muscle. And to do it repetitively, even when people are rolling their eyes at you going, I heard this before. And here's the kicker. Get good at selling it. That's the second step. Think about who you admire. Let's just go through a few people. Let's say you're a follower of Jesus. Just curious. Did he have any dream he sold? Do you have any vision? His vision, his dream was everlasting life for you.

7:44That's about as big as it gets. You bought the dream and the vision if you're a believer. Whatever your faith is, you've bought the vision and the dream of this person that is your deity. In my case, I'm a Christian. And then what did he do? He sold the dream. He cast the vision, and he sold the dream over and over and over and over and over again. And then he built a team of people that sold it, and it's become the biggest movement in the history of mankind. Maybe you're not religious. How about Martin Luther King? Do you admire him? Wow, that's interesting because his most famous speech is, I have a dream.

8:23And he sold the dream. He did it with his oratory skills. He did it with his physical labor in the marches and the standing in the difficult times up against adversity. And then he had other people who caught that dream, like the Rosa Parks of the world, who started to carry that dream and that vision. Okay, maybe you're into politics. Who do you like, Trump or Obama? Because you don't like them both. What did Obama have? Hope and change. If you loved Obama, you were all about hope and change. And he embodied that hope and that change that you love. Maybe you didn't like Obama. Maybe you're a Trumper.

9:02You love Donald Trump. Did he have a vision? Does he have a vision? Make America great again. that's the vision. And he sold the dream on it. Now it's even more powerful when you embody that dream. So let me give you some steps. You got to, you got to get great at seeing a vision for yourself and other people. Then you got to sell a big enough dream that the dream of everybody within your stewardship can fit inside the one you're selling. So if you're a business leader, you got to sell it big. Here's your number one problem. If you're running a business right now, you ain't selling it big enough.

9:35You got to see it bigger. Ready for this? Get in the big man, sell it bigger get in the big when apple was just a board company jobs was about being talking about being the most transformative company of all time that was crazy how about me some guy that's just plugging away as an entrepreneur 25 years ago a dream of being worth hundreds of millions of dollars of influence and millions of people of using my story to change you'd have laughed your ass off at me back in those days well people aren't laughing anymore or are they? Because I got a big old vision. I started selling myself the dream.

10:07And when you sell it and then you embody it. So that's step one, get a vision. Step two, start selling that dream. Step three, make it repetitive. Being in business or being a mom or being a dad or being a leader is not coming up with new things you say to old people. It's saying old things to new people. Let me say that to you again. Too many of you are trying to create some new thing you're saying to the old team. What you need to be doing is saying the old things to new people. So I've said it over and over and over. So you've got to sell it big enough that everybody's dream fits inside of it.

10:40So the Milets are going to do something awesome. Max, you can play on the PGA Tour. Bella Boo, you can have your own business and run for president someday. It fits inside the dream that I'm selling. If you're running a company, you've got to get the dreams of everybody to fit inside that. The third thing is you've got to back it up with massive action. It can't just be words. People have got to watch you go, oh, she means it now. You get good at selling that dream, and you do it repetitively. You don't end up suffering from what I call leadership fatigue, where you get tired of hearing from yourself.

11:08You get tired of saying it. Most businesses fail because the leader gets tired of selling the dream and acting like it. Most parents fail because they get tired. If they ever sold a dream, they get tired of selling it because the kids don't behave. They don't act like it. And they finally just quit. The more you sell the dream and sell the vision, I'm convinced the problem for most kids is they're being raised by parents who don't sell a big vision and a big dream and tell them how amazing it's going to be. When you're a leader, that's a position. That means you have a viewpoint the people behind you can't see.

11:39You have a job as a leader, as a mom, as a dad, as a business leader, as a coach to say, hey, let me tell you what I see because you can't see it. Let me tell you how it's amazing it's going to be when we get there, how worth it it's going to be to go through the trials and tribulations, how worth it is to go through the ups and downs and put the work in. Let me say it to you again because this is going quick. Okay? You got to see something they don't see because of your position as leader. and you've got to be able to say, let me tell you what I see. And you tell them over and over and over, and you tell them in different ways until they get it, but you say the same thing.

12:12And you tell them how amazing it's going to be when we get there. Go all the way back to Jesus. Let me tell you what I see. I see you in heaven someday. Let me tell you how amazing heaven's going to be. Let me tell you how amazing it is. Right? Over and over and over. Then you tell them how to get there. Over and over and over again. It's got to be big. It's got to be bold. It's got to capture people's hearts. And they've got to see themselves fitting inside the one you're selling. It can't be a selfish dream unless you're just leading you. Then you got to do the hard one. You got to validate it with your action.

12:45They got to see you go, wow, she's serious. She's in here two hours earlier than she used to be. Oh my gosh, she's got this dream of doing this bodybuilding contest she's doing. Look how disciplined she is with her diet. My gosh, you know, she takes off on lunch and works out in addition to her morning workout. They start seeing it. Man, he's talking big stuff for the company right now. He's talking major plans, major vision, unbelievable stuff. Have you seen how he's working right now? This dude's a maniac. He means it. You validate the dream with your actions. You tell your kid they're going to play high school basketball.

13:17How often are you getting out there shooting with them? How often are you getting up early? How many videos are you sending them on shooting stuff? How many articles? What the coach are you trying to get work to get them with? Validate it with your actions. You become a powerhouse and then it starts to get momentum This is what happens in life. You got to learn to do this If I was to tell you one thing about your life, I would wish for you Is that you would get a bigger vision for you If there's one thing I would wish for your company Is that you get a bigger vision for your company if there's one thing I'd wish for your family Is that you get a bigger vision and after you have those things then Then what I would wish for you is that you work on the development of selling that dream and getting better at selling yourself and others on that dream.

14:03Then I'd wish you'd repeat it almost to the point of people thinking you're crazy. And then what I would wish is that everybody can fit inside the one you're selling. And then what I'd wish is that you'd validate it by taking massive action. You start doing that, your life changes. The reason your life is not changing if you want it to is you don't have a compelling vision that's greater than your fears. And the way you make a dream happen, by the way, you might say, I don't know what my dream and my vision is. Let me tell you what it is. Your dreams, what will move you in your life always is either the future you want or other people.

14:40You'll never do anything for yourself, but you'll do stuff to achieve your vision and you'll do stuff to make other people happy. What I recommend you do is once you get that vision is you link your love for other people to that vision and dream. Because as long as you tell yourself, I love these people more than I'm afraid that this dream won't happen. I love these people more than I'm worried about the obstacles and the roadblocks. I love my family. I love my whatever it is more than I'm scared, more than the adversity. My love is greater than anything that will get in the way. Most of you are afraid to get a big vision because you think you're going to miss it.

15:15And then you're afraid to really pursue it and chase it because you're afraid you'll fail. Many, many times I wanted to quit. And I would remind myself, I love my family more than this obstacle. I love my family more than I'm afraid. I love my family more than this adversity. I will love my family longer and it will endure far past this problem. And once I attached my love to the dream, the people I love to the dream, I became a pretty unstoppable force because there was no cop-out. And by the way, if you know someone who's quit on their dream, you know the hard reality? The adversity was greater than their love.

16:02The adversity was greater than their love for their family. They sold their family out. That's the hard truth. I can sell out my family. There ain't any word game, any adversity, any obstacle. Anything you're going to put in front of me is going to get me to sell my family up the river. And that's exactly what you're doing when you quit. Let me ask you this. Let's just get this straight. Is there anything bigger than your love for these other people? Is there anything that would come in your way that would be bigger than your love? Maybe your love for your Lord, your love for your family. Anything bigger than that?

16:39Good. I hope the answer was no. because if there's nothing bigger than that, you're going to win. Unless, of course, you renegotiate that at some point, which a lot of people do. You ever seen someone who's been defeated in their dream? Quietly, they might blame someone else. They might have their excuse. But deep in their soul, deep in their intuition, deep inside them, they know. They sold out. They sold out. Here's the great news. I've quit many things before, but I got back up again. It's not too late. You can decide right now. That's it. He's right. I'm going to start attaching my vision and my dreams to my love for these other people.

17:22And I'm getting up. I'm going to be a different force now. Let me ask you this question. Any of you that have kids, and if you don't have kids, just pick somebody you love. Let's say you were sitting in a meeting right now. and someone walked up to you and handed you a note and said, that person was in a serious car accident. Picture your children, if you have children, or your grandchildren. If you don't have children, your mom or your dad, your boyfriend or your girlfriend. You're in a very big meeting room and you got handed a note. So-and-so has been in an accident and it's serious. You need to come now.

17:53What would you do? You'd get right up and run out of that room, wouldn't you? In a minute, wouldn't you? Would you stop and go, well, wait a minute. I don't want to be rude to the speaker. I don't want to get up and bother the other people in the room. What's everyone going to think about me when I get up? Is everyone going to say, wouldn't occur to you at all. That's stupid stuff of what other people are going to think. Because you got to get to this person you love, right? Because your love is greater than that moment. And when you got up, if you started to run out of the room and someone stopped, you go, hey, someone said, what are you doing?

18:23You can't get up in the middle of the meeting. There's no way you can do this. That's rude. Sit your butt back down. Would you go, oh, okay, I don't want to be rude. Would you do that? Or would you go, get out of my way. My baby, my child, my girlfriend, my mom has been in an accident. Get out of here. And you steamroll. And when you got to the door, they said, hey, you need to get back in there. This door is locked. There's no way out. What would you do? Go, well, I guess that's a sign I'm not supposed to get to my dream. It's God giving me a sign. Too much adversity. Is that what you say? It's a sign?

18:58Nah. You know what I bet you'd do? I bet you'd kick the door down, wouldn't you? You sure would. You'd kick that door down. Bam. No obstacle. When you got out to your car and it didn't start and it wouldn't go, you're like, well, I guess that means I'm not supposed to get there. Man, one thing after the other. I guess I'll just lay down here. Another obstacle, another sign, just not meant to be. I just don't have what it takes to get to my child. Would you do that? Heck no. You'd go carjack a dadgum car if you had to, wouldn't you? You'd ask, I need your car. I need your car. I need your car. I need to get, take me right now.

19:30You'd get a new, you'd do whatever you could. You'd get an Uber, you'd get a taxi. You'd run and get anything it took. When you got to the hospital, if you got to the door, they'd go, hey, slow down. There's procedure here. You got to sign in. Are you family? You got to be like, hey, I got to get to my family. No obstacle. Well, hey, we need these. Would you say, well, man, before I do it, I need to know the exact words I'm supposed to say. I need to be totally prepared for when I get to the hospital. I need total preparation before I can get to the hospital. Screw preparation. You're never going to be totally prepared for that moment.

20:03You don't have to have the perfect words or the perfect moment or the perfect knowledge or understand everything. That's all out the damn window when you want something to get somebody that bad. You'd get to your baby, wouldn't you? You wouldn't need the perfect words. You wouldn't need to know everything. You wouldn't wait to get started for the right timing. None of that crap would matter, would it? because you're going to get there because you love them so much. That's how your dream has to be. And by the way, that's the truth of how people make their dreams come true. And here's the truth about the people that don't.

20:35They don't attach that love, that urgency, that obsession. And so little stupid things start to seem big. What are these people going to think? Oh my gosh, someone rejected me and told me to sit back down. The doors are closed. There's no way to get in that room and make it happen. You'd find a way to get that door knocked down, wouldn't you? There's no door closed. It didn't start. There's a setback. My car. No, wouldn't matter. When you got there, they said, hey, we need this information. We need to hear the right words from you. You wouldn't wait around and go, well, let me sit in the parking lot and prepare for another three weeks before I get started.

21:08So the timing's better. And I know everything I need to know when I get in that hospital. No, you know enough. And you'd get going. And what you would say is I'll figure it out when I get in there. Isn't it trivial? And isn't it silly? when you put it in that context, what we let stop us and why we lay down after a while. Ed, how do I get back up in my life? I'm telling you how. You get back up by getting a new vision, by repeatedly selling yourself this dream, and by attaching your love like that precious child or loved one who was in an accident, that type of urgency, that type of love, that type of obsession towards chasing it.

21:45And now you're up. And when those obstacles do come, they may rattle you. they may stagger you, but they won't stop you. You're unstoppable. That's pretty good. There's three types of people in life. There's motivational people. Motivational people are awesome. You see them and you get motivated. What they do is they get you motivated based on your motives. If you do this, you'll get a Lambo. If you do this, you'll get money. If you do this, you'll get a body. If you do this, you'll get a relationship. So you are moved by your motives. Nothing wrong with being motivated or being a motivational person.

22:20In fact, I'd like to think I am a motivational person. I am motivated, but that's a low level of movement. It's a low level of chase. It's a low level of juice, but it is a level and it's more than most people have. So if you're looking for motivation, you can get it. The second level is far more powerful though. If you can add it, you can stack it. I'm motivated and you stack to the next level. So you get motivation. You want that. You want the external. You want motives. But then you move to step two, which is inspirational people or inspired people. Those people are a different type of force because inspired people, the root of the word inspire is to be in spirit.

22:59So you got motivation going. Now you got inspiration going in your life. Inspirational people, they move mountains. There's an in spirit. It touches your soul. It moves you at an energetic level. that life force, that soul spirit level that can overcome about anything. Motivational people can get stopped sometimes if they don't get their motive or they do get what they were motivated by. I've watched a lot of people get what they wanted. They got the car, they got the money, they got some position or title, they got the degree. And then what? Because they were only motivated, meaning they were only after their motive.