Discover the hidden mindset shift most people are never taught for turning dreams into reality
Back in 2020, a research survey out of the University of Chicago shocked the nation.
The results showed that only 14% of Americans were “very happy”, a five-decade low in national happiness levels.
But even if we ignore the fact that measuring happiness is trickier than taking our temperature or getting bloodwork done…
(And the fact that this survey was conducted a few months into a global pandemic…)
What shocked me wasn’t the low number of people who reported being happy. It’s that anyone had expected a different result!
Now, I know in my heart that happiness is every human being’s birthright and that anyone can attain it at any age.
But if you step back and honestly examine the path that most of us take through life, it’s not only unsurprising that most aren’t happy, it’s difficult to imagine any other outcome.
I say this not to depress you, but simply because, without an awareness of why so many people are unhappy today, we have little hope of changing it in the future.
Once you truly understand the cause of discontent, though, you can take the reins and create a life you love!
The unasked question: why would you love your life up until now?
As harsh as this may sound, there is no reason to expect that most people would be happy.
If you think back to your school years, you can probably remember learning all sorts of things:
What year different wars happened…steps for solving math problems…how to write a five paragraph essay…the periodic table of elements…three branches of government…
Yet at no point during this 12+ year journey were you ever shown the way to make your dreams come true.
In fact, you may not have been encouraged to spend more than a few minutes seriously considering what your dreams were!
Consider that for a moment. Does anything you could ever possibly learn even come close in importance to knowing how to make the most of your one and only life?
Of course not. And yet, the place we spend nearly our entire youth treats this knowledge like an afterthought. At best, it’s something to squeeze into our spare time after we spend our best hours on anything and everything but.
Most educational systems are based on the idea that learning a lot of information automatically leads to a fulfilling life.
But the truth is, it doesn’t. Most people leave school even further removed from their passions than the day they began.
Many will counter that the subjects taught in school are still important for becoming informed citizens in society.
Which is perfectly fine, IF we’re asking: “Does learning these subjects make us well-rounded?”
It’s completely irrelevant, however, when we raise the bar to: “Does learning these subjects make our dreams come true?”
The answer to that question is no. At least, not by itself. And neither does most of what we learn at the undergraduate, masters, or even the doctoral levels of higher education.
The same is true at work. While skill development and career growth definitely have practical value, those things alone won’t lead to a life you love.
Our world is filled with fantastically successful people who are not particularly happy.
Now, you may be thinking that there’s no way to teach something as personal as “making your dreams come true.”
On the contrary! There is an art and a science to what I call DreamBuilding that is just as practical as anything taught in a classroom. (And thousands of times more valuable)
What’s more, DreamBuilding isn’t just a theory or a collection of inspirational ideas. It’s a psychological technology –– a systematic process –– that’s been validated through my own experience as well as with thousands of people from all over the world.
Introducing DreamBuilding: The Little-Known Art & Science of Creating a Life You Love
We’re all human beings. We all have a brain, a body, and at least some level of talent and drive.
So how do some of us retire early and spend three months in Europe every year, while others struggle to just “get through the week” at their soul crushing job?
Some people set goals, execute, and win. Others keep daydreaming, procrastinating, and waking up to the same exhausting routine year after year.
For as long as I can remember, I wanted to know: WHY? What is the real reason? What separates “dreamers” from the people who actually build their dreams?
It’s funny––when people ask how I wrote bestselling books, built eight-figure businesses, or had the opportunity to work with The Dalai Lama three different times…
They’re surprised that it wasn’t some insider connection to an agent. It wasn’t a business strategy they’d never heard of. No secret council anointed me as worthy.
What I did was take every scattered ambition…each half-formed dream…and fuse them into a single, unstoppable vision.
One so clear, so alive, that it pulled me forward every moment of every day until it became real.
And by the way, this wasn’t some unique quirk of my own path. What I discovered after studying, working with, and mentoring highly successful people for more than four decades was this:
All of the happiest high achievers had a burning vision for a life they loved.
Meanwhile the majority of people (the ones who don’t achieve much or become lastingly happy) just sort of get up every day and let life happen to them.
Truthfully, I don’t fault them for it. As I said before, most of us are never shown what it means to live from a vision. Much less how to create one ourselves.
Nevertheless, living from a vision is the core of becoming a dream builder, as opposed to simply a “dreamer.”
And the great news is, no matter how old you are, or how far removed your current life is from the one you would love, you can learn to build your dream right now.
Now, the full DreamBuilding process is too much to cover fully in one article. There is actually an entire 12-week program that teaches it start to finish, including a companion live event for immersion and personalized support.
However, to get you started, here is a condensed, 3-step version of DreamBuilding that you can begin to explore and apply today.
Step 1: Break Ground On Your Dream
The first step in the DreamBuilding process is what I call Breaking Ground.
And that starts with defining a dream that is so specific, vivid, and compelling that you can almost taste it.
Although you will be adding depth and dimension to this dream as you go, start by defining the part of the dream you already know you want.
Importantly, this description should be in positive terms, expressing what you do want (not simply the pains or stressors you no longer want.)
3 examples to get your imagination going:
- “I want to wake up excited each morning, spend my days immersed in work that fulfills me, and have complete freedom over how I live”.
- “I want to move through life with effortless energy—strong, agile, and deeply in tune with my body’s natural rhythm.”
- “I want to reach the absolute peak of my field, change lives on a massive scale, and be paid abundantly for it.”
One of my clients––Linna––had a vision of going from her $100,000/year salary to true financial freedom.
And her vision of financial freedom included a bigger house with plenty of bathrooms for her family of four and the ability to travel to all seven wonders of the world.
That probably sounds like a big jump to make. And it was. But in a little over a year, Linna accomplished all of those things and more.
Your vision will be personal to you, so try to set aside all thoughts of what you “should” want, and ground your vision in what truly, authentically speaks to you.
Once you’ve done this, the next part of Breaking Ground is to assess the current results that you have in each of the four quadrants of life that affect our happiness the most.
- Vocation
- Time & Money Freedom
- Health & Well-Being
- Love & Relationships
Reflect on where you are right now in each of these four quadrants, and then give each quadrant a score between 1-5. A score of 1 means that you are not fulfilled at all in this quadrant of your life, while a score of 5 means you are very fulfilled.
Finally, for each of those quadrants, write down how long you’ve felt the way you have about it. Is it 3 months? 6 months? 5 years?
The point here isn’t to judge ourselves or have negative thoughts about how dissatisfied we might be in a given quadrant (or even in all four) right now.
Rather, it’s to bring the way we truly feel about our lives more fully into awareness, where it can serve as fuel for developing and building our dream vision.
Step Two: Bridge Your Dream
The second step in the DreamBuilding process is called bridging.
And this is when you might start to notice some inner resistance to this dream that you’re building.
Now that you’ve expanded your awareness of how you truly feel about your life––and begun creating a far more appealing vision for it––your brain probably won’t just stand down and let it happen.
In all of us, there is a pull towards the familiar, to the status quo of our lives as we’ve known them so far.
This “pull” usually manifests itself in the form of limiting beliefs: who are we to think we could pull something like this off, if we were going to we would’ve already done it by now, life is too busy, not enough money, on and on and on.
These beliefs may sound logical, but it’s critical to understand that none of them are actually true! They are simply our thinking mind, spinning and smoking its wheels, saying anything it can to make us keep everything the same.
There are five main sources of these limiting beliefs:
- Dissuasion
- Distraction
- Defcon1
- Disdain
- Deficiency
There is more to each of these than we could possibly cover today, but here is the key truth to understand.
The way to not be stopped by these limiting beliefs, is to expand our awareness in ways that “bridge us” beyond them.
For instance, take Distraction, one of the most challenging sources of limitation for everyone building a dream.
To begin overcoming Distraction, you can write a letter to yourself in which you acknowledge all of the ways in which you have given in to Distraction up until now––and why your dream matters to you enough to change this.
Through a set of systematic exercises like this, you rewire your mind to reject limiting beliefs and clear the way to live a life you love.
Step Three: Begin Building Your Dream
Each step so far has been about priming your mind with a vision that activates and awakens your power to build it.
Now it is time for inspired action. After all, simply thinking about something or wishing for it doesn’t build it.
There are several powerful techniques for figuring out what that best first step towards your dream will look like. I cover these in my 12-week online DreamBuilder Program and at my DreamBuilder LIVE events.
For now, though, the simplest way to start building your dream is to ask this question:
“What can I do right now, from where I am, with what I have?”
Watch out! When you ask yourself this question, the first thing your mind is likely to say is: “Nothing.”
This is one of the most insidious traps that aspiring dream builders fall into: the trap of believing that whatever step they can actually take today, is too small to truly matter.
This is always false. Not some of the time. Not most of the time. Not 99.9% of the time. Always.
No matter what your dream is, there is something meaningful you can do right now, today, to move energy in that direction.
Don’t stop digging until you come up with an honest answer. And then, most importantly, do it!
This was just the beginning: did you know that a little-known formula is responsible for all of the results you have in your life: the state of your relationships, where you are in your career, your financial earning power, your physical health, even your creative output?
Most people go their entire lives never even knowing this formula exists––nevermind how it works, or the way to use it to create the results you want. But it’s the beating heart of what it takes to be a dream builder. That’s why I’m thrilled to invite you to watch my free 20-minute masterclass: The Hidden Cause Of Your Results. All you have to do is register and you can watch immediately!
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