And then the next one.

A couple of days ago, I had an almost enlightening conversation with Tarkan and Meir. 

In the sparring session, Tarkan shared with me the story of the guy who had the dream of building a huge skyscraper.

The world hasn’t seen something like this.
He has no idea how to build it.
It looks impossible.
He’s alone.

He makes the choice to start. He puts one brick. That’s all he does. The next day, he put’s another brick. The next day, another one.

One day, someone approaches him and says: What are you doing here?

I’m building a skyscraper. I don’t know how long it will take, but it’s my dream.

The other person thinks to themselves: Wow, this is impressive. I love this.

May I help you?

From that day onwards, they are now two people on the construction site.
The skyscraper grows 2x compared to before.

The next day, someone else passes by and asks: What are you guys doing here?

We’re building a skyscraper. It’s our dream.

The person says: Hey that’s cool. I have a truck. With this truck, we can transport more bricks at the same time. And I also have some friends who might want to help. Let me ask them.

I really like your dream.

The next day, there’s a construction work full of people putting bricks…

Reflection

I’m sharing this story with you, because the conversation with Tarkan triggered a huge AHA moment and painful realisation. I noticed at this moment how much I was not putting brick by brick in the last months.

I noticed too how my own shadows were taking over and running the show. Funny enough that Tarkan’s new startup is called “Darkside”. It’s an app that helps to confront and integrate our shadows and heal our wounds.

If you don’t put a brick every day, this has many implications.

For me, it felt like I was not getting making any progress, and I was more prone to distractions and “noisy” stuff like writing on social media.

I love writing, however I missed to focus on the one thing that really moves the needle. I didn’t ask myself the vital question:

What’s the one thing, so that everything else becomes easier or even unnecessary?

Yes, it’s great to talk about the things you’re doing. But are you actually doing them, or just talking about them?

The gap between the two creates very heavy, dense energy. I feel this in the forehead, in the chest and on the shoulders. It is also creating a lot of mental loops, which is tiring.

Also, if you’re not visibly putting brick by brick, other people can’t support you. People love to help. But they need to see, hear and know how.

In addition, we like to see people who follow their dreams. There is something magnetic in applied dreaming. If we stay in the thinking, this isn’t very attractive.

Just think of someone you admire. What is it that you admire about them? How are they thinking? How are they behaving?

I reflected what caused this kind of self sabotaging behaviour - and I found some cues in two questions that my mentor Meir asked me recently:

1. How does your world look like?

2. What’s your dream?

It hit me that for almost all my life, I have been instantly comparing myself and looking at how others did it. If something was true for me but I hadn’t seen it before somewhere, I wouldn’t dare dream and start applying it. I didn’t dare share my world fully.

He encouraged me to write about what my world looks like, how it tastes, what is happening in it, and how I think, feel, and act in it.

I’m not done with this exercise yet, but just bringing my attention there has created lightness. There is a liberation when we give ourselves the permission to have our unique dream, and show this dream to others.

Our world and our dream - they make our inner compass and our north star. This is the thing we need to be really clear on. This is the thing that needs to be our thing.

All that’s left then is to share the dream, as you live it.
When we do that, comparison does not make sense any more.

Swimming in the sea of comparison drains and repels.
Swimming in the sea of your dream invigorates and attracts.

So, what would be a more beneficial way to apply our dream?

What I also learned from the conversation with the two is this:

1. Stay closely connected to the dream. Share it with others. This is not about a technical detail, or feature. This is about your world.

2. Let go of the solution. Let go of the exact blueprint how the skyscraper looks like in your mind, and how you exactly are going to build it. The solution is something you come up now, but it is in the future. Put one brick, now. Allow others to bring in their ideas too. Chances are something beyond your imagination will come up.

I dream of a world where everyone feels confident about slowing down. In this world, we all have a clear direction in life and play our own game despite challenging circumstances. Then, we are more connected to our hearts and make better decisions based on our intuition.

In this world, we also share our vulnerabilities with each other, lower our guard and stop feeling that we have to pretend we have it all figured out. We advance through shared experiences, and see ourselves in others.

Because this is my world, I shared this story and reflection with you.

Now, enough from me:

What does your world look like?
And what does your brick look like?
What dream are you building?

Love,
Chris