Friday, July 28, 2006
It All Starts With an Idea
If you've ever read Napoleon Hill's classic, "Think and Grow Rich" (which you should, by the way), you've heard that phrase: "It all starts with an idea." In chapter after chapter, Hill recounts how one business success after another started from an idea—some of them even seemingly impossible—and grew into reality due to an unwavering devotion to making it happen.
That's exactly what I saw happen today in the life of my oldest daughter, Rachel.
Today, she and her future husband bought a church that they plan to convert into a banquet hall and a theatre that will serve as the headquarters for her Dare to Dream theatre program.
Back when she was in college, she dreamed of running her own acting workshops for children. She worked with an existing workshop at her college. She found ways to do the workshops better and incorporated those ways into her own program. She hunted out opportunities to hold her workshops with a variety of small groups.
By the time she finished college, she already had a loyal list of families whose children had loved her workshops and were eager for more.
Since graduation, she has expanded her locations farther and farther north from where she went to college. She now does workshops throughout much of eastern Wisconsin. She built this business while cobbling together income from a variety of other jobs to pay her bills.
When she called today with the news of her new theater space, she marvelled at the fact that, at the age of 25, her business is 15 years ahead of her initial expectations. Granted, she has gotten a number of incredible breaks in the past three years to push her that far ahead of her timetable, but she never would have been in the position to get those breaks if it weren't for two things:
Jeff
If you've ever read Napoleon Hill's classic, "Think and Grow Rich" (which you should, by the way), you've heard that phrase: "It all starts with an idea." In chapter after chapter, Hill recounts how one business success after another started from an idea—some of them even seemingly impossible—and grew into reality due to an unwavering devotion to making it happen.
That's exactly what I saw happen today in the life of my oldest daughter, Rachel.
Today, she and her future husband bought a church that they plan to convert into a banquet hall and a theatre that will serve as the headquarters for her Dare to Dream theatre program.
Back when she was in college, she dreamed of running her own acting workshops for children. She worked with an existing workshop at her college. She found ways to do the workshops better and incorporated those ways into her own program. She hunted out opportunities to hold her workshops with a variety of small groups.
By the time she finished college, she already had a loyal list of families whose children had loved her workshops and were eager for more.
Since graduation, she has expanded her locations farther and farther north from where she went to college. She now does workshops throughout much of eastern Wisconsin. She built this business while cobbling together income from a variety of other jobs to pay her bills.
When she called today with the news of her new theater space, she marvelled at the fact that, at the age of 25, her business is 15 years ahead of her initial expectations. Granted, she has gotten a number of incredible breaks in the past three years to push her that far ahead of her timetable, but she never would have been in the position to get those breaks if it weren't for two things:
- Her initial idea
- Her dedication to doing whatever it took to make that idea a reality
Jeff
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