The School of Greatness - 328 Discovering Your Dream

Episode Date: May 12, 2016

"To realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation." - The Alchemist If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/328

Hey guys Lewis Howes here this is 5 minute Friday and this is all about discovering your dream. Now one of my favorite books is the Alchemist and the Alchemist I actually haven't read this in about 10 years and I read it in a moment in my life when I was going through one of the biggest struggles of my life when I actually lost my dream and didn't know what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I was so uncertain. I didn't have any money coming in. I was sleeping on my sister's couch. I was injured and I really didn't know what was going to happen next. And a friend of mine gave

me this book and said, you should read this. And I read it and it really opened me up to some incredible possibilities. And I just picked this book up. I have a few copies of this and I give it out to friends all the time because of the impact it had on my life. And I just picked this book up. I have a few copies of this and I give it out to friends all the time because of the impact it had on my life. And I just picked this up to look at it. And on the back, it says, there's one quote on the back of this book. It says, to realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation. To realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation. To realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation. Now that's a quote from The Alchemist. Now this is a book written by Paulo Coelho, and it has sold over 150 million copies worldwide, been translated in many languages, but again, over 150 million copies.

And the only thing written on the book besides the title is this quote, to realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation. I want you to think about that. I want you to think about discovering your dream. That's really what we're talking about. The dream that is inside of you is the only thing that you should be focusing on. It's the only thing that really matters. And figuring out what is your dream,

what makes you come alive. When we imagine, when we take the time to actually think and imagine what's possible for our lives, something we love to do in our lives. And if we imagine what's possible to create that and to bring that to life and to bring it out into the world, that's when we're the most fulfilled. That's when we're the most joyful, the most excited, the most passionate,

the most loving to ourselves and to the world is when we're in that pursuit of our dream and when we discover it. And again, to realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation. When we let go of all the other obligations that we have, we've got to go get a job. We've got to go make money. We've got to go do these things that we were told to do. When we let go of that obligation and focus on the only obligation that really matters, that's going to bring our light into the world, that's discovering and finding and pursuing our dream. Now, listen, we may never actually achieve the dream that we have imagined in our minds. It may not actually ever come true, but we become so alive when we walk every single day

towards the dream. We become alive. We enroll others in that passion. You know, the world makes room for passionate people. And when we follow our dream, our passion comes to life. When we're not following our dream, we are passionless. So I want you to think about this. What are you spending time today focusing on? Are you focusing on other obligations that aren't your dream? Or are you putting 100% of your energy into following or discovering what your dream is? It's your duty to discover your dream, and I hope you go take that step right now and making it happen.

Now, some of you might be asking yourself right now, well, Lewis, I don't know what my dream is. I don't know how to find my dream. I don't know. I've been doing this for a long time, and I have no clue what my dream is or what I'm passionate about. There's a couple things I would say right now.

One, your mind is so cluttered. You've been told so many things, your parents, your friends, the media has been leading you in certain directions which you think is your obligation or you think is the thing you're supposed to do. So you're cluttered and you're conflicted. So what we need to do first is declutter the mind and create calm in your mind. The best way to do this is to literally go without distractions, without your iPhone or your computers or anything electronic and without anyone with you

and go into nature. That may sound a little silly or something, but going into nature and allowing yourself to be peaceful and relaxed is the best place to come from when you can start thinking about and actually dreaming what it is that you love and want to be doing with your life so take a moment today or sometime this weekend when you have a free hour to go into nature remove all distractions don't think

about anything else and just allow yourself to wander and be relaxed in your mind and really think about if I can have anything in my life, if I could be anyone, if I could do anything, if I could live anywhere, if I could surround myself with anyone, any type of person or individual, what would I be doing? Where would I be spending most of my time? If money was no object, if I didn't have to worry about money, what would I be doing every single day? How would I be serving other people? What would bring me the most joy?

What am I most talented at? What do I love doing the most? These are some questions that you want to ask yourself in order to discover your dream. You may have multiple dreams over your lifetime and every season of our life comes different dreams. You know, I used to be a professional football player and that's the only dream I had as a kid. That was my big dream. Then when I got injured, I was in a transition phase.

I was trying to figure out, okay, my dream is over now. And my mind was cluttered. I was scared. I was frustrated. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what else I was supposed to do in my life because the biggest dream I had was now gone. So now what? Right? I had this situation and I literally, that's when I read The Alchemist and this quote on the back of the book says,

to realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation. So we get opportunities to discover what our dream is in many moments in life. And one dream may come and go, and it's time to get clarity on what you wanna create next. So take a moment today to think about what you wanna create in your life. Take a moment to be at peace. Take a moment to imagine what life could be like if you could have any dream and live that dream.

Thanks so much again, guys, for listening to this 5-Minute Friday, episode number 328. If you enjoyed this, make sure to share it with your friends, lewishouse.com slash 328. And if you don't have the book yet, The Alchemist, make sure to pick up a copy of this book. It's a game changer, and it's going to help you discover what your dream actually is through the process and the journey of reading this book. So make sure to pick it up. Again, thank you guys so much for being here. Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we come out with new episodes on the School of Greatness podcast. If this is your first time, make sure to head over to itunes.com slash school

of greatness and click the subscribe button. Leave us a review. Let us know what you thought of this episode and make sure to share this with your friends. Again, lewishouse.com slash 328. I love you guys and I hope you're on the path to pursuing your dreams right now. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.