Your Wonderful Impossible Dream

We may be right, we may be wrong But I will not bring you along Every night I lie in bed The brightest colors fill my head A million dreams are keeping me For the world we’re gonna make Hi, everyone, and welcome to today’s webinar Aspire your wonderful impossible dreams. So thank you very much for being here, old and new people who have been around for a while, and people who are joining these events for the first time.

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I’m not really sure why, but for some reason, I feel a little bit nervous. I don’t often feel nervous when I speak these days But I do right now. And I think probably because I so want this to be valuable for you, you know, I so want you to get something out of it. And that’s really important to me. So with that in mind, so that you can, I will ask you to have this time purely for yourself. Think of it as something for yourself, your own growth, your own development, and a little bit of fun, maybe. And a very useful and perhaps valuable use of your hour. I encourage you to turn off other things if you’ve got, you know, your emails going or You’re doing other things. You know, I know that we’re very good at multitasking many things, but I’d ask that you turn other things off And have a notebook and pen or something like that with you so that you can really get the most out of it. How’s that? Okay, so you’re ready, turn everything else off, fully focused Seat belt on. Sound okay? Good. Interested who is attending for the first time and who’s come back from previous events? Maybe quickly post in the chat so we can see some familiar and some new faces This is a community, a network Some might call it a tribe of people, predominantly women And Amazing men who are have big aspirations for themselves, but perhaps sometimes feel stuck or Like, they don’t know what to do, or where to go or whether these dreams of ours are even possible in this current state of our world economy and organizational systems. So we’re here today to Start to unravel and unpack some of that. One of the things I wanted to start off with And I know that my job predominantly is to be a motivational, inspirational person. But I wanted to start off by saying that Life can be Shit. And I apologize for that if there’s any young people who or young people don’t seem to mind me swearing. It’s normally their parents, but Life can be pretty shit sometimes. And there’s this idea that I have that, you know, maybe It’s not the right time to think about our wonderful impossible dreams, and they should be delayed till some other time when things are a lot more perfect. And I want to say today that there is no perfect time. And so it’s a bit of a note about timing and obstacles. Because, you know, we all have a lot going on and a lot of it we keep quite secret from the world, don’t we? And we soldier on and sort of try and get through all the things that we’re dealing with. So if you… if I’m speaking to you and you have a lot going on in your life and stresses in your work and world right now, know that you’re not alone, and it’s absolutely bloody brilliant and amazing that you would even make it to something like this. So congratulations. All right. In fact, maybe we could do a 10 second What would I call it? A 10 second rant in the chat of anything that is just really stressing you out right now so you can get it out of your system. A couple of examples I might give you from myself is that I have three teenagers. They keep me up at night worrying Like My work is the easiest thing I do compared to being a parent. One of them has some quite severe mental health issues. The other one has depression and the other one just seems too perfect for words. I have a knee issue which won’t go away and aches all the time I worry about paying the bills and the mortgage like the rest of us, and getting older, and whether I’m going to stay healthy. And, you know, the older you get, you have even a small bit where your heartbeat goes a little bit up, you think you’re dying. So, we’re all human, and we will have our stuff, all right? I wanted to bring it to you today to say that we’ve got all that and I think bring it all with you because it doesn’t mean that you can’t achieve things that are the most important to you. All right.

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So a little rant. All right, yes, something I think is really undervalued. So I do want to call on a few different things today. So we’ve got that, let me talk a little bit about the structure of the session. I want to address This idea of having wonderful, impossible dreams, not in this sort of glib pop culture kind of way, but in a way where we really start to get quite serious about what those aspirations and dreams are. And if you are already clear on what your wonderful impossible dreams are, it’s helping you to perhaps have a boost Or to become unstuck or to advance or accelerate in it. Or if you are very unclear about what your wonderful, impossible dream is At this age and stage of your life and career, then I’m hoping today to give you some ignition, if you like, to start thinking about what that is. I encourage you to be both optimistic and possibility focused today, but also quite realistic in the fact that we have less than an hour and we can’t solve everything in the hour, but hopefully it will kind of get you on the road, as they say All right. I wanted to call, give a little special call out. And I don’t know if you’re on the call, but if you are, then perhaps your say. So I wanted to give a call out to Becky Because Becky is attending with her daughter and her mother And she sent me an email yesterday to tell me that and it both put me into this wonderful state of, oh my goodness, how amazing to have the multiple generations watching, and then saw quite a bit of pressure, because I was like, okay, I have to appeal to a 19-year-old and an 80-year-old And what I realized is, actually, this is just not about age at all. So I want to bust all myths about age and all myths about leadership, because this idea that leadership is only the C-suite executive in order to get anything done is absolutely ridiculous and needs to change In fact. the most inspirational leader I know is still asleep in the room next to me, which is my younger teenage son, who is the most phenomenal young leader, and he is not even 17 All right. And over and over again recently, I’m having more and more conversations with women, and I’m speaking to you who are in your 50s, your 60s, your 70s. Did you just see Helen Mirren turn 80 and just be so in her power and element that this isn’t it, that life isn’t over, that we get to redesign and rethink. perceptions of age, perceptions of leadership, and what we should and shouldn’t be doing at whatever age or stage that we are at in our life. All right, so Go Becky and your daughter and your mother. So I’m curious as I want to put a poll up here and ask you where you are at in terms of your impossible dreams that you’ve got. Where’s my polls And I wanted to ask you how clear you are on your impossible dream. So this is just to kind of give me a sense Question is, how clear are you on what your wonderful impossible dream is? All right, so the title of today, this appealed to you to come and find out more about this. And either you’re very clear and you’ve been working on this for a while, so perhaps you’re looking for a boost or you’ve got stuck or you’re trying to figure out the implementation of it, you’re kind of clear and you just need to get on with it We’ll get going on it. And no idea really need to figure it out. And then something else, something else you can post in the chat what perhaps what your something else is. All right. So I’m going to give you a chance to see the results of this poll so that you can understand that you’re in very good company Can you see those Can you see that? So you can see that very few of you actually, only about 18% are clear on what the poll is

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Sorry, what the poll is, what the dream is, only 18% of you. I’m just looking at Christine’s note. She’s saying she can’t access the poll. So you can maybe post in the chat, Christine, whether you’re very clear or you’re kind of clear or you’re It’s like no idea, really. The majority of us today are no idea really need to figure it out. And then about a third kind of clear. So we can say that the majority of us are not really clear on what the imposter, wonderful, impossible dream is So today I want to focus on getting clear about what the wonderful impossible dream is And even if you are very clear, perhaps we can just make that even even clearer, transparently clear And then the follow-up webinar that I’m doing on the 7th of July, if you haven’t signed up for that and you’re interested, it’s on the Aspire Company’s website, is focused on what gets in the way, and the obstacles to achieving that dream. All right. So this is a little bit like a 2 part series. Today is more about the creation of it, the clarity of it, and then the follow-up will be more about the implementation of it. I would encourage you I’m just going to take this poll down. I would encourage you today to not focus too much on what’s going to get in the way because When people do that, then they sort of downgrade what they create. Does that make sense? So they’ll say if it’s already in your head, like, well, that’s going to be too hard or I’m too old or I’m too young People won’t like it, or I don’t know how to, you know, all of that stuff, which is, you know, realistic and fine. But if you have it too much in your head, then you’re going to downgrade that dream. So I encourage you to try if you can To put that stuff aside for now, and we can revisit it in the follow-up webinar, or you can revisit that as you follow up on the ideas that you’re doing post today, all right? Are we in agreement on that? So we stay in the possibility focus. Now, that’s very easy to say but not so easy to do, and there’s a few reasons There’s lots of reasons for that, all right When I did my PhD research and I was looking at the future world of work for women And I know we’ve got some amazing men joining us too, so a lot of this, some of this will be very applicable for you as well. But I did find that when we look into the future and have the lens of looking into the future It’s actually very difficult for people to move into a possibility type of thinking. I might say a more innovative or creative way of thinking about ourselves. We might be able to do it for our businesses or our products or our services, or with other people, but it’s very hard to do for ourselves. One of the reasons, quite predominant reasons that it’s hard to do is we’re unpracticed at it. We don’t have the skills to do it, so learning or relearning imagination or imagineering skills creative visioning skills, future-based thinking. It’s a whole wonderful skill set that you can improve on and learn and I teach. So it’s not just like you can turn that on and off. Another big reason, and research shows us is that Our ability to vision and think quite optimistically or possibility focused about ourselves Declines as we get older. All right. And so we might start out with that as young children, and I remember myself as a child. I grew up in a very high conflict, shall we say, household. There was lots of arguments between my parents And there was a very difficult time for me where it was quite aggressive towards me. So my imagination was a wonderful escape for me And I used to love my daydreaming and my play and visioning about flying and all sorts of things. But I found that over time that started to decline and I was sort of interested in this and I was

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Looking up the research behind it, and there is real evidence that aspiration and confidence in future orientation fades and narrows over time. And what’s very interesting for me, and perhaps for you too, and this is for you as Perhaps adult women or adult men who have daughters or for you that are young women is that the aspiration declines much more rapidly for teenage girls than it does for teenage boys. And so there’s no real statistic. And if you want the resources and research references on this, by the way, you just message me after the event when I send you the recording and I can send those to you. But there was no statistical significant difference between girls and boys confidence at age 10 and 11, and certainly when we’ve done Aspire conferences, and we’ve had 10 and 11 year olds, they’re just, you know, they’ve got the microphone, and they’re like, wow, oh my god, you know, they’re only 10. And then, you know, these young women come back between anything between 12 and 15, And that there’s no way in hell they’re going to pick up that microphone. All right. So Girls were twice as likely as boys to see their gender as a barrier to achieving their aspirations. So there’s certainly still a lot of work to do and to understand that this is something that happens As early as our teenage years. And then when we go into the workplace And we may be deciding to have a family or not, to balance home and life or not, and what we start to see is that there isn’t… this is… there isn’t an ambition gap for women. Women want to be… we want to be successful, we want to achieve stuff, we want to be able to to have positions of power, and God knows the world needs women in positions of power right now, but we don’t see real relatable or enough, enough real relatable role models of women who are in these positions of influence and power, who also have a life and are healthy and have that kind of energy that we aspire to have all right so When we don’t see those relatable role models, then there is also a decline in this ability to vision the future, because you say, well. I can’t see it, and I can’t see anyone like that, so if there isn’t anyone like that, then that’s not possible for me. All right, so this happens Not because of who we are, but because of what’s around us and the systems that surround us. And then when we get into our 50s or 60s or 70s and there are all these messages that you know age is not wisdom. I mean, you can be grey-haired. You can be a grey-haired distinguished man, but grey-haired woman, and you’re an old crone, alright? Not to Make that too blunt, but ageism and those representations of ageism also and our energy levels changing and our chemical balances changing mean that our aspirations take a big dip again between sort of 50 and 70. All right. So I’m saying all of this so we understand that there is a structure and system in our bodies chemically and who we are, and energy levels, and also those systems and societal beliefs and economies around us. All right. And it’s very, very important to have this systemic knowledge. Otherwise, you kind of get to that point where you’re like, is something wrong with me? Is this it? I don’t understand. A lot of people are very confused. A lot of women, particularly, very confused and stuck about what’s next, because they think it’s all It’s all on them, but actually it’s not all on you, it’s all on me. It’s actually really all on the society and systems around us. So to be able to understand that is really key and then think about how in our own small But mighty ways we can influence that. All right. The smallest things might seeming significant. I spoke to a woman this morning who was like, I’m not dyeing my hair anymore. I’m grey, and that’s I’m going to live into that, right? Not… I’m not trying to be something I’m not anymore. I’m grey, I’m older, I’m an elder, I’ve got all this wisdom, I’ve got 20 years on everyone else. I’m gonna go grey, and I was like, I don’t know, she really inspired me as well to

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do the same thing. So you might see me with a different hair color coming up very soon. So you might say, dye your hair, really, change the world, Sam. But yes. Yes Because if we all do something like that, and we all do something like that every day. then that’s a massive change, and that’s how societies and movements really start to shift things. Does that make sense? What are you thinking? Tell me your thoughts, your feelings about this and let me know. This is a positive hopeful vision of A well that can finally Live with women in a way where we are leading most effectively because we have these most wonderful skills and attributes And if the world was run in this more kind loving, compassionate, rebellious change leader type approach, I really do believe that things would be very, very, very different, okay? So whatever age you are, whatever stage you’re at, whatever social background you have, whatever race you are, whatever sexual orientation, whatever you like to watch on Netflix, other people doesn’t like. Welcome. All right, and know that your wonderful impossible dreams are absolutely valid And if there is one thing I Love so much is People, you know, I’ve been doing this now 25 years and people come to me and they say, I came to your event 12 years ago, or I came to something you did 10 years ago and now I’m and then they say I’m an author. I’ve written this book, or I’m a teacher, I’m teaching now. I was in the corporate world and I’m teaching. Can you believe I’m teaching Or they tell me, you know what I went on a trip around the world and I came back, and I went back into my corporation so powerful they made me the COO. All sorts of wonderful Heart and head warming affirmations that this is all possible. So I think it’s very, very important to maybe take a moment to not only Think about your wonderful or wild impossible dreams, but to make sure that you spend time with hang out with people who are encouraging of your dreams. Because there will be lots and lots of people Who are not. or lots of people who are thinking that they’re encouraging, but they’re sort of in disguise, and it’s actually their fears That we’re buying into because they may be older or wiser or whatever it is. So sometimes it’s really good to filter out what is the advice That is important for me to listen to and trust your gut on that. And what is the advice that is fear driven We’ll be writing this down. All right. What is the advice that is fear-driven? So someone else’s fears that is driving them to say what they say. And if you listen Maybe you wouldn’t Pursue this stream. I remember, so I started Aspire when I was 29. 29. And I thought So tomorrow I’m 55. It’s my birthday tomorrow, June 17th, 55 tomorrow. I started Aspiring was 29. I thought, I’m so old. I’m 29. Oh my God, I’m going to turn 30. Need to do something with my life. And I remember having this idea of wanting to do something that helped people. That’s all I really know. I want to do something that helps people, and also I want to do something where I can have some balance. Like, I felt like eventually I might want to have a family, so I… I could see all these women working all these hours, and I didn’t want that for myself. Even at 29, I knew that And then I just wanted to do something that was some kind of contribution that would make a difference. But I didn’t really know much more than that, right? And I was very passionate about Women and women in leadership after seeing my mom really struggle with that. So I kind of knew all these vague elements, but nothing really more. And I remember saying to my dad I’m going to start my own business. I’m going to be an entrepreneur, I’m gonna start my own business. And I remember he looked at me, and he said he did that thing that sometimes when people come to your house to give you, like, a quote for like fixing your roof or something, and they do this one

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You know, they suck in all the air. They suck all the air out of you. And they say It’s gonna cost you It’s gonna cost you, and you’re like, oh, how much is it gonna cost? If anyone had this experience? So my dad went Sam. You’re too young. And he seemed to He punctuated each one. You’re too young You don’t know enough yet to be a business person. And this idea that you’ve got of working with women. Well, Sam People, I think he meant men when he said people people are going to think that you’re, any pause for a fact And he said it was such distaste A feminist people are going to think you’re a feminist Dun dun dun feminist movement, one of the greatest fucking movements of our lifetime and hundreds of years before, we wouldn’t have a fraction of the things that we have right now without the feminist movement. And you know what I thought in my head I’m going to show you. You watch me. Now A lot of us, when we get this kind of advice We do Four things. All right, four things. Now, some of this advice can come from outside of us. Some of this advice can come within our own minds. Four things. Do you do any of these things? Write them down, and you can tell me which one you do. The first one is We downgrade. Number one, we downgrade. We edit the dream to fit what feels realistic. Our aim just for this then We downgrade it. Yes, number one. Number two, we delay it. We delay it. The dream is deferred. I’m too young. You’re right. I should wait. I’ll do this when the children are older, I’ll do this when I’m older, I’ll do this when I’ve got all of this, technical knowledge I’ll do this when I’m happy and I’ve got lots of money and the world is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So we delay. Number one, we downgrade. Number two, we delay. Number three, and the worst one is we abandon it. We abandon it. The dream is quietly let go. or replaced with what our family, our organization, or our society rewards And we live with that. And we become very good at justifying why. Yes? So number one, we downgrade. Number two, we delay. Or number three, we abandon it. Or number four, number four. is We work on it and we achieve it At much personal cost So the dream is pursued But it’s pursued at significant sacrifice So we say, okay, I have this dream. I want to be the CEO of a business, or I want to have my own charity, or I want to get promoted, but I’m not going to see my friends, and I’m going to overeat, and we don’t normally say, like, consciously, but we You know, I’m not going to be able to really look after myself properly because, you know, I’m pursuing this this train. And it comes at the expense of our health, our relationships, our authenticity, our joy And we buy into this narrative of you can’t have it all, you can’t have it all. You can’t have it all. You can have all this stuff. You can, you know, you can have it all at one time. You can’t all this kind of stupid stuff. Okay, so what is it that we do, or what is it perhaps that you do? And this is, you know, you can be honest with yourself. Perhaps you might post it on the chat if you don’t feel comfortable in doing that, you just take a quiet moment to reflect on what it is. They’re all completely normal. They’re all completely realistic. We all do it. You are not the only person on the planet who is downgrading, delaying, abandoning, or achieving at personal cost. All right. Just know that these are What is happening Now you’re going to say to me, perhaps How do I not do that? Or what do I do about that? Well, if we remember this concept that this isn’t about

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our own capability necessarily, or even our ambition, that this is more of a systems design issue and if there aren’t the necessary role models or people or ideas or places or businesses out there that you want to be, then I believe that this is the era of The pioneer. Okay, the era of freedom. Yeah, and as some of you know, the theme of the year for me is freedom, and I’m exploring a number of different themes around freedom And today we’re looking at what what does freedom mean in terms of your dreams and ambitions. And so where we might get stuck in what I might call a collapsed belief system of, well, I want to be really successful, I’d love to be able to make a bigger difference and lead, but I don’t want all the stress that comes with it, and I don’t have the energy for that, or, you know, I want to have… see my friends and have a life and be healthy, so I’m not going to do that You know, these two things sit very separately for us. Why I want to encourage you to do which is more the, let’s say the pioneers path. Now when I say a pioneer, what am I talking about? I’m talking about someone who is You’re the first, this is the first You might be the first in your family to do this. You might be the first one to do this in your organization or business. You might be the first in the world to do this, no pressure, all right now pioneers, rather than looking at traditional trajectories of the past or unhelpful Visions of the future, they will say, what is it that I want to create? And this might be in the context of an invention or a new medicine or a cure for cancer or changing the world in some radical way In this context, it’s about what is it that you want for you, what would be perhaps the ideal state? And just because Just because it hasn’t been done before by you or by anyone else you know doesn’t mean that it’s not completely wonderfully possible All right. And in fact, if you do want to look back through history, isn’t that how all amazing, wonderful changes actually occurred? So I think it was two years ago now, I don’t know if any of you were there, you can let me know on the chat if you were there Two years ago now, we conducted me, the Aspire team, we conducted something called a pioneer Research Day. Well, we did… we did actually two. We did one a couple of years ago and one last year. But the one a couple of years ago, and Groups of people who had they were the first in their family to go to university or the first person to develop a social kind of business or the first woman on the board of their company. They were the first to do something. And yeah, if you were the first to do something Put it on the chat. We’d love to know. But what was really interesting about all of these women What do you think it was that was the overriding success factor of the women who pioneered something first? Maybe post in the chat if you’ve got an idea. What do you think it was that there was their their skill or their Their quality that enabled them to be the first in something. Post what you think that that might be. So I can see that you’re posting some really great stuff around belief and perseverance and bravery and definitely there was lots of that in the room. But in many of the rooms that I am in, there is a lot of that. And they’re not necessarily the first to do something. The overriding factor that made them the first to do something was this. They, like me with my dad, wanted to prove others wrong Yeah, that was their overriding. They all had some kind of story where they were like, okay, I was told as a kid at school I was never going to be successful or I was told at work that I was too aggressive or too quiet or too slow or too fast and I was given coaching because they told me I was too quiet

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And I’m just, you know, I’m a quiet person, and I decided I’m going to prove you wrong. This was their overriding factor. Now Can you imagine this for yourself for a moment? So just because society says you’re too old for that or you’re too young for that, or you can’t really do that, or that wonderful impossible dream is not going to happen, can you prove others wrong? Because, of course, when you’re doing that as well. You’re approving yourself right You’re giving yourself the affirmation and the evidence that yes I had this idea about what I want, and what I would like to do, and even as vague as it might seem initially now, I have this driving force to prove or show or demonstrate that this is possible So I would like you to think about that a little bit. Yes. What would you like to prove others wrong and prove yourself right about? Take a moment to consider. What that is Hmm. Food for thought, Sam, food for thought. So the difference with a pioneer, a lot of people, when they’re thinking about their dreams and aspirations, will ask themselves what compromises do I choose? And they’ll say, what’s getting in the way, and how do I overcome it? Classic, classic self-development, classic personal development, classic coaching But this focus on the obstacles and what’s getting in the way often exacerbates the obstacles or the obstacles become or the techniques or the strategies around the obstacles become survival tactics Think of it like an obstacle course ahead of you where you can see ahead of you that there are several hurdles. Can you see it for a moment that you’re at the start of a race And there are these hurdles that you have to jump over, which I could not do with my knee right now. But at the end, it’s this wonderful destination. So you can kind of see, okay, there’s a wonderful destination, I think over there, it’s a bit foggy, but all right, I’ll buy into that, Sam, that there’s that destination. But here’s all the hurdles So what we have been trained to do is to think about all the hurdles. You’ve heard it all, right? The barriers to women’s leadership, the blockages to your personal development How to overcome the mental patterns of blah, blah, right? We’re looking at all the obstacles And then we kind of overcome the first one and then okay, whew, tiring. Let me sit for a little bit. Let me think about how to overcome the next one. So this is this is how it is. Instead, what pioneers do is they don’t think about that. They choose a completely different path So rather than if you’re thinking about this idea of a moment of being at the start of a race with the hurdles, okay? Rather than thinking about what’s getting in the way and what compromises do I have to make. A pioneer will think about what needs to exist so I can do this easily and effortlessly. Yes. So let’s take the example of being at the start of the race. Stay with me on this, okay? If you’ve got distracted or whatever, come back. You’re at the start of the race and you can see all these hurdles. Rather than trying to go over each hurdle, what could you do instead? Post in the chat, what could you do instead? What would be a more pioneering thing to do You could go round. Yes. You could go around. What else could you do? You could go under, yes, you could knock them down. Yes Yes Thank you. I was waiting for that, Petra. Probably find something to fly over. Hand over to others and jump and run around the other side. Most of us are so tunnel vision. I invite you to join me at the top of the mountain with a much bigger view, the much bigger view. Oh, you know what I would do? I might just sit there for a while with a glass of wine, invite a few of my friends and say, hmm, do we really want to go over there? Maybe we set up our own visioning right from here. Maybe I’ll walk around really slowly and see what happens. Maybe the running and the going super fast, and the trying to overcome all these obstacles is not for me anymore. So, Laura is saying, get popcorn and watch the race from the stands. Yes

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Let me see all these people falling over. Let me think about how I won’t do that. Let me think about how I might help the whole system to change Anyone going and just taking the hurdles away. Anyone doing that pick them up and you know what? We don’t need that there anymore. So, there’s lots of creative ways of approaching when you have The freedom pioneer perspective to your impossible, wonderful, impossible dreams. The pioneer’s path is not about forcing yourself into an existing way of doing it. Or about stepping back from your ambition. It’s about creating new ways of living and working. And I say this very deliberately because some people will say to me, a lot of the things that are important to me, they’re not worky I said, well, what’s important to you? And they’ll say joy fun, health freedom, peace not very worky Wow, wow, imagine if that was your work bringing those values into many workplaces right now, which are Joy, freedom absent Of course, to do that, we need to feel that first of all, within ourselves So let’s start for you to think about what your dreams are. Now I encourage you to do as you do this That This could be you know, your future self or the net, you know in five years time, 10 years time, 20 years time, or it could be an impossible dream that you’ve got for next week. Next week, you have a presentation and you hate presentations. You’ve got you have to talk in a meeting, and you… it’s all people that you just really find difficult. It doesn’t have to be something far, far in the future or really big or even world changing. But it is world changing for you, because if you are able to go into that meeting next week feeling really great, really impactful, approaching it in a very different way, then not only would that be great for you, and be able… for you to be more visible, and for you to be able to get the results you want, but other people would also would see a role model of someone who’s doing it in a different way All right. It doesn’t have to be loud to be Or long term to be important. Now, do you have… do you have, or could you get hold of a pen and paper or something, or if you’re technology wise, you can be doing this on your phone in the notes section, or something like that. Give me a yes or a no. If you’ve got pen and paper or something that you can use Okay, so let’s do a little bit of visioning. All right, good. That was a thumbs up. Okay, so we’re going to start with writing. You can write or you could draw if you want to. Some people are more that visual representation. But I want you to start with writing a few words of A few words or sentences, a little collection of words or small images to describe Your ideal future Life. All right, so this is we’re not putting a time limit on it right now. We’re not saying this is five years or next week. Just in general. So just write down a few words or phrases to describe or imagine your ideal life. So you might Think about dream about things like your health your relationships, your home Your family, social life Being outdoors, more adventures Late nights romance Just whatever It’s a few words to describe

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And if you feel comfortable, you don’t have to at all. If you feel comfortable, you can post those few words on the chat. So people go, oh, okay. Got some of that too. Now, of course, life includes everything But let’s take a few moments now to write down a few words or sentences to describe your ideal work or career So you might think about things like Being valued Being impactful. Achievement Whatever that means for you Perhaps you might have a role in mind That would be your ideal or a type of company or industry, perhaps, that feels aligned to perhaps your value system type of people that ideally you would love to work with, or perhaps you would prefer to work More solo in a different way Perhaps it’s time for you to think about your own business or social enterprise, charity, not for profit. Perhaps you have responsibility for a lot of people and you have an ideal state for what you would like your company or organizational culture. To be. It’s a few words online, no pressure. It’s a few words, a couple of lines. Yeah Bouncing out of bed in the morning. And then the final one I would like you to consider a few words Or sentences About your ideal for our world. The world This wonderful, phenomenal, complicated, complex planet that we currently live on. Yes Maybe you might write down something like making a difference or Changing the world for the better in some small way or maybe there’s a An issue or a cause That’s really important to you, but you’ve never really been able to articulate how you might bring that into your work. So perhaps you you volunteer, or you donate, or something like that, but you You’d actually love, ideally to be focusing your skills in an area, education or ending well poverty or global conflict or climate change and just feel like, how would I even do that? I’m too old. I don’t know enough about that Don’t worry about that right now. To write down a couple of things there about maybe there’s something in your local community. You’ve been noticing more people living on the streets these days been bothering you, but you don’t really know what to do about it. These are the kind of things that I will tell you, if you’re anything like me, once it gets written down on a piece of paper is much more chance that it’s going to happen in some ways, all right. So as you look at that, I want you to now try and answer this question. So from what you’ve written down What might be some of the tangible representations that you would see if this dream came true? All right, so What are some of the tangible representations that you would see if this dream came true? So, for example. You might see yourself much healthier. Maybe you’ve lost some weight, and you’re exercising, you’re feeling really good about yourself Perhaps you’re in a relationship that you you were not in before, perhaps your relationship is enhanced, maybe you live somewhere different Maybe you’re running these amazing program or retreat center somewhere, or something really cool And you’re working in this area of your passion and you wake up in the morning and you go, this is the coolest thing. I love what I do. And I get paid for it and I make a difference at the same time. Who doesn’t want that? We all want that. That’s the dream, yes. So that would be an actual representation, because you would wake up in the morning and you would do that. When I wake up in the morning, now I put my feet on the floor, and I say, I’m here to make a difference, I’m here to help.

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My gap. All right, let’s see what today brings. Okay And then the so we’re looking for some actual tangible, real representations that you would like to see. Some we might call them some measurements. And then the final question, and you can watch this again and you can stop this recording and you can spend more time doing it, right, which I would really, really recommend. Or you could take the recording and you could do this with someone else, and you could answer the questions together Some of you, this is the future, and you’re watching the recording. So hi The last part of this is Why? Or what about this matters now? Why does it matter that you have this Wonderful, impossible dream now Why? Why does it matter? Why does it matter to you? So it’s not that it’s going to be, oh, delayed and it’s not really a big deal and it’s 10 years time or I’m not going to do it now. Why is it important now? I would like you to get clearer on that, because this will be your motivation to keep working in your own baby steps way To achieving this dream. And I absolutely want to say this, and it’s really important please that you listen to this What you have written down can be absolutely as vague fluffy As you like. It doesn’t it shouldn’t be a super duper edited set of goals and KPIs and all this stuff. Later on, yes, but not right now. Right now, we’re experimenting, we’re pioneering, we’re practicing our mental models of moving into a more possibility future, all right? So, you know, you look over what you’ve written, I suggest that you look at this tomorrow, you come back to it, maybe you’re going to add to it. Notice if you start to edit. Oh, I wrote that yesterday, but that was in that webinar, and today I’m being realistic Realistic is the death of this. You can be realistic later when you start to plan your daily actions around it, or your regular actions, but right now, you must stay in a very unrealistic state. Will you please do that? Does that make sense? This is really, really, really important, okay? So it’s just like in a sort of enjoyment of it. Now I want you to do, now, are you following with me on this? Are you staying with it? Because I hope you are, and I know not everyone will, but I think that a lot of you are managing to do this, okay? I would like you to try and Maybe close your eyes if you can, if you don’t feel too silly about it, but close your eyes and Try and imagine it all happening. All right. So there’s this sort of Hope and optimism of seeing it starting to unfold in front of you. Can you see it? And can you see yourself perhaps A year from now 5 years from now. Even 10 years from now And you’re in your wonderful impossible dream. You’re in it. You’re in it. And I know some of you are already in it I see our wonderful Brian Ballanty. I have to give you a call out to Brian Ballantyne. He’s on the session now. I remember the first time he came to inspire event, he was the only man there, and he was like, I found my people And You know, Brian worked for a company, didn’t love it, and there’s a lot of us don’t love it, and now he’s what? What are you doing, Brian? Put it in. In the chat Because I love it’s on your LinkedIn play. Training to be a school teacher. Love it, right? So you… I remember meeting you years ago. I don’t know you would have said that to me, like, oh yeah, I’m going to be a school teacher. So Some of you are already in it and it is such the feeling when you’re in it. Okay, so you’re going to get there, and I want you to start to imagine Well, two things. One is not so pleasant, which is how you’re going to feel if you don’t do it What about all that lost potential? All of that lost impact on the world for you not following this.

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Take a moment to breathe that in because that’s not that pleasant. And breathe it out and imagine the possibility, at least That if you were to bring half the intellect that you spend on worrying and being in fear and being in guilt and being in your realistic mode, if you channel even half of that towards This vision or even a fraction of it. The chances of you achieving it are absolutely Much higher than if you did nothing. All right. So take a moment to consider all that we have talked about in this hour together And If… if you were able To Talk to or tap into your future self. So your future self is this higher self Aspirational self that we all have that we don’t often think about, but you in the future, who has achieved this vision, yeah? Can you imagine her for a moment? Try and imagine her. I’m, like, imagining my future self. Of course, she’s got grey hair now And cool, doing her thing. And I think she would say to me like, yeah, I’d go for it, Sam, go for it, go for it. Enjoy yourself, live your life. Do it your way. Be rebellious, she would say. Be more rebellious. You think you’re rebellious? This is nothing. Be more rebellious, Sam, she would say to me. Come on, this isn’t rebellious enough. She would give me that wake up call. She would slightly shake me, I think. Come on, you can do it. Of course, my definition of rebelliousness. So what is your future self telling you Can you hear her? Can you hear him? Can you hear them? And what is the message about the action that they need you require you to take post this webinar What are they saying to do? Not what you think you should do. Oh, maybe I’ll do some research or speak to one of that person. I wanted you to find your future self action all right. What is your future self telling you right now That you must do to start moving on this Train to start moving towards getting clearer on what this wonderful impossible dream is because that was the largest percentage of you To get clearer on it Because the clearer that you are the easier it is to move forward on it. All right, like it starts to become clearer. We can move out of the fog. Okay, I can. I can, I can see it. I can see it out there. I have a request Now, for those of you that know me in a coaching sense, you’ll know that my request are simple, that you say yes, you say no, or you counter offer me with something else. Here is my request. my selfish request for me, but perhaps also for you. Tomorrow is my birthday. I will be 55. On my 55th birthday, the 25th year of ASPIRE You will receive an email from me with the recording and everything from today’s webinar. Will you reply back to me with the action that you are committed to taking post this webinar? This is my request. You can answer me yes No, or you can say, hmm, I’m not going to do it tomorrow, but I commit to doing it by the end of the week, Sam, because I’m still figuring out what that action is, and I need to watch this thing again, and I joined late, and blah blah blah blah blah. All’s good Yes, no, counter offer me. Now, why is this great? Well, it’s going to make me feel wonderful. All right. And I’m just going to love it. All right. And you can tell me I’m confused, I’m irritated with stuff you said, but I’m going to do this, all right? You can be real with me got a very, very, very thick skin, let me tell you So it’s going to make me feel amazing. Oh, they were listening. Oh, my God, they’re taking an action. More importantly, though, it’s going to start to hold you accountable because you’ve said it to someone and you put it down on paper. And when we put something down, I see on paper, it’s going to be an email, but when we

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Put it down in this way and we commit to someone else. It makes us more likely to follow through. And perhaps when I hope you will come back to the Second part of this on July 7th and perhaps when you do, you’ll be able to say I did something. I put something, I put this into practice and It went terrible, it went gray, or I learned this, or whatever it is, but you get that opportunity to put something into practice and have that support and accountability to do it. What do you think? And then the last thing I’m thinking that lots of you will be thinking, okay, I’m going to give it a go and then we’re all going to splinter off into our individual lives and organizations in about the next 30 seconds And so we do need some encouragement and support to do that. So our last thing we want to do, I want to ask you to do what I am calling An encouragement reign. An encouragement reign, meaning I would like you to post on the chat Some encouragement for all of us. So it could be as simple as you can do it, you’ve got this or it could be something a bit more in-depth, like, I know you have the resilience And you’re a cynical person, but this time you finally will make some progress. Whatever it is, I don’t get, well, I do care, but, you know, you do you. So let’s put that on, and let’s just take a moment to read them as well, because it’s good to know, isn’t it? That you are in the company of like-minded Souls like-minded individuals who struggle like you do, who get confused like you do, who get stuck like we do, who have big dreams and aspirations And just need a little time, a little space And I don’t support an accountability to start moving on them. All right. Yeah. Nice. Okay, maybe you copy and paste this chat, and put it on your screensaver or something or print it out and have that in front of you, and you’re thinking tomorrow, like, oh, too busy. Get all those excuses start creeping in As often that they do. All right. So thank you very, very much. For being part of today’s event. Thank you to my coaching clients that I can see that are on the webinar today. For those of you that regularly come to these events and for those of you that showed up for the first time to try and figure out what we’re all about, I appreciate you you sticking with it and staying to the end You will get the recording. As I mentioned tomorrow, so feel free to watch the recording again. I would suggest that you do. There’s a lot of ideas in here today and share it. Share it with someone else who may also have some dreams and aspirations and may get some benefit from also watching this and having access to it where perhaps they wouldn’t get that kind of access. All right. So you’re amazing, wonderful, unique slightly weird in a good way group of people, and it really is my Privilege To do this kind of work and have you be part of it. So Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Bye

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It’s never quite as it seems Because it came from Possible not to do Can I tell you I have my heart so don’t hurt Understanding at the Changing every day every possible Dream to me

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