Why did you want to become a designer, marketer, or business owner? We live in a romantic world. We look at the buildings of the great Frank Lloyd Wright and decide one day that your designs will fill the skylines of the great cities of the world. We look at Warren Buffet and decide that people will give us money and turn it into an obscene amount of money. The number of examples is unlimited. We look to our heroes and aspire to one day be like them.

Overnight Success 20 Years In The Making

When we encounter the people we look up to, we see them at the height of their success. They start to get press on their projects and start to care about their morning routine. Some become enduring figures in the public and eventual legends. These are the people that form the basis of our inspiration. Even on the smallest levels, people go on a certain path because their parents followed that path, and they have been important figures in their lives.

The Path to success is long for most and tedious for everyone. It is a beautiful illusion that you gracefully arrive at success without resistance. The reason why this is might be due to the fact that, while our heroes are at the beginning of their journey no one really cares about their projects. They are just another person.

When we do start to hear about them. They have already achieved their dreams. Now it is true our heroes do talk about their struggles and the obstacles they had to overcome. But I will tell you talking about the obstacles retrospectively there is a subdued nature to it. Countless times you hear Artists, business owners, and celebrities talk about their journey, and the tone usually goes along the lines of “it was tough, but those were the good days.”It's easy to talk like that when your children are fed, there is money in the bank, and your legacy solidified. If we talk to them at the moment, you would probably hear anxiety and pain in their voice. We would see them live a close to destitute life in some cases. All in order to follow their dreams, and become the person they envisioned for themselves.

We Were Never Taught How To Follow Our Dreams

When we are in school especially for creative pursuits, “ We learn from the Greats”. When I studied Philosophy we taught about 20 philosophers. The greats not really what we need to do to become them one day. In Architecture, you learn the basics and create incredible projects. A modern villa, a skyscraper, or even projects to design cities from scratch. It is incredible in theory what we learn to do.

Unfortunately many with the same ambitions learned the same skills, and most are equally discouraged when no one wants that incredible design you created or wants to read your “magnum opus”. We were taught in theory how to be the rulers of the world, but alas no customers were interested.

I had this problem when I was in college. What was expected of me was to read and analyze the great philosophers, and at the end give a short blurb about your thoughts. Being the overconfident kid that I was. I would write a short synopsis of what the piece was about, and go on about MY thoughts and MY opinions. I thought I will never be the best by analyzing their works.

We have been taught that these giants of society and especially creativity, broke barriers, went against the current. They revolutionized the way we think and create. We were looking at them at their peak. After time has passed to were those design concepts, those ads, and those books became celebrated by the world.

Practicality Is The Dream Makers

I am not a practical person. I went on a bit of a rant about dreaming and romanticizing the success of our heroes, but that is exactly who I am. The person who has huge dreams, and is not content with balance in his life. In my journey of achieving my dreams, I found practicality is the only thing moving me forward and has been what pays my bills.

Having a dream is easy, but seeing it through is incredibly tough. especially because none of us dream of a brisk walk, or dream of making our beds. The process is really hard for most of us. I was excited to open my business. I get to do what I love and get paid for it, but once we were up and running I wasn’t thinking of all the new mansion I was going to buy with my non-existent millions. I was thinking of how to get these orders out, I was looking at unsexy problems that needed my attention. I was dealing with the anxiety of all these problems building up. I had to become practical.

I was forced to stop dreaming to keep the dream alive. I had to learn stuff like accounting and get better systems in place to be more efficient. I stopped thinking about myself ever becoming a legend or a hero, I started to enjoy the process.

I started to wake up every day and create things to make my companies better, I started to love practicality because that was the dream all along. I was misinformed about what I wanted. I am happy with the journey. Avantwall doesn’t make me happy because of what it has given me, but the ability to be creative always, to wake up and be happy every day no matter what happens.

Start Enjoying The Journey

I have spoken to Artists, Marketers, and business executives. They tell me it seems at the moment there are more bad days than good. Problems arise almost every day. Putting out fires, creative blocks, it seems they happen every day, but when they look back on the week, month, year, and overall things were good.

Practicality solves problems, it allows you to live another day. Learning every day is practical, reinvesting in yourself and your projects is practical. Loving your process will get you through bad days, and be grateful for the good days. It will give you the chance to get better, and the time for opportunities to come across your path. Practicality lets you stay operational to see you realize your dream.

The formula for realizing your dreams is not the same for everyone, but creativity, skill, and success take time. Time gives the ability to get better. Staying persistent gives you more at-bats, and the more at-bats you have the more likely you are to hit that home run.

Never Stop Dreaming

I don’t want to imagine a world where no one ever had a dream. I would hate to see a dull world of complacency. Most of all I would hate to see incredibly talented people give up too early on their dreams. I wrote this blog to remind myself and others to stay on the path and look for small wins, instead of the one ultimate dream, because what I have seen in my life is Dreams that came true were small achievements compounded over time.