Everything that exists first started as an idea. A vision. A dream.

The question is, How many people have to see it before it becomes reality?

On a family trip west, we spent time in the foothills of the Grand Tetons hoping to see moose. We didn’t have any luck, but while we were waiting, I snapped a photo of my youngest daughter sitting at the edge of the pond, tossing pebbles into the water. I thought it might be the start of a great painting. The only question in my mind was, “What might she be looking at?”

I imagined painting a moose into the scene, maybe a huge one. I thought Bigfoot would be funny, or perhaps a montage of all sorts of fictional creatures: leprechauns, fairies, unicorns, oh my!

Eventually, the solution became obvious: it needed to be Big.

You see, “Big” is a character Ginny created when she was younger, and he’s made appearances in many of her artworks over the years. He needed to be what she was looking at, and that’s how this painting became my first official collaboration.

Ginny drew and painted Big and I handled the rest of the painting, including his reflection in the pond. It was a blast, and my heart just about exploded when she signed her name in the corner. (Rose is her middle name.)

I love the origin story of Big. According to Ginny, he is a lovable giant who lives in the clouds and comes down occasionally to give people hugs.

One thing we can all agree on is that the world could definitely use more hugs.

I wish that Big were real.

Part of me wonders if he is.

How many people have to see it before it becomes reality?

You have to imagine something before it can become a physical reality, whether it’s the main character of a book or a life-saving cancer drug. Our dreams are often born from a problem that needs to be solved, like a personal need or a nagging challenge you regularly encounter. Maybe it’s a larger one the world around you is groaning for.

I believe your dreams are planted within you by God. And He wouldn’t have planted them within you if you weren’t the right person to help bring them to fruition.

These dreams start as a faint vision or a passing thought, before slowly coming into focus, eventually becoming clear in your mind’s eye.

There comes a point when you need some affirmation that you’re not hallucinating, that there really is something to this vision that has stirred up a fiery passion within you. Then comes the big and scary moment: You summon up courage and float the idea past a few others, just to check if they can see it too. 

Usually, the reactions are mixed.

Many won’t see the vision at all. They may even try to argue you out of it, saying it’s not realistic or practical.

Some will nod and smile, offering words of encouragement, but it feels more like a grandparent whose grandchild just told them about their imaginary friend: “What an active imagination you have!”

But if the dream has merit, you will encounter some true believers. These folks must be taken seriously because you will need them later.

When I had the vision to take an unconventional path, to make a living with my art while making the world a little better by making its people a little more childlike, I experienced all of these reactions.

I encountered many who never saw the vision of what we were trying to build, even though I described it as accurately as I could. They included newspaper syndicates, retailers, publishers, licensing agents, and more.

I also felt the “pat, pat” on my head from those who viewed me as slightly delusional, but relatively harmless and easily redirected once reality hit.

But I also was graced with a few true believers who saw the vision. Some notable ones included my parents, Kim’s parents, and our best friends, Sue and Jenna. Theirs were not just empty words of encouragement. They responded with action by sacrificing their time, money, and prayers. This signaled the proof of their belief.

The certainty from true believers is invaluable. There will come a time when you lose faith in the vision, and you will need them to remind you that it’s real.

Mounting failures and things taking longer than you expected take a toll. That vision, which once seemed so clear, begins to fade. You wonder if all the naysayers were right. After all, so many of them had way more experience than you, and the evidence seems to be piling up in their favor. Maybe I am delusional? Maybe I was mistaken? Maybe the signals got crossed and I accidentally co-opted a dream that was not meant for me…

I entertained all these thoughts at various times. It was tempting to give up.

But then I remembered my parents. And Kim’s parents. And Sue and Jenna. I remembered that nobody pours money or time into a lost cause. Their sacrifice was tangible proof of their belief in us. It helped assure me that no, this is not a mirage. It’s real. They see it.

Their belief bolstered my own.

It’s easy to feel discouraged and lose hope people don’t see what you see. Or when it’s taking too long. It might even show up in a time and place you weren’t expecting. The dream might feel long in coming, but it won’t be late. 

Disregard the people standing in your way.

Don’t worry about the ones who say, “I just don’t see it.”

That’s ok. Not everyone will catch your vision.

That doesn’t mean it’s not real.

Your idea might just be the hug our world’s been waiting for.

I recently came across this in my photo stream. Part photo, part iPad drawing, it’s my original vision of the art studio I wanted to build as an addition to our home. This was exactly what I wanted; a little extra light-filled space added on to the home office already there. If I could have snapped my fingers and made it instantly materialize exactly like this, I would have been thrilled.

What I ended up with looks almost nothing like this. So…does that make it a disappointment?

Heck no!

Here’s how my studio addition turned out:

It’s a reminder to me that, as the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote, “God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.”

Looking at my drawing now, years later, I see how small I was dreaming. All that glass was good in theory, but was way too much. It would have let in too much light, too much cold in the winter, too much heat in the summer, and offered too little privacy. The original plan didn’t even consider adding to our basement below, which we did, giving us much-needed storage space for inventory.

The spirit of the vision is the same: more space, lots of light, stunning lake views…but the result is far and away better than I envisioned. Thanks be to God.

I often feel like my capacity for dreaming has diminished over the years. Perhaps it’s easier to dream when we’re young before life experience introduced cynicism and made failure and disappointment a common occurrence. We grow weary of dreaming too big, for fear of getting our hopes up, only to be disappointed. (Or maybe that’s just me?) Make your dreams just big enough to be impressive, but not grandiose enough to slip past the edge of the impossible.

That younger version of me often feels like a missing person, and I wonder what became of him.

Looking back at the origins of dreams that came true helps.

So does a reframe on the dreams that didn’t.

Early in my career, I dreamed of becoming a syndicated cartoonist with my comic strip appearing in every newspaper in the country. Even though I landed in a few for a brief time, that dream never materialized, and I made the difficult decision to retire the strip after six-plus years of giving it my all.

Sometimes dreams are just starting points, a place to begin when we don’t know any better. It’s a flag in the ground, a destination to start moving toward. But then, on our journey, we learn more about ourselves and more about the dream, including what sacrifices it requires, and the pros and cons of what success truly looks like.

After some soul-searching, I realized that what I really wanted was to use my art to inspire, entertain, and encourage people to renew their childlike spirit. A comic strip was the way I thought would get me there. Whether it was a weak idea, a lack of talent, or the slow death of newspapers, that path was not meant to be. My problem was that I thought it was the only way, and I spent a lot of time grieving what I considered a failed dream.

In retrospect, it wasn’t. The career I currently have is far superior to the one I thought I wanted. I am still using my art to inspire, entertain, and encourage people to renew their childlike spirit. Back then, I simply didn’t have the imagination big enough to envision my current life. Had I known that what I currently do was an option when I was twenty-two, I would have chosen this.

Another example of God’s gifts putting man’s best dreams to shame.

It’s important to understand that I may not be here had I not started where I did. And so I can thank that original dream for giving me the start. That part of the journey built my work ethic, taught me lessons in perseverance, and helped me sort out the “why” behind my dream.

It’s ok to let a dream go once more data has been collected and we realize it’s not something we want after all. That doesn’t make it a bad dream, or a failed dream, or make us foolish for once having wanted it. We can thank it for the enthusiasm it provided us, giving us the fuel we needed to launch.

For over twenty years, Kim and I dreamed of living on a lake. It seemed impossible while we were toiling away in an apartment for eight years in the not-so-great side of town. Not until about six months before it happened did I ever even consider the lake would be one of the Great ones. But I’m currently writing this from my dream studio overlooking my backyard, also known as Lake Michigan.

God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.

Looking back like this gives that long-lost dreamer within me permission to rise again. Maybe he’s not lost after all.

Kim and I have a helpful little thing we add to our prayers, especially the “big dream” kind. The addendum is this: “or something better.” Sometimes we say it out loud, and sometimes just in our head. It’s sort of an understanding we have with God that we are open to his suggestions, because time and again, we have found that his ideas are usually better than ours.

Maybe your dream appears to be heading in an unexpected direction. Maybe it feels like it’s in the midst of a crash and burn. Maybe it’s time to be open to something better.

God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.

🤔 I wonder…what’s a dream in your life that turned out way better than you ever imagined?

My Bucket List is dead, and I was the one who killed it.

I didn’t mean to do it…it just sort of happened.

I was reviewing what went well this year and what didn’t while on a personal retreat a few days before Thanksgiving. As usual, the inventory of highlights was way longer. It contained projects we completed, trips we took, improvements we made to the house, and accomplishments our kids achieved. Many were planned, but a significant number of the entries were unplanned opportunities and unexpected blessings.

If you think about it, that’s how much of life is.

Many of our biggest blessings and favorite memories are unplanned. When I decided to go Christmas caroling thirty years ago, even though I am a terrible singer, it was because I had a plan to win over a girl I had been chasing. Instead, I met a different one who eventually became my wife.

I met my two best friends in college. A college I went to primarily because in high school I went to an art camp there that my art teacher suggested I apply for.

And we certainly weren’t planning to move to Sheboygan and buy our dream home when the pandemic was ramping up in early 2020.

Anyway, later on in my retreat, I was inspired to take a look at my Bucket List. I checked things off, re-worded a few entries, and added some new ones, finishing with an unoriginal sum of 101 items. Settling into bed, I thumbed through “Stillness Is The Key” by Ryan Holiday and reviewed a few chapters that caught my eye. I came across a verse by English poet and theologian Thomas Traherne, who said, “To prize blessings and not have them is to be in hell.”

It struck me as an apt description of a Bucket List: a list of blessings I prize but do not have.

Holiday even called it out by name: “The creep of more, more, more is like a hydra. Satisfy one — lop it off the bucket list — and two more grow in its place.”

It was true. I am happy to have accomplished many things on my list, but I’m regularly adding new ones to it.

Then I took a critical look at the list I’d just spent a hour updating. Honestly, all of the items are cool, but if I get hit my a bus next week, I’m not going to be devastated that I never got a chance to see Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

And yet, it IS on the list, the very existence of which creates a subconscious and not-so-subtle message that my life is still somewhat lacking. Blessings I prize but do not have.

Traherne also said, “To have blessings and to prize them is to be in Heaven.”

I realized that among my collection of blessings from the previous year, no less than twenty-five could have been exciting Bucket List entries. For example, “Catch a foul ball at Wrigley Field” was not on mine, but it did happen last year, and it is exactly the kind of thing that would make a great Bucket List entry—if it were something I could somehow orchestrate.

“Murder” might be too strong a word to describe what I did to my Bucket List. But I definitely retired it, replacing it with a Blessings List. It’s still has the classic “bucket list” verbiage, except it’s written in the past tense. “Visit Yellowstone National Park with my family” is instead “VisitedYellowstone National Park with my family.” “See Paul McCartney in concert” is now “Saw Paul McCartney in concert.”

It’s populated by many of the things Kim and I have recorded in our annual review over the past two-plus decades; an awesome collection of milestones, trips, experiences, and once-in-a-lifetime moments.

Some of which were actually planned ahead of time.

It’s already ten times bigger than my Bucket List and I look forward to adding to it every year until I kick that proverbial pail. I love that it’s a living reminder of blessings I’ve been given that I wasn’t creative, clairvoyant, or presumptuous enough to have imagined.

Please know this: If you have a Bucket List, I wish you well and don’t want to discourage you in the least. It is a wonderful tool that can help you strive for greatness and make the most of this precious gift of life. Mine definitely served me well.

Maybe just keep this reminder handy: 

To have blessings and to prize them is to be in Heaven.

We offered my daughter a chance to make a million dollars and she turned it down.

OK, “millions” might be stretching it, but adjusted for the economy of childhood, one could make a strong case.

Here’s the story: Virginia Rose drew a picture of an angel for her grandfather during his last days. He displayed it prominently in the hospital and at the hospice center, and it seemed to deeply move everyone who saw it. It became a source of great joy and comfort for him, and he requested that it be placed in his casket at the time of his burial.

A copy made its way to a wall in our kitchen, and Kim and I continued to marvel at its magnetic quality. It inspired us to offer Ginny a unique opportunity. We asked her if we could sell it on our website as a Mini*Print. Our only request was that she donate some of the funds to a charitable cause, but it was up to her to decide on the charity and how much to keep for herself. 

But a few days later, Ginny approached Kim in tears. After some prompting, she revealed that she didn’t want to sell the artwork; that it was Papa’s angel and a gift meant just for him. 

We tried to paint a full picture for her, that maybe Papa would be happy to see her inspire so many others and that perhaps the charity she picked could go to a cause he would have cared about. But in the end, she was resolute.

Although we could overrule her decision, we’ve decided to honor her wishes. Perhaps she will change her mind in the future, but for now, “Ro’s Angel” is not for sale. 

Frankly, it’s not a choice I would’ve made. But I’m proud of Ginny. It takes a strong person to live by their convictions and chart their own path. Kim and I see it as our job to support her on that journey, even if it’s different than the one we’d choose for her.

In a small way, it reminds me of how my parents must have felt when I told them I wanted to pursue a career in art. I was a well-rounded A student; I could have taken any number of more stable and profitable paths. I am sure they were uncertain about my decision and worried about my future. But they supported me every step of the way. Even in the early lean days when things weren’t going especially well, they never once said, “Well you tried, maybe now it’s time to think about getting a real job.”

Unfortunately, not every kid is given this gift. Recently, I’ve witnessed a number of parents of high school students demean and discourage their children’s dreams, some right in front of them. These are very talented kids, with real aptitude in their area of interest. And yet the very people who could serve as the wind in the sails they’ll need to make their dreams come true are demanding they pursue a more “traditional” path.

And look, I get it. Sometimes the cockamamie plans they come up with are bat-guano crazy flights of fancy.

However.

Job number one is to affirm their original vision, no matter how insane it may seem. Love them enough to give them the runway they need to let life school them in lessons of practicality. (Trust me, it won’t need your help for that.) The odds are quite good that where they end up will be very different from their original crazy vision, but please hear this: that initial naive, unrealistic, cray-cray vision is crucial. If you snuff that out at the start, it will never have the time to mature into the unique path they were created for.

When we care about someone, it’s normal to want them to make choices that ensure their safety and well-being. We want what’s best for them. 

But it’s hard for me to believe that anyone would want a miserable future for their child that may include a full bank account but also leaves them trapped in a life they never wanted, tormented by resentment and regret. That’s exactly what you get when you extinguish their dream before it’s had a chance to mature.

We may share some DNA with our children, but they are not us. They are their own glorious gumbo of strengths and weaknesses, interests, and desires. Who knows for what purpose God created my child? The world may have been waiting centuries for this specific recipe; far be it for me to stand in the way.

It’s hard to to embrace something you don’t understand, and to approve a path you wouldn’t have chosen for yourself. Unfamiliar with the art world, my parents were willing to invite an expert (my high school art teacher) over for dinner to confirm whether or not I was actually any good, and if there was a legitimate path that could lead to me not living with them when I was forty.

Without that leap of faith and vote of confidence (thanks for the assist, Mrs. Garrett!), I’m sure I wouldn’t be where I am today.

I suspect my parents are at least a little surprised by how my life has turned out. In fact, it’s quite a departure from my own original vision. It’s even better. 

I never would have gotten here had they not loved me enough to chart my own path.

Whether you are a parent or not, I bet you have some young people in your life who are figuring out what to do next.

Be a good angel on their shoulder, cheering them on to great heights.

They may turn down millions, but you can help them build a life that’s worth even more.

When I was a teenager, my mom called me a dreamer.

She didn’t mean it as a compliment, but she wasn’t wrong.

I’ve always been idealistic, my head regularly inhabiting the clouds. I’d sing along with John Lennon’s Imagine and revel in the fact that we were soul mates. You’re NOT the only one, John. We’re in this together!

I took pride in that side of myself. But when my mom labeled me a dreamer, and I knew it wasn’t a compliment, it got my attention.

Of course, my idiot teenage response was, “What does she know?”

Eventually, I would relate to Mark Twain, who said, “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”

When I graduated from college, I had big dreams. I was going to marry the love of my life. I was going to become a successful artist. And I may or may not have imagined the small town I came from erecting a statue in my honor one day.

But in order for my dream to work, I needed my parents to let me live with them in the year between graduation and the wedding. That would give me the financial runway to knock on doors, get my name out there, and start making things happen.

I knew I needed a plan. I put together a multi-page document outlining my detailed strategy and financial projections. I don’t know if my parents let me stay with them for that year rent-free because of the brilliance of my plan, or because that’s what parents do and there really wasn’t another option. And as most business plans go, big chunks of it fell apart when it got punched in the mouth by reality.

But it did give me focus, direction, and accountability to do the work that propelled me forward on my journey. It exposed me to an important truth I’ve seen at work again and again in the last twenty-five years:

The most successful people balance hopes and dreams with practicality and hard work.

If you spend all your time with your head in the clouds, you may come up with a world-changing idea or two. But if you don’t have the initiative and work ethic to put toward them, they’ll never materialize. 

World-changing ideas are worthless without execution. 

On the other hand, a relentless work ethic that lacks vision is wasteful. People in this camp default to letting someone else tell them what to do – which is unlikely to lead to happiness – or they toil without purpose, methodically plodding along in no particular direction. 

When you keep your head down all the time, you’re blind to the road signs pointing to exciting possibilities.

A rocket ship requires practical thought, precise calculations, and productive persistence to achieve orbit. But it requires a dreamer to imagine they can reach the stars in the first place.

It’s a tricky balance, and my experience leads me to believe people are usually stronger in one area than the other. As I shared, I am a dreamer at heart. But getting where I am today required a lot of hustle, sacrifice, experimentation, and experience gained from failure.

Henry David Thoreau gave us the blueprint when he said, “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.”

My mother’s candid observation was meant to be helpful. And it was. It inspired me to buckle down. Maybe at first just to prove her wrong, but eventually simply because she was right.

What camp are you in?

If you are more of a dreamer, maybe you need to spend time putting your ideas into action with a little elbow grease. It’s more comfortable to live in Dreamland where reality doesn’t rudely poke holes in your grand visions. Don’t be discouraged by the failures you encounter, for they are not arrows piercing the heart of your dream, but merely guideposts pointing you in the direction to go.

If you are more of a “nose to the grindstone” type of person, perhaps you need to give yourself permission to wonder aimlessly and dream of something better. Sure, it’s more comfortable to stay in work mode than get your hopes up for a future that may never happen. But that only leads to a future you never wanted. Don’t worry about figuring it all out before you begin. Plant your flag on a future summit and use your work ethic and practicality to plot your path there one step at a time.

Both ways are hard. But great things don’t come easy. 

This gummy bear knows what’s up.

Dreaming of six-pack abs is a good start, but amounts to nothing without any sit-ups.

But the sit-ups are a waste of time if we never pondered why we wanted the six-pack abs in the first place.

Sometimes you’ll see a message at the beginning of a movie letting you know it was “based on true events.” There’s something dramatic about it because it’s exhilarating to watch an amazing story that wasn’t just imagined, but really happened.

At least part of it.

You see, I’m always skeptical of that claim because I feel they’re being intentionally vague. It makes me wonder, what parts are the true parts? How much of it is factual? Half? Thirty-three percent? One percent?

Did they leave out important details? Or exaggerate stuff for the sake of a better story? Did they shorten the timeline and turn the long, hard slog into a snappy, inspiring montage with an Ed Sheeran song playing underneath?

After the movie is over, a quick review of Wikipedia often reveals a different story than the one that makes a good motion picture. Like a good fishing story, certain parts may have been embellished for dramatic effect.

Sometimes we try and fashion our own lives based on true events. And that can be a trap.

Yes, that musician we admire got a record deal and is now touring the country to sold out arenas. But we didn’t see the seven years she spent sleeping in her car and couch surfing at friends’ places while she toured the state, playing to crowds of tens.

If we see someone who is successful, and try and model our lives after theirs, doesn’t that make our lives based on true events? Because indeed, we never see the full story. Maybe we only get half of it. Maybe we only get one percent.

We don’t see the sacrifices put in. The long nights crying into a pillow. The demons they had to fight through. We don’t see the boring parts where nothing seems to be happening and a breakthrough feels like it’ll never come.

That’s my story. I had many role models as I pursued my dream; all of whom seemed to achieve their dreams way more easily, quickly, and dramatically than I did. Kim and I spent nearly a decade living in a crappy apartment, drowning in debt, doing everything we could to keep our hope from blowing out, and wondering what we were doing wrong.

Good times.

Now we live in a beautiful house overlooking Lake Michigan and make a living doing what I love. People who are entering my story now – especially the new people we’ve encountered since moving to Sheboygan eighteen months ago – don’t see the whole picture. I’m sure many just see one big “must be nice,” oblivious to the twenty years it took to get here.

By all means, take inspiration where you can get it, but never forget the inspiring stories you are privy to are based on true events. 

Don’t be discouraged if your story feels more difficult than your hero’s, or is taking longer than you think it should to get to the happy ending. Keep going through the hard slog. Keep taking it one day at a time. The best dreams take a while and are achieved in the moments never seen by the camera.

And remember that when they make a movie of your life, they’ll probably gloss over this part with an upbeat Ed Sheeran song.

…is the next one.

How do you eat an elephant?

I’m not sure what elephants taste like, or why you’d ever want to eat one, but the answer, of course, is one bite at a time. (Mustard is optional, but a little enthusiasm never hurts.)

The same instructions apply when it comes to accomplishing a big dream: One bite at a time.

Tinkering embodies this spirit perfectly. Tinkering implies baby steps, not grand gestures: a little of this, a little of that.

I’ve accomplished some of my biggest dreams in the past few years. They were all accomplished with a healthy dose of tinkering, taking one baby step at a time.

The first step was just deciding to go for it.
The next step was to draw one comic strip.
The next step was to share it online.
The next step was to draw another one.

Like I said, baby steps. I ended up drawing thousands of comic strips, but not all at once. And even though the comic strip has been retired for well over a decade, the audience I grew and the lessons I learned were instrumental in getting me to where I am now.

People nod when I tell them to start with the first step because it makes sense. They laugh when I tell them the first step might be something drop-dead simple, like just deciding. Or reading a book. Or asking someone for advice. Or drawing one comic strip.

But then they can’t help themselves. They mentally forecast the second step, then the third, and maybe make it all the way to step seventeen before they get stuck, or encounter a fake no. In their head, step seventeen is extremely difficult, or impossible – or even more terrifying – completely unknown.

And that’s when the dream hits a roadblock and, more often than not, dies.

Do you have a dream in your heart? Don’t murder it just because you don’t know how you’ll ever overcome step seventeen.

Right now, step seventeen may seem hazy. Not to worry. It will become abundantly clear right after you take step sixteen.

Step seventeen may seem insurmountable. Cool. You might be surprised how the growth you experience in the first sixteen steps magically transforms it into a molehill.

And don’t be surprised if step seventeen looks quite a bit different than you imagine right now – or is rendered altogether irrelevant – after step twelve prompts you to take an unexpected turn. (Like the day I felt called to retire my comic strip.)

Repeat after me: I don’t have to know step seventeen before I take Step #1.

Start with Step #1. (And for the love of penguins, don’t combine six steps into one step!) Just start with lowly, insignificant Step #1. Yes, it might be obvious. So simple a child could do it. Too small to make any noticeable difference. Step #1 will most definitely be ALL of these things.

But only one question matters: Have. You. Done. It?

No? Then quit worrying about step seventeen and f@¢king do Step #1.

My apologies for the candor, but your dream matters to me and this really fires me up.

These elephants don’t eat themselves.

Big dreams don’t come true the way you think.

At least not the way the movies have taught us. You know, with magic wands and pixie dust and a few clicks of your ruby slippers.

The best ones come little by little, over a long period of time, and often appear like they’ll never come true at all.

You may recall me mentioning a few weeks ago that we were outbid in our effort to buy our dream home. In a near miraculous turn of events, that home is now…ours! What the what?!? In January, our family of five will be moving to Sheboygan, the Malibu of the Midwest and official Bratwurst Capital of the World.

There are a dozen reasons why it was time for us to leave Madison, our home of twenty years, but at the top of the list was buying our dream house on a lake. Little did I know when I birthed this dream several decades ago, the lake would turn out to be one of the Greats, known as Michigan.

Perhaps I will someday share in greater detail all the twists and turns that transpired – it’s a pretty remarkable story –  but for now, I just want to share one lesson. Interestingly, it can be summed up by a sweatshirt I saw in a store this week. It was emblazoned with the phrase, “Never forget I am ALWAYS in control.”

And the lesson is: No, you aren’t. 

And neither am I.

Kim and I are initiators; we like to think of ourselves as self-reliant. We have a hard time owing people and are happy to climb the tree ourselves and get our own damn apples, thank you very much. This is a good trait to have when you encounter closed doors. Instead of accepting defeat, you look for another door, or a window that might have been left unlocked, or a dog door you might be able to squeeze through if hadn’t just eaten that whole bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. But self-reliance is also a way of feeling in control and avoiding dependency. 

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in 2020, the year everything went sideways, is that dependency is the goal, not a weakness, at least from God’s perspective.

It’s a lesson I should have learned sooner than I did. Me forcing things has never worked. Not once. It doesn’t matter how hard I shake the tree.

Honestly, this year probably would have destroyed twenty-five-year old me. What saved me, and ushered in a Corona blessing of all Corona blessings, was my relationship with God. Morning after morning, day after day, I returned to Him out of pure necessity, because the current events were just too much. I felt ashamed that I had to keep coming back; that I wasn’t strong enough to go a few days without His assurances. After all, that had been my modus operandi for years: Spend a little time with him, get fired up, run off to change the world all by myself, fail miserably, lose my way, get discouraged, yell at the sky, and return at last for another pep talk and reminder of who’s really in charge.

I am a slow learner.

Without fail, the times I’ve handed over the steering wheel to a superior storyteller, the One who knows me best, is when things get good and open doors appear out of nowhere.

I have journal entries about this dream house dated from 1999, complete with pencil-drawn floor plans and notes about tall pine trees. They seemed like pure fantasy back in 2008, when we were eight years into our dumpy apartment, with barely any perceptible progress having been made. There were many times I wished I could have my memory modified so I’d forget about my dream completely because it seemed too foolish, too impossible, too big.

But I never once got the sense that God wanted me to give it up. On the contrary, I always sensed Him telling me to be patient and trust in Him. Which is a hard thing. Surely there must be a tree I could shake somewhere to hurry this along. (Believe me, I tried.)

It turns out I had inadvertently dreamed myself into dependency.

The dream was simply too big to accomplish on my own. I realize now that my temptations to minimize it or abandon it altogether was merely an attempt to maintain some sense of control.

This dream was an apple tree too big for me to shake.

As this year unfolded, I could sense supernatural things were happening. Kim and I never got a clear glimpse of the entire picture. Instead, we were given arrows. And so we followed them. One by one, even when they felt like they were leading to dead ends. (I see now that I can trace the arrows back a very long time.)

The side of me that wants some measure of credit would like to exclaim, I put good into the world and good came back! I was patient! I was persistent! I was wise with my money!

I may have been all of those things, but those things weren’t enough. God orchestrated this remarkable turn of events in the middle of a pandemic – during which there was a time I thought we might lose everything – to prove to me that not only am I not enough, but that I don’t need to be.

You can know of a person without really knowing them. Awareness of God is not the same as a relationship with Him. It takes time, and it can get messy. But the mess is where the magic is. Sometimes you have to get into the mud before you can finally see clearly. This blessing is the fruit of two decades worth of building a relationship with this mysterious God, trying to do what He says, but mostly just trying to let  Him change me. 

He’s not done with this fixer-upper, that’s for sure. But He is good, faithful, ever-present, and patient, which I am especially grateful for because of how many times I questioned all of those qualities.

Maybe you have a dream in your heart that’s yet to come true. Maybe it feels like a lost cause, a foolish wish from an unrealistic dreamer. I once heard the saying “There are no unrealistic dreams, only unrealistic timelines.” There could be some truth to that.

I wonder, are you trying to force it? Are you trying to make it come true all by yourself? Before giving it up, it might be worth giving it over to the One who knows the reason you have that dream in the first place, and also knows the best version of that dream for you. If you have dreamed yourself into dependency, you are exactly where you need to be.

Turn it over to the Master Storyteller and follow the arrows.

And remember, providence doesn’t usually come all at once in bunches. More often it arrives just in time, apple by apple.

This video is a collaboration I did with American Family Insurance about 3 rules you should totally break if you are serious about achieving your dreams. Inspired by my book, Penguins Can’t Fly +39 Other Rules That Don’t Exist.

Although a little bit of structure is good when it comes to planning out your future and working towards your goals, certain ‘rules’ can hold us back. Think about it, who says you have to go about your life a certain way? Who says following the rules is the recipe for success?

Remember, everything is impossible…until it’s not.

When Kim and I started this adventure, we were optimistic. Very. When we decided to abandon my career as a freelance illustrator and designer, we felt very strongly that my comic strip Kim & Jason was going to hit the big time. We planned to live on Kim’s kindergarten teaching salary, which we knew would require sacrifice, but we were fairly certain that within a year, Kim & Jason would take the world by storm and we’d be exchanging phone calls with Oprah and her people.

We had no idea it would take five years before we’d be able to earn a living with our business. And by earning a living, I mean simply replacing the Kim’s robust $23,000 teaching salary. 

It didn’t take long for the optimism that launched our big dream to fade. For much of those five years, it felt like we were living in the desert. Any encouraging email from a reader, or an order on our store that didn’t come from someone we knew, were like drops of water on a parched tongue.

The dream never died, but we wondered at times if it was merely a mirage. Every so often, we’d lie awake in bed, wondering if we were officially crazy. We certainly felt like the whole process of scraping to pay bills while struggling to turn a profit was driving us mad.

The truth is, I had a lot of dreams that never came true.

We lived in an apartment for eight years, which is exactly seven years longer than we planned. We went to an open house in a trendy, developing neighborhood for a condo we wanted just to get photos for our vision board, (which I thought was a pretty clever way to speed the process along.)

Long story short, we never got into that condo. Kim & Jason never hit the big time. It never even hit the medium time.

But I stand before you today to let you know that Elizabeth Barrett Browning was right: God’s gifts do put man’s best dreams to shame.

During those early days, speaking was not on the radar. Giving a TED talk wasn’t on my vision board (mostly because TED didn’t even exist yet). But shortly AFTER Kim retired, speaking emerged as a big driver of our business model and enabled our family to visit some amazing places I never could have imagined.

We never got the condo, but that was because we were led to a house instead, which we bought just as the condo market in Madison was cratering due to oversupply. And a hotel with a big parking lot got built right next to the condo we had pined for.

Bullet. Dodged.

I meanwhile, I retired Kim & Jason in 2007. But I still make art, I think it’s even better, and it’s definitely more fulfilling. And it led to an evening like this. 

Like an explorer marooned in a desert, life can be a struggle. Things can seem bleak, desolate, hopeless.

Maybe this feels a lot like you, right now.

During these times, a simple glass of water seems like a priceless treasure.

But keep going. Have faith. Stay the course.

What you ultimately encounter may end up putting your original dreams to shame.

My family went to Mexico to see whales. 

That’s not the only reason we went to Cabo, but then again, the whales weren’t in Mexico because they were hoping to be seen.

The tour company guaranteed we’d see them or our next ride was free, but we were told that we had a one in five shot of actually seeing one breach. It was recommended that we improve our odds by booking several excursions. Our itinerary and budget forced us to take our chances. 

As we skipped across the waves on our small vessel, my little family prayed to St. Francis, the patron saint of animals, and we invoked St. Anthony with the words, “Tony, Tony, look around, there is something to be found.” I had faith that our little excursion was in the right twentieth percentile.

Maybe our prayers were answered, maybe it just turned out to be our lucky day, but we saw this guy (or gal, I forgot to check) do this several times in front of us. I used this photo that our guide took with his awesome camera as reference for this painting.

Those fleeting moments represented a tiny fraction of our trip, but they were definitely the highlight. 

The biggest chunk of our time on that vacation was spent in and around the pool. My kids could have spent the rest of their lives there, if we’d let them. 
With the exception of me and Kim, the children were the only humans at the pool not collecting social security. They were in their own little world, lost in their imagination, playing, splashing and floating to their heart’s content. Meanwhile, our older neighbors stayed busy doing their thing, oblivious to the world of fantasy happening right in front of them.

I was sad for them, because they were missing out. They were nonplussed, and in some cases seemed a little annoyed by the joyful noises bubbling forth from the pool.

Mind you, I couldn’t see everything that clearly – Adultitis has dimmed my imagination more than I’d care to admit – but I could see well enough to know that magic was happening in that pool. I witnessed an adventure, no doubt wrought with equal parts excitement and peril, and I smiled as I wondered how magnificent it must be. 

I know it seems unlikely, and I couldn’t tell for sure, but I could have sworn that a giant humpback whale may have been leaping right out of that very pool. 

Don’t ask the grumps around the pool to fact check my story. I’m certain they missed the whole thing. Too riddled with Adultitis, no doubt. 

That the whole scene appeared to be invisible made it no less real.

Why do we stop believing in fantastic things? Why do our wide eyes grow so dim with age? Shouldn’t they be even wider, for an old person has been privileged to observe an avalanche of wonders. Living long brings plenty of disappointment, to be sure, but it also brings a smorgasbord of sunrises and sunsets, and more time to bear witness to impossible things, like childbirth and springtime, and the way green leaves turn bright red every single year.

As I said, Adultitis has its grip on me, too. But I’m still fighting. I plan to fight it all the days of my life. 

I hope I never stop believing. 

“Angry Eagle” by Jason Kotecki. 16″ x 20″. Oil on canvas.
Original is SOLD. Prints available here.

I spent nearly seven years writing and drawing a comic strip that wasn’t successful.

Well, that’s not entirely true. People enjoyed it. It had fans. And it made a little bit of money. But it never got syndicated and didn’t generate a big enough audience or enough revenue to earn a living.

And so I had to stop.

It was probably the hardest thing I ever had to do, especially after pouring so much time, energy and money into that endeavor. Seven years of developing the discipline to sit down and write, even on days when no ideas come. Seven years spent drawing comic strips in a humid apartment with no air conditioning. Seven years learning the basics of business, of profit margins and net income and balance sheets. Seven years of sinking deeper into debt as we tried one idea after another in the quest to make a profit.

It was a hard dream to let go of. I was certain my characters would be household names. I imagined receiving a Ruben award for best cartoonist. I expected that one day, my strip would enter the same conversation as Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes, and The Far Side.

The writing had been on the wall for a while. My speaking career was taking off and I didn’t have as much time to devote to this daily time suck. We had found the sustainable business we had been looking for, and the comic strip wasn’t it. 

And so on January, 27, 2007, I published my last strip.

It is only now, all these years later, that I finally understand something important: Sometimes your dream is not your real dream.

I thought my dream was to create a popular comic strip. But my real dream had always been to inspire, entertain, and encourage people to be more childlike so that they could created lives with less stress and more joy. The comic strip was just one possible how. Deep down, I knew this all along, but I had allowed the how to cloud the why.

If your real dream is to experience a thrilling cross country adventure, does it matter if you have to trade in your Corvette for a Harley? Or if instead of beginning your trek from the east coast, you started from the west?

Sometimes you have to let go of the structure of your dream in order to achieve the spirit of your dream.

And that can really suck, especially when you’ve invested so much going in one direction. 

Back when I was sweating away drawing comic strips in a small apartment, I couldn’t have even imagined the work I get to do today and the way my life has unfolded. It’s better than my wildest dreams!

And it’s clear to me now that the time I spent on Kim & Jason was the farthest thing from a waste of time. It wasn’t a failure; it was the foundation of the success I now enjoy. All the trial and error, the discipline muscle, the business lessons, they were crucial lessons I needed to learn. The characters were the guides that helped me flesh out this philosophy of “escaping adulthood,” and letting go of one art form allowed my art to evolve into something new (and better!).

It’s ok to be sad, disappointed, or angry when the structure of your dream falls apart around you.

The spirit of your dream is very much alive.

Let go, rise up, and soar to new heights.

I’ve wanted to be an artist for as long as I can remember. Especially after I found out that the roles of being George Lucas or Superman were already taken.

Like most artists, I started out making “copies.” I drew Simpsons characters and portraits of athletes and celebrities. It was how I learned my craft. As Elizabeth Gilbert wrote, “Everybody imitates before they can innovate.

My first real attempt at saying something original was through comics. First a sports panel cartoon I did in college called Obstructed View, then a comic strip called Kim & Jason. I became inspired by people like Charles Schulz (Peanuts) and Sam Butcher (Precious Moments), and I decided that I wanted to use my art to make a difference.

I was convinced that Kim & Jason was the way I was destined to do that. I had big dreams and we worked really hard to make it successful. Undeterred by the scores of syndicate rejections, we tried self-syndication. Craft fairs. Gift shows. Fundraising programs. Some things were moderately successful. Most things failed epically. It never earned enough to live on, and Kim and I had many sleepless nights and tear-filled discussions wondering if we were crazy.

Eventually my experience making a comic strip led me to doing cartooning workshops in schools, which led to speaking at churches, which led to the speaking I now do for associations and companies.

Speaking became more financially successful than Kim & Jason ever was, and eventually, I became so busy that, after seven years of making a daily comic, I decided to retire the strip.

Although Kim & Jason inspired many people and generated lots of smiles and laughter, it was hard to not think of my art as a total failure. As my speaking career took off, I put the “art thing” in the closet. I figured my attempt to be an artist had failed, and decided to focus on more “valuable” things. Even though I used my creativity in many ways while growing the business, I pretty much stopped making art.

After several years of inactivity — I dramatically call it my “fallow period” — I started to feel the urge to make art again. Little by little, I began to create. I started feeling alive in a way I hadn’t in a long time. So I kept going, eventually sharing it with others. People responded, not just to how it was made, but how it made them feel. And think.

I got a book deal with a big New York publisher largely because a literary agent saw some art that was shared by a friend of a friend on Facebook. In the design of that book, I marveled at the fact that 90% of the art in the book was created after my “fallow period.” But the book also contained stories, comic strips and paintings from years earlier. It became a love letter to the things in my past that I thought were failures.

I finally realized that they weren’t failures, they were the foundation.

Earlier this month, we hosted Wondernite, a special art collecting event that featured my newest works, all of which were created in the last two years.

Ten years ago, when I made the tough decision to retire Kim & Jason, if you’d have told me that new art I’d create would help me land a book deal, and that we’d be able to pull off an event like Wondernite, fill it to capacity, and sell the majority of the original art I brought to sell, I wouldn’t have believed you. I might have punched you in the face for being mean.

To me, how this journey ultimately unfolded feels very much like a miracle.

Miracles happen. I’ve seen them, in my own life and in the lives of others. Frustratingly, they are unpredictable and cannot be conjured up on demand.

I have had my heart broken many times by dreams that didn’t come true and miracles that never materialized. I have been tempted to give up, to quit dreaming and stop waiting for miracles. It seems easier. Less painful at least.

But I just can’t.

I don’t know why sometimes a miracle shows up while other times it doesn’t. Maybe it’s because what we get in return is even better in the long run. Maybe it’s just random luck or something entirely.

Whatever it is, I can’t shake the belief that it’s still worth believing in them.

It seems like the people who see miracles are the ones who spend more time looking for them.

I love encouraging people to think of themselves as artists, regardless of whether they can draw a convincing bowl of fruit. Because my definition of artist goes beyond people who can draw or paint or sing or sculpt or dance. I think Martin Luther King, Jr. was an artist, not just because he was a great orator, but because he took a stand for something. That’s what artists do.

The problem is that examples like this are pretty intimidating. I am no Martin Luther King, Jr. And, no offense, but neither are you.

The thing we forget is that neither was he. At least not the MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. we think of today, the larger-than-life American hero who has his own holiday and over 730 streets named in his honor.

He was an imperfect man who tried to make the world a better place. Even though a million people followed him eventually, it’s important to note that those first few steps were small and quiet and mostly unnoticed.

Don’t be fooled into believing that you can’t make a dent in the universe. You can, and we need you to try. Be inspired by — but not intimidated by — the giants that came before you, because they weren’t always giants. Channel that inspiration into action.

You may not end up with your own holiday or being named a saint, but if that’s the reason you’re doing it, I can guarantee that you’ll fail.

Making the world better is not at easy as binge-watching Netflix. It takes a heckuva lot more courage than writing a check to your favorite charity. But you can start today, in your own family or community, with one small step.

Artists don’t sit on the sidelines, watching the world go by, wishing it was different.

Artists are people with big dreams who take small, deliberate, and brave actions to see those dreams come true.

Dream on.

“Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.” –Alan Watts

It’s overly simplistic to say that all you need to do to be successful is to “follow your passion.” It’s and important factor, but not the only one.

However.

Money is a powerful force. Our view of it and need for it impacts our decision making in many — often subconscious — ways. One good way to make sure you’re on track for living a great story is to ask yourself, “What would you be doing if money were no object?”

How would you spend your time? What would be the first thing you did each day? What would be the last thing?

If your story seems to be stalled in neutral, sometimes taking money out of the equation can be a great way to get yourself in gear.

My favorite line in the movie “The Avengers,” is when the villain Loki declares, “I am burdened with glorious purpose.”

I love that line.

It’s pretty funny in the movie, because it speaks to Loki’s delusions of grandeur. Although, in truth, each of the heroes in the movie could probably say the same thing and mean it. But because their intent is noble, the connotation of the entire statement is changed.

I too, am burdened with glorious purpose. Not to rule the world, but to make it better.

Are you?

If you aren’t burdened with glorious purpose, then binging on Facebook and Netflix every day can be done without any guilt. But if you do share that burden, there’s never enough time. I feel like I have too many ideas and dreams and not enough life to accomplish them all.

Regardless of intent, people who are burdened with glorious purpose, the ones dead set on changing the world, always look a little foolish at first. We could probably all agree that the world could use at least a little changing, but who is anyone to think they’ll be the one to actually do it? But purpose mixed with tiny actions is very powerful. All the big, world-changing things had humble beginnings.

The Simpsons started out as a bumper sticker on the Tracey Ullman Show.

Michael Dell sold his first computers out of his college dorm room.

One of Fred Rogers earliest jobs was as a puppeteer for a local children’s show in Pittsburgh.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver started the Special Olympics in her backyard.

The Missionaries of Charity, which now consist of over 4,500 sisters active in 133 countries, started with one humble woman helping one poor person.

Let the naysayers laugh and the doubts roll off your back. You are not too small to make a dent in the universe.

Especially if you are burdened with glorious purpose.

What is yours?

[ About the Art: There are two types of people in the world: those who are burdened with glorious purpose, and those who aren’t. The former are the ones who make history, even though they seem a bit foolish to the latter.

I like how the color and texture came out in this one. Originally, the bird was completely blue, but I added a white belly and the flare of orange to make him pop out a bit more (and better reflect his boldness.) If you look closely, you’ll notice the elephant is overlaid with a very subtle texture of real elephant skin. (Made with Photoshop.) (Buy the print!) ]

Times have changed. Back in the day, a college degree pretty much guaranteed you a decent job…somewhere. Not anymore. Paradoxically, the opportunity to chase a dream and create an amazing life have never been better.

Not long ago, the gatekeepers ruled everything. They decided what music should be played, what books should be written, what art should be displayed, what news should be shared, what agendas should be pushed, what business ideas were valid, and what dreams should come true. You pretty much had to wait for someone to pick you, whether it was to to attend their university, write for their publication, exhibit in their gallery, perform at their venue, or work for their company.

Some gatekeepers still exist, but they are not as powerful as they once were. You now have access to tools that would have made Edison’s head explode. Most of them, by the way, are free. Thanks to the internet — free at any library — and things like iTunes U and Khan Academy, you can learn anything you want to learn. With Skype, you can video conference with people anywhere in the world. You can use Kickstarter to raise money to fund that pet project or start a business. Tools abound that will help you start your writing career, publish your own books, record your own songs, sell your own products, and host your own concerts. The list goes on.

The question is no longer, “How can I make my dreams come true?” but rather, “When will I start?”

Even with all these amazing tools at our disposal, many people continue to wait for permission.

We wait for someone to offer us a job, reward us with a contract, or give us an opportunity.

We wait for someone to open the door for us, to give us their blessing, to tell us it’s time.

We wait for someone else to tell us we’re good enough, talented enough, or ready enough.

Meanwhile, Adultitis delights in the growing ocean of unfollowed dreams.

But real life is not a schoolyard version of dodgeball, where you wait anxiously for someone to pick you, hoping it’s sooner rather than later.

What is your big dream? You have the tools at your fingertips. You do not need permission to become a writer or a teacher or an artist or a musician or a business owner or a world changer. You are good enough, talented enough, ready enough, kind enough, and, believe it or not, brave enough to start.

With nearly a whole year ahead of us, it’s tantalizing to think of all the great things that could happen.

What are you waiting for?

[ About the Art: This art (and the post) are directly inspired by one of my heroes, the brilliant Seth Godin. The concept of “picking oneself” is deep soil for graphic interpretation. I like the idea of a box of chocolates, filled with an array of treats, each of them waiting to be picked. But all is dependent on the tastes of the person picking. One person might seek out a coconut cream first, while another might be allergic to coconut, and leave it uneaten or throw it out. The good news is that these days, the coconut cream can pick himself. P.S. My favorite part is the curly cue hair on the candy walking away. (Buy the print!) ]

Everyone has their own definition of success. Mine is not to own a jet, hobnob with CEOs, or work a mere four hours a week. My definition of success is to be a force for good in the world and to make a decent living doing what I love while spending lots of time with people I care about. So far, so good.

The middle part — the “making a decent living doing what I love” part — THAT took the longest. Way longer than I’d imagined or hoped.

Success is not that hard. But it is rare because not many people are willing to do the work. The biggest requirement for success is just sticking to something for as long as it takes until you get the desired result (or something better.)

When I say as long as it takes, what I really mean is: AS LONG AS IT TAKES. I can’t tell you if it will take months or years or decades. It just takes as long as it takes. Don’t get fooled into thinking that anything good happens overnight, and don’t get discouraged by the rejections, failures, and the 12-car pileups that will surely come your way. Even if you have some early success, the lumps will get you eventually. It’s the Universe’s way of seeing what you’re made of.

Stick with it long enough, and you’ll figure things out.

One caveat: Doing something that doesn’t work over and over and over again is NOT persistence. It’s stupid. You’ve got to keep trying new stuff, doing more of the stuff that works and less of the stuff that doesn’t. Dimitri Martin has a neat drawing in his book This Is A Book that illustrates this:

That seems about right, in my experience. In the long run, you end up where you were hoping, but the path is never direct. There are times when you feel like you might be going backwards, or repeating the same failure over and over again. There are times when you’ll feel hopelessly lost. That’s part of the process. See the arrow on the left? That’s fiction. Don’t compare your journey to the arrow on the left, because it doesn’t exist in reality.

So keep going. Keep tinkering. Don’t give up.

You can do it. Just stick to it.

[ About the Art: Can a cactus ever look cute? I think I pulled it off on this one. I’m pretty happy with how this piece turned out, especially since the color scheme was very experimental for me. Although it wasn’t the main subject, I wanted to capture the big sky and sweeping vista of the desert. The sky could indicate that it’s either just after sunrise or just before sunset, which actually works great. If it’s in the morning, it’s preparing you to brace yourself for the long haul. If it’s in the evening, it’s reassuring you that the persistence is part of the process. At least that’s the hope. ]

It would seem that the subject of possibility and it’s pessimistic cousin, impossibility, is shaping up to be quite the theme around here. Not only did I make art and write about it, but I just read a book about it and I’m finding that I’m living it as well.

It all started in January when Kim and I declared our intent for our business to become debt-free by the end of this year. We have a fairly sizable loan we are slowly paying back, a formidable pile of liability accumulated during our early years in which we were figuring out how to turn our passion into a real business. Alas, the real business was found but the debt remains.

Now, we pay down this loan little by little every month, and should all go according to plan, it will be absolved in the summer of 2017. Getting rid of it by the end of 2013?

Impossible.

And yet, as the year goes on, what once seemed unthinkable is gradually becoming inevitable.

I picked up this t-shirt at Disney World a few weeks ago. I had to have it, because even though it features a quote by Walt Disney, it had my name all over it.

This year has been a year of renewal for me. I have given myself permission to dream again. Not that I ever stopped, really. It’s just that over the years my dreams have imperceptibly gotten smaller as various failures and disappointments piled up. But this year, my dreams have gotten bigger. (Thanks Mary and Judy!) I have been getting back into the habit of not only dreaming impossible things, but trying to DO them as well.

And it turns out that even the trying is fun.

So far, this has been a most exciting year. New opportunities are springing forth. We are experiencing unprecedented growth, and we are on the verge of doing things that once seemed unfathomable. Will we achieve our goal of becoming debt free by the end of 2013? The jury is still out; I believe that we will. But even if we were to fall short, this is already shaping up to the be the most exhilarating, rewarding and fun year in business we’ve ever had.

Here’s what I’ve come to learn: not only is it kind of fun to DO the impossible, it’s even fun just TRYING the impossible.

Sure, when you try the impossible, you might not make it. You may fall woefully short. But at least you know you tried. And you might make it farther that you ever imagined.

Besides, it’s way more fun than expecting the worst, playing it safe, or settling.

I wonder if the Wright Brothers ever imagined that less than 100 years after their first manned flight, we’d have already taken air travel for granted. And we do, don’t we? Thousands of these “crazy flying machines” take off and land every single day. And yet, at one point, the idea was as crazy as could be. In fact, in 1902 (just ONE year before the Wright Brothers’ great success), Lord Kelvin — the dude who determined the correct value of absolute zero as approximately -273.15 Celsius — said, “No aeroplane will ever be practically successful.”

Back in the late 1800s, the idea of Orville and Wilbur building a flying machine is kind of like someone today boasting about working on a teleportation device. And they way we take it for granted is like my great grandchild giving a talk 100 years from now saying, “Can you believe there was a time we didn’t have teleportation devices?”

Here are few of my favorite quotes from otherwise intelligent people who were a little too shortsighted in their vision of what was and was not possible:

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. –Western Union internal memo, 1876

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” –Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

“It is an idle dream to imagine that automobiles will take the place of railways in the long-distance movement of passengers.” –American Road Congress, 1913

“There is no likelihood that man can ever tap the power of an atom.” –Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize Winner in physics, 1920

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” –David Sarnoff’s associates, in response to his urgings for investment in radio in the 1920s

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” –Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

“The concept is interesting… but to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.” –Yale professor on Fred Smith’s conceptual paper about an overnight delivery service that would eventually become FedEx, 1965

“With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market.” — Business Week, August 2, 1968.

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” –Ken Olson, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.” –Michael Dell on Apple, 1997

Oops.

Learn from these missteps by expanding your horizon on what you deem “realistic.”

And be very, very cautious about what you label as “impossible.”

For as John Andrew Holmes wisely said, “Never tell a young person that something cannot be done. God may have been waiting centuries for somebody ignorant enough of the impossible to do that thing.”

[ About The Art: This one languished for a long time as a doodle in my sketchbook. A little penguin floating away via balloon. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. The day I decided to turn it into a painting and see what happened was, frankly, magic. I was in the zone. Every line, every stroke, every color just flowed out of me. It was weird. And it was one of the rare instances where I sat back after finishing it and said, wow, this is really good. (Mostly because I don’t feel like I had all that much to do with it.) Believe it or not, this was made in Photoshop using various splatter and watercolor brushes to give it the painted texture. I added the little band of earthbound penguins at the end. I see them as the naysayers, convening to discuss all of the reasons why a penguin can’t fly. — Jason ]