“Fear is the mind-killer, it is a little death inside all of us”, these words from Frank Herbert’s book Dune would carry me for the next 20 years of my life. It turns out it was fear that prevented connection, the trust that something could be possible, but I kept going. The change for me came from connecting with people and getting decent giving which are opportunities where I could give that I felt were a decent labor of life. This is where I learned about healthy relationships, which have much to be discussed on that subject alone, and finally, how to feel secure. This, I offer as something someone might see as how they could find something like “a decent living”, to come full circle.
So, as I began to write I thought will this be a book about fear, connection, or maybe security? More specifically should it be on how these are key to being able to build your dreams? Well, this is a book about how there can be more accessible for anyone to the necessary time, ideas, relationships, and other forms of capital like money, machines, or other resources so yes it will be about both lines of thought. It will cover some of the core thoughts behind how ideas, communities, and enterprises can and do come to life. Understanding fear and drive, connection and incentives, and trust and security will be one of the keys that unlock a world of opportunity for you. This is because understanding and being able to use these are at the root of the community you will attract, interactions in the environment you will have, the sacrifices and decisions you will need to make, the intentions of those you work with, and of the project, and ultimately the outcome of your dream.
This will be a book about growing as a person plus inexorably, this will be a book about growing the opportunity that someone can offer in the world. This is the “Why, How, and What” as to why you are what you are, and what you can offer to the world is the other side as the opportunity you offer and therefore serve. To borrow from Martin Luther King, “they are mutually inextricable”, like yin and yang, so “if you intend to be a street sweeper, then sweep streets like Michaelangelo painted”, in summary, we have the fulfillment of people on the line here!
With those questions on the table and the consideration of the effort being worthwhile, many adventures with interesting people in the business, cities, and stomping grounds all over the world took place. Back and from those times to the lab, my basement, to document and learn from these experiences. This has continued iteratively over many years, and this writing, which changed from a journal of sorts to become an effort of many people, is a record of the epiphanies that allowed this transformation. The exact number of people we have worked with, their names, and the effects they have had on me and these works, are lost to me and can only be found in the memory of time. It is to them that I raise my glass which runs over. I will pay it forward which is the hope for you the listener or reader, that your cup will run over after similar adventures in life.
At the baseline it was a journey of self-esteem, responsibility, and efficacy where I found out not only about myself in the reflection of the greater world, it was through that connection that one grain of sand, myself, became something bigger. That this same effect also happened to me as the starting community member of the idea that I served which is the opportunity that I want to bring to reality, or the world. Even bigger than that it was being able to, period!, align with a purpose bigger than me that I could trust as decent. I was then able to connect to others through that and them with me. From there my connection to them became rooted in something deeper like brotherly or sisterly love, there came a love of people. I saw that connecting in this way gave back more to me than I could give. Even better was what I found when I became truly interested and more and more fascinated with what I learned about people themselves without the need for a goal or purpose. Wow, without the need for an intention other than finding out what is interesting about them, I then found something that is the most precious for anyone, I found myself in a way.
Talking here about my story, the meeting of Ben Holleran, my brother, co-author, and one of the people I respect most in this world, and with the initial writing with those up here in it has shown me how my approach changed through self-love which was the key to freedom. With that freedom, that we give to ourselves, we can do anything we dream of.
