About Turning That Dream Into A Reality #SundayReflections

Fantasy: You come up with an idea or a couple of ideas. In the process of coming up with these ideas, you've been focusing heavily on people that have already made it to the level you want to be at. That could be a successful accountant, big time actor or producer, or even a writer. I even know some people that are trying to figure out exactly what Brie Bythwood does for a living. We know she works in real estate under her family's business, but on the show Blood, Sweat, and Heels we haven't seen her work at all. Brie still breathes, eats, looks, and talks like she's successful though.

So you come up with this idea and fantasize about what success looks like for you. You go through the necessarily motions of working hard to get that higher education, writing that book, or studying that job position. Then you go for whatever it is that you want. The fantasy is that success is that simple. Do what you have to do real quick in order to start doing what you want to do.

Reality:
There's a man on my Facebook list that published his first poetry book last year. Around September he wrote a note asking for everyone to support him. He thought he could write the book, publish it, and instantly become a success as an author. When it didn't happen right away he wrote a sad status about how the book just wasn't selling. I immediately saw it and gave him some tips. They were real simple ones about being friendly on the social network, finding other avenues to market his book, and giving it time. Fast forward to now and his book is still not doing the numbers he imagined. I know this because he wrote another status saying exactly how many books he's sold since releasing it. Let's just say it's less than 50. After posting the status others jumped in to give him marketing tips, but who knows if he'll take it. His fantasy was becoming an author and marketing to the people he knows. The reality is that it takes a lot more effort and the people he already knows don't care about buying his book. He needs to find new ways to make the money.

Unfortunately grade school teaches us to rush to graduate so we can immediately gain success. Reality teaches us that an accomplishment doesn't equal support from others. Creating a GoFundMe account doesn't mean people will donate money. I've seen people get thousands of dollars off that and then people get $5 after having it up for months. Publishing a book doesn't mean people will buy it. A secret people tend to forget is those that already know you except to get whatever product you're selling for free. So even when you've accomplished that goal of doing what you've always wanted it still takes a lot more work.

I definitely plan to be published soon, but I don't expect to sell as well as the author Zane. I may not even get 20 people to buy my book during the first day, but I will be putting in work. It takes days, months, years, and even decades of trying to get your skills in the hands of right people. Even if I happen to luck up with purchases, it doesn't mean get comfortable. We have to stop thinking it will happen overnight. Others, especially those that won't support, need to stop trying to push us to make it happen overnight.

So I'm thinking about having a poetry book available by summer. However, it will most likely be for free download mainly because the poems will be inspired by hit songs that are currently out. I'll tell you more as the time gets closer.