Your Impersonal Dream

I recently read Michael Gerber's new book, Awakening the Entrepreneur Within, and it touched me. He makes a vital distinction between our personal dreams for success, wealth, fame or whatever, and the "impersonal dream" that lies behind every great business.

An impersonal dream is our belief that what we do will make an essential difference to the whole world. When he launched Microsoft, I'm sure Bill Gates had a personal dream that included things like money, influence, a nice house, a new car and so forth. He certainly didn't launch Microsoft with a dream of failing!

But he also had an impersonal dream that made all the difference. He wanted "a computer on every desktop." He dreamed of a world where ordinary people could harness the power of computers to communicate and produce. He had an impersonal dream that his little operating system could open doors he knew nothing about on every desktop and in every office around the world. Now that's a dream!

Your business needs such a dream. Gerber argues that starting a business to make money or to employ people is nice, but it's not enough. To keep going when things are tough requires a sense of mission, an impersonal dream that your shop, your book or factory or restaurant will ultimately touch thousands of people in a vital way.

What's your "big idea?" If a million people copied your idea or bought your products or used your service, how would that change the world?

When managers and owners, entrepreneurs and inventors have huge "impersonal" dreams their businesses flourish because their sense of mission makes everything better.

What's your impersonal dream to make this small planet just a little bit better? Find it and your business will taken on new meaning, and perhaps, new profits.

(To order Gerber's excellent book and have it delivered to your door, click here.)

See you at the top!

Dustin Craig Mitchell