Follow Your Dreams

Jim Carrey delivers the commencement address at Maharishi University.

William “Bud” Hart, of Haverhill, shares “Success Principles”—ideas for living a greater, better and more accomplished life, and building habits that stick. He also coaches clients to incorporate strategies for boosting their mental and physical performance during everyday living.

William “Bud” Hart, of Haverhill, shares “Success Principles”—ideas for living a greater, better and more accomplished life, and building habits that stick. He also coaches clients to incorporate strategies for boosting their mental and physical performance during everyday living.

On May 24, 2014, accomplished comedian Jim Carrey gave a commencement speech at Maharishi University. There’s a clip of his speech that you can view on the Internet. It includes these two profound sentences directed at graduates about to make their way in the world. “So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect, so we never dare to ask the universe for it.”

I’m fascinated studying why certain people (like Jim Carrey) find success in life while others who may be equally talented and hard working don’t. Sometimes I speculate what it might be that makes them different. Then I read a speech like Carey’s, from a man famous for his ridiculous silliness telling me the simple formula. Do not fear and abandon any dreams as silly whims.

There are many success stories of people who have refused to take the path less traveled—individuals who dared to dream and had the courage to chase those dreams. I quoted another of these individuals in my last article, Ignace Jan Paderewski.

Ignace Jan Paderewski showed an interest in music at an early age and started to study piano with local teachers. At the age of 12 he entered Warsaw Conservatorium where his progress on the piano was slow and his teacher advised him to study other instruments which he did. But the piano remained his chief interest.

Two years after he graduated from the Warsaw Conservatorium, Paderewski went to Berlin to continue his studies. Once again he was advised that his talent was insufficient to have a career, but undaunted, he went to Vienna to study with Theodor Leschetizky, the most famous teacher of the time. Finally, his highly successful debut in Paris launched a career that made him for the next 50 years the best-known and highest paid pianist.

Have you ever stopped to think that maybe people like Jim Carrey and Ignace Jan Paderewski who seemingly have had the world by the tail succeeded because they were just willing to go for their dream?

There’s a series of popular Direct TV ads where a family of “Settlers,” a modern suburban family dressed like the cast of “Little House on the Prairie,” “settle” for cable rather than DirecTV. As ridiculous as the commercials are, the point is captured perfectly by Carrey. If we are not willing to follow our dream we’re just settlers, settling for something practical instead of what we truly want.

I think Jim Carrey nailed it. To really succeed, to really be happy, to really be at peace with your life you need to follow your dreams whatever they may be, wherever they may take you.

William “Bud” Hart is a certified “Mindset” Coach, Accountability Partner and Business Consultant. Founder of Hart Group, www.hartgroupma.com.