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“I haven’t a dream, wouldn’t know where to get one, and my mind is as vacant as an empty cupboard!”

Written by: Michael Gerber

Article Overview: Just finished my 15th Dreaming Room, and if I must say so (and I must), I was faced with the most difficult group of people I have ever faced.

“I haven’t a dream, wouldn’t know where to get one, and my mind is as vacant as an empty cupboard!”

Just finished my 15th Dreaming Room, and if I must say so (and I must), I was faced with the most difficult group of people I have ever faced.

Not because they were any different than the rest (they weren’t).

There were some who had already started a business of their own and were stuck. (that’s actually a mild way of putting it. A couple were not only stuck, they were up to their ears in mud so thick it was sucking at their jaw bones like quicksand would. One had his jaw raised so high above his shoulders he was threatening to break his neck!).

There were others who didn’t have a business, but were well worn out in their practices – one a rolfer, another a family counselor, another an uncertain camper who hadn’t pitched her tent yet, she was so enamored of all the scenery, the myriad paths, the colorful flora and fauna…she had been thinking about pitching her tent for about six years now, and knew she would eventually do so, but for right now…well, who knows where the perfect spot lurked! And of course if she picked the wrong spot, well, then everything would be spoiled, right?)

There were even others who weren’t certain why they were there, but knew for certain that given where they were in their life, their career, their business, anyplace would be a better alternative than the one they were living with.

(even as I write this I know that the folks from Dreaming Room #15 are reading this and asking themselves whether or not they can trust me to keep their stories to myself. And, of course I am taking editorial license even as I write this Manifesto so that no one in Dreaming Room #15 actually represents exactly the folks I described above, but they’re close!)

But, that doesn’t describe why this group was so much more difficult than any other group. The reason goes to something much, much deeper.

These folks, to a person, were so damned timid!

And so damned respectful!

And even as I say that I know that none of them would describe themselves that way. But, had they participated in the Dreaming Rooms before their’s they would have gotten it immediately…they were timid, and they were needlessly respectful, not just of me, but of each other! They were so damned protective of each other. Terrified that someone’s feelings should needlessly be hurt. By whom? Well, by me, of course. The old, intense and irascible, “Gerber the Grinder.”

They couldn’t bear anyone’s feelings being hurt.

And, of course, I couldn’t have cared less.

Not because I like to hurt people’s feelings (nor do I like my feelings to be hurt!), but because it’s all of those queasy-easy sensibilities, all of those self-protective armor plates, all of those sensitive, sensitive willy-willies that keep the entrepreneur within, the risk-taker, the mountain climber, the devil take the hindmost shooting the rapids kind of guy, the fire-eating creator who challenges the assumptions of the folks standing on the side lines and goes direct for the throat of it, that keep that one, the one who makes things happen, who invents new worlds, from playing the master game, from leaping beyond himself or herself, to discover undiscovered country, from awakening at all.

There is no room for the timid in this game we are playing.

No room at all.

There is no room for “let me be gentle.” No room at all.

There is no room for baby steps. No room at all. Because these folks in Dreaming Room #15 were, on average, 48 years old!

That’s right, 48 years old!

Welcome to the Lion’s den! Where it’s eat or be eaten. Where it’s create or be gone. Where it’s ask the most serious questions, and stand back while the mountain moves under foot. It’s not a seminar, mind you, it’s an I N T E N S I V E where there’s true love underfoot. Love for the truth. Love for the miraculous. Love for the mystery of discovering the unknown. Love for the challenge of not only pushing the envelope, but exploding it into a gazillion pieces, and standing in the middle of the storm with the confetti coming down while the band marches by and plays its joyful brassy song.

And yet, as timid as these folks were, I loved them all.

I loved them as they sat there not making a peep.

I loved them as they smiled warily wondering if I were actually a mad man disguised in my beautiful white suit.

I loved them as they tentatively asked a question which hopefully wouldn’t strain my ability to respond, and then when I did respond, as I invariably did, loud as a cannon, brash as a bazooka, bolder than an old guy in a charming white suit should dare to be, bad as a badass stand-up-comic telling his stale jokes and laughing his foolish ass off because he’d never gotten tired of them even when the audience long ago stopped laughing at them and him, how they would look at me as if I were insane, and then, how they would timidly retreat to test me and test me, and themselves, again.

I loved them all most of all then.

Because they were my challenge.

Because, if I could work my way through this Dreaming Room, where nothing at all was going my way, then I could work my way through any Dreaming Room, any Dreaming Room at all.

A Dreaming Room with a thousand people in it. Or a Dreaming Room
with only three people in it. A Dreaming Room for sophisticated Dreamers and a Dreaming Room for Dreamers who hadn’t had a Dream in 34 years! A Dreaming Room for retiring professionals, or a Dreaming Room for aging Exotic Dancers. A Dreaming Room for Coaches, and a Dreaming Room for Couches.

If I could just work my way through this Dreaming Room, Dreaming Room #15, I thought to myself this weary, wearing, wonderful weekend, I could work my way through any Dreaming Room at all.

And if that was true, well, then just think about it.

If that was true, than I could discover the way to blow the minds of any and all, through the Dreaming Room process I am inventing one Dreaming Room at a time, then I could expand The Dreaming Room to include not only any Dreaming Room audience at all, but any size audience at all, anywhere in the world.

And, if I could do THAT --- and ladies and gentlemen, I AM, I AM, I AM --- then we will awaken the entrepreneur in a gazillion sleeping people over the next 10 years, and by doing so, we will, literally, dear friends, transform the world!

Holy Moly! Welcome to The Dreaming Room. Because Life is more than just wearing out. It’s all about glowing within.

And if anyone from Dreaming Room #15 want to make a point, don’t be timid, don’t hold back, jump right in!

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Article Tags: camper, colorful flora, dreaming room, ears, editorial license, family counselor, jaw bones, manifesto, mud, quicksand, rolfer, scenery, shoulders, six years, tent



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