Living your dream worth hard work
Almost every successful person in the world follows a few golden rules, writes Amy Nelmes Bissett.
Walt Disney once said, ‘‘If you can dream it, you can do it.’’ And he did. He transformed his dream of being a cartoonist into a multi-million dollar company, winning 21 Oscars and building a legacy as one of the world’s greatest storytellers.
But the journey was hardly a smooth one. The trajectory from dream to reality rarely is.
Disney dropped out of school at 16, and when his dream was finally within grabbing distance, he was smacked with bankruptcy.
Nearly everyone has their own dream. They come in varying shapes and flavours.
Some of the best ideas in the world crumble at the first obstacle, and others seem to have a meteoric rise to unprecedented success. It’s this uncertainty that stops many of us chasing our dreams.
In 2017, 65,930 Kiwis decided to turn their dream into an enterprise. The same year, 57,500 enterprises ceased operating. If the odds feel against you, it’s because they are.
But the world is punctuated by success stories. While there’s no hard and fast formula, there are a few golden rules.
Don’t overthink your dream Qiujing Wong is the CEO for Borderless, a boutique company that creates videos, ads and documentaries, as well as marketing campaigns and strategies for NGOs, charities and government agencies in New Zealand.
Hers is an ideas business, working with clients on the most engaging way to tell a story. But she says the one lesson she’s learned is not to find solutions to problems that haven’t arisen.
‘‘I would rather recommend to people that if you have enough to get going, get going and take it from there,’’ says Qiujing.
‘‘If you make a little mistake or a blip comes along, then fix it as you go.’’
Hard work is the metric of success
Marissa Mayer was once called the ‘‘the hardest working CEO in Silicon Valley, bar none’’.
She worked 130-hour weeks at Google, pulling an all-nighter at least once a week. ‘‘These companies don’t just happen.’’ Mayer once admitted. ‘‘They happen because of hard work.’’
It’s not always an easy ride Chasing one’s dream is very rarely a smooth journey, and almost every successful person will have their own tale of adversity – but also how it was beneficial for their resilience.
Jasmine Jenke was awarded an AMP Scholarship for Humans of South Auckland, a website that raises the profiles of everyday Kiwis in the area. It was an alternative way to support people with mental health issues.
It was a dream borne from the death of one of her students when she was teaching at Papatoetoe High School and, today, the Facebook group for Humans of South Auckland has 28,000 followers.
‘‘I was really moved that life was so tough for many young people,’’ Jasmine says.
Keep an eye on your values When Qiujing was awarded an AMP Scholarship, she suddenly had more funds to push towards global storytelling for Borderless.
She and her business partner and husband, Dean Easterbrook, travelled to Kenya to make Grandmother’s Tribe ,a documentary about groups of grandmothers raising children orphaned by Aids. It helped raise funds, which were redistributed back to these women.
And in 2011, the business had the capability to expand.
‘‘Dean and I started Borderless because we love what we do and we really believe we can do some cool things.
‘‘We want to stay close enough to the action. We want to be part of the story. We don’t want to just sit in the director’s chair and collect the cheque at the end of the month. We were never overly motivated by money.’’
AEnable yourself to thrive Sylvie Moreau is the president of professional beauty at Coty with a portfolio of $US1.8 billion, with Wella and GHD just a couple of the brands she oversees.
Her advice has always been simple – surround yourself with a capable team and give your dreams the best environment to grow into something tangible.
‘‘I think you lead successfully in this current age by building a team. If your team is good, your business is good,’’ she says.
Content produced as part of a partnership with AMP Scholarships