Turn Your Vision Into Reality

By Christer Rasmusson

Christer Rasmusson is the founder of McCarthy Business Consulting and one of the leading experts within leadership and personal development in Scandinavia. In this book he will show you how to turn your vision into reality. This book is a valuable tool for anyone who is interested in leadership, in personal development, is a business owner, an entrepreneur or has the desire to become one.
Christer is well known for his ability to inspire people to achieve greater results, and as a top performance strategist he clarifies some of the most important principles that many struggles with in their leadership roles. The advice he shares with us, and the simple yet effective methods he teaches, add value not only in the workplace, but in every area of life where balance and goal setting is needed.
As a entrepreneur, business owner, husband and father his experiences are relatable, insightful and ultimately of great help to people in all walks of life or business. Christer and his wife, Maureen, are the parents of eight children and live in the south of Sweden.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Release date: Jan 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9789175692890

Book preview

(Plutarkos)

Part I

Why We Need Visions And Goals

"The biggest waste is the idea

that is never acted upon"

(Thomas Edison)

1

A Vision Without Goals Will Forever

Be The Dream You Never Lived

Dream big, small dreams have no magic. (Dottie Boreyko)

It always starts with a dream. It always has and it always will. Lets face it, everything that exists was once only imagined.

It always starts in our mind. It starts with someone having an idea. All break-throughs are really break-withs. Great successes usually come from big dreams and with somebody having the idea of doing things differently, no matter how others are doing it or how it has always been done. You’re going to need to break-with, old habits or old ways of doing things, to reach a break-through.

According to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; "The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them. If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough."

On January 16, 2006, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was sworn in as the 24th President of Liberia. She was the first ever elected female head of state in African history. Now talk about dreaming big! It always starts with a dream!

Aim for iconic. Go for legendary. Live a life that makes history. (Robin Sharma)

Finding is reserved for those that search. (Jim Rohn)

Just as achievements are reserved for those that perform. As I wrote in the introduction; The difference between the winners and the non-winners is that the winners put on their marching boots and do what the non-winners don’t do. There will be leftovers for the non-doers but it will only be what the doers leave behind.

A vision without goals will never become more then the dream you never lived, and goals without a vision will only be hard work. A vision can be about a business idea, an enterprise, lifestyle or anything that you are passionate about. Your vision should be about your inner deepest conviction, about what you really would like your life to be about. I have met people that focus on money or personal gain in their visions, and it is my experience that a vision is more fully achieved when it pertains to more meaningful desires than mere financial gain. If money is the only thing you are looking for, money is the only thing you will find. Our lives can be about so much more than the money. There is nothing wrong with making money on your dream, I just hope your dream is not about the money.

Chase the vision not the money, the money will end up following you. (Tony Hsieh)

When companies are focused on what they make, they fail to remember why they made them and they die. (Robert Kiyosaki)

I think this can also be applied to our lives. Our personal why needs to come before our what. In this context the why is our vision, or dream, and the what is our goals. Our goals are what’s needed to be done in order to turn our vision into reality. In this book I am going to focus on your passion and your inner deepest conviction, not your business. About your business will be another book.

The following story both captures what many feel and also the mindset that comes from having a clear vision. A man was walking by a quarry and saw three other men working there. They were all performing the same task. He asked the first man what he was doing, and the man replied; I am moving rocks. As he walked some more he approached the second man and asked him the same question and the second man’s response was; I am piling rocks. He walked a bit further and came to the third man and posed the same question. The third man replied; I am building a cathedral so that we can worship God in safety.

Many people that I have met during the course of my career felt that they are building someone else's dream, or in other words that they were just moving rocks, without seeing any greater purpose to their efforts. They were lacking a clear vision in their lives. If you don’t have a vision the risk is great that you are spending your time fulfilling some one else's goals and dreams, and it’s very likely that you don’t have the right mindset. Because lets face it, we are all in fact moving rocks. One of the keys to success lies in seeing the bigger picture. Those that can see the bigger picture can also recognize what the hard work is leading up to. Successful people have seen, in their minds, the cathedral they are building and understand that those rocks must be moved in order for the cathedral to be completed. An Important point to note from this story is that the third man did not only know what task he was doing, building a cathedral, but he also knew why he was doing it; so we can worship God in safety. We need to start with the end in our mind, to know what we would like to accomplish in our life. We need to identify our own personal why. We need to find what our lives are about.

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. (Viktor Frankl)

It’s not enough to ask what your purpose is, it’s about realizing that you have a purpose and you need to find it.

Your vision should involve adding value to the lives of others. Your vision should describe how you would wish to go about doing that. That vision is your why. It’s not the cathedral you are building, but rather the reason for why you are building it. In the previous story the man’s reason was "so that we can worship God in safety".

Let me take a moment to share with you my own personal vision, my personal why. It’s Inspiring people to live their dreams. My cathedral is my business, McCarthy Business Consulting AB. To build that business I have to shift rocks like everyone else. You could say that the seminars I have developed and given through the years, the blog I am running, the CD and DVD that I have made, the coaching programs and workshops etc, have all been rocks that I have piled, to build my business enabling me to live my vision. My business is the key to living my dream, the key to inspiring others to live theirs. That is what I want to do more abundantly and do all over the world. Clearly this book is another rock that I can add to my cathedral.

It is commonly believed, within the field of human behavioral studies, that all people have basic needs. My experience and conclusion is that we all share the following four needs; To Live, To Love and be Loved, To Grow and To Add value to the lives of others.

When it comes to our need; "To Live", I believe there are three sub categories, which are; Security, Health and Finances. I see many people that are holding on way too tightly to the their need for security. We all have that need but those that achieve their goals are neither run, nor ruined, by it. We can not turn a vision into reality, therein reaching our dream, while at the same time remaining comfortable. We can not reach our dream meanwhile we are clinging on to our need for security. We are eventually going to have to give up on one of them, in order to reach our dream.

You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want. (Zig Ziglar)

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. (Winston Churchill)

Unless we lose ourselves in the service to others, there is little purpose to our own lives. (Thomas S. Monson)

Work for your own success, but ensure that your achievements lift up the wider community. My opinion is that all too often not enough attention is given to the fourth need; Adding value to the lives of others.

I once read someone explain how they define success; Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and abilities are used in a way that served others. (Unknown)

The bottom line is that your why, your reason for building the cathedral, should be about adding value to the lives of others. You should start with the end in mind, to know what you would like your life to be about. In the end you need to know what you would like to be remembered for. Is it for what you were or is it because of who you were? Is it because of your status or for your values and principles you lived by? Would you like to be remembered for what you had or for what you gave?

One day you’ll be just a memory for some people. Do your best to be a good one. (Unknown)

Or as Mother Teresa put it; Some people come in your life as blessings. Some people come in your life as lessons.

I am sure she does not mean that those people that are lessons in our lives are teachers. I think she means they are a trial or test to us. So the relevant question for us all to ask ourselves is; Am I a blessing or a lesson to others?

My beliefs and experiences have lead me to the conclusion that when we add value to others value will be added to our own lives. As a motivational speaker and coach I get to meet a lot of people that have dreams or visions but they are too insecure to take the steps that are needed to live their dreams. My life is about inspiring people to develop the faith, in themselves, that is needed to take those steps. That is also what this book is about. I have built my life and business around this. My business is my cathedral and Inspiring people to live their dreams is my reason for building it - it’s my why.

History is filled with inspiring stories of how an inner conviction has inspired people, more then the hope of money has, to accomplish great achievements. The following is how I was given to understand that the classic novel A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens came about.

Charles Dickens had achieved great success with his book The tale of two cities. Charles was now on a contract to write more books and had been given a substantial advance on the understanding that the said books would swiftly follow. The money was accepted and spent. The books, however, failed to materialize. The deadline grew closer and closer and Mr Dickens started to be very concerned about his predicament and the consequences that his breach of contract risked bringing down upon his family. He understood that his name would be dishonored and he and his family would have to leave their house and their comfortable lifestyle and could conceivable end up in the poorhouse, a thought which understandably filled Charles with dread. Simply put, they would go hungry if he did not deliver. He desperately needed to write something, but nothing, nothing at all, came to him. He stopped eating, and sleep became out of the question, causing his family to be very concerned for his welfare. Needless to say, the gifted author was under an extreme amount of pressure. To calm his mind, and to maybe find some morsel of inspiration, he started to take long walks during the nights. The setting is London in the 18hundreds. During these walks he witnessed a level of poverty he had never really considered before. He saw very young children working long and hard hours, as well as the inevitable prostitution and criminality.

Charles was suddenly aware of a London he had not payed any attention to previously, and he became filled with a desire to make a difference. To make other people aware of the utterly abominable circumstances that these unfortunates were forced to live in. While his writing now took on a different purpose, to make people aware of the misery of so many and to create in others a desire to make a difference, he begin the writing of A Christmas Carol. He wrote swiftly and purposefully, completing the entire book in a short time. The story did indeed cast a light onto a hitherto dark world of the poorer quarters of London. Note that when Charles Dickens was under a lot of pressure to write due to the financial aspect of his contract he simply could not deliver. When his writing, however, became based on a higher purpose and a desire to improve the situation of others, the story came flowing and the book was written in the shortest time ever, bringing mr Dickens world fame and literary immortality, with the story of Mr Scrooge as well known today as when it was first published.

I would also like to share a short version of the events that lead up to Great Britain’s involvement in WWII, and the man that had an unusually heavy burden to bear when his country’s future seemed fraught with danger.

It was September 30th, 1938. Some may remember the date, but most of us will remember seeing the famous photograph of Britain’s Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, standing at an airport and holding up documents. His firm opinion that the war will not come to us had driven him to disregard efforts by other politicians within the cabinet to prepare the country against the possibility of invasion. The documents had been signed by Adolf Hitler, and were an official treaty, intended to ultimately ensure Great Britain an amnesty against the war that was raging through parts of Europe. The words that Mr Chamberlain proclaimed that day, Peace in our time! as he waved the treaty, would give only a short lived sense of security for the people Britain. With the news that Germany had, on September 1st 1939, invaded Poland (a clear breach of the treaty) the people of Britain had to accept that the war had indeed come to them none the less. Unfortunately any time there had once been to make preparations for what was to come had passed. Prime Minister Chamberlain resigned his post on May 10th 1940, the country being in an extremely precarious state. The reigning monarch, King George VI, turned to Winston Churchill a member of Parliament, calling upon him to form a new government. Churchill had long since been expressing his distrust for Hitler and aggressively so. Mr Chamberlain had himself suggested to the King that Churchill would be the right man to take up the fight against Nazi Germany. When Mr Churchill later wrote in his journal, referring to this time, and the huge responsibility that was laid upon his shoulders, he explained that he felt as though his whole life had been preparing him for the this very task. He added to the journal entry the famous observation "I feel as if I am walking with