Delusional Dreaming: How I Use Gratitude and Big Thinking as a Motivational Tactic

If you’re anything like me you might be a dreamer.

Someone who is a big picture thinker — who leads with their heart, and sometimes along the way, gets a little heartbroken.

Time + pressure make diamonds — we’ve all heard that saying.

What no one ever told you though (or me at least) is how slowly that time seems to crawl along.

How closely that pressure puts you to the brink of cracking.

I’ve always been a dreamer.

Looking back, I believe a lot of that had to do with spending the first part of my life growing up in a single parent household.

I’d be lying if I were to say I didn’t have dreams of my dad walking down the street, sweeping my mom off her feet, and us living happily ever after.

That day never came.

Instead, I was blessed enough to have a stepdad who took me as his own.

One of his favorite things to do was call me, “son,” in front of friends, family, and strangers.

At the time, I didn’t have the capacity to appreciate it — more often than not, I was sheepishly embarrassed: you try developing street cred growing up with a white stepdad in the suburbs.

Hindsight’s 20–20 though, and as a 32-year old man who someday hopes to have a family of my own one day, I couldn’t be more proud to have called him my dad.

Life lessons are kind of like that, aren’t they?

Learning how to be grateful for the people, things and experiences regardless of how your gut reaction wants to tell you how to feel.

To take a deep breath, to relax and say, “thank you.”

Gratitude is a muscle, and like all muscles, it can be developed.

It’s an important education that will take you far in life.

I got fired from my day job while trying to launch a side hustle.

The fact that I wasn’t going to be able to build my passion project while taking in a six-figure income from my day job was a rude awakening I wasn’t quite prepared for.

What’s easy is working on your passion when you have a safety net.

The challenge begins though, when that safety net is gone.

What’s more difficult though, is finding your gratitude.

To appreciate the little and not so little lessons life has in store for you even if they don’t feel so good.

I’ve been working on not living my life based on absolutes: defining things as “good,” or “bad,” or any other label for that matter, typically puts my thinking into a box that up until recently, I haven’t been comfortable with.

Things that felt bad at the time, ended up being a blessing years later.

Experiences that felt “good,” in the present, ended up feeling like a burn in retrospect.

An ex-girlfriend of mine told me once, “I really wish you could learn to live in the present,” which was probably one of the biggest lessons I learned in my 30’s, and the beginning to the development of my gratitude “muscle.”

As a dreamer, I’ve always been so focused on what’s in store, that I typically wasn’t around for what was actually happening.

I’ve been traveling Europe for the past 6 weeks — in addition to attending a friends wedding, I had a chance to visit some family, and do a little traveling.

I’m currently sitting in my friend Julie’s apartment in Paris — rather than having to rent an Airbnb, she’s allowed me to stay at her place for the past 2 weeks while I get some work done.

A welcome break — I needed a change of pace from some of the stress I was dealing with in Los Angeles.

As a startup founder, quite literally everything falls on your shoulders.

After getting fired, cashing in my 401K and taking a one day course on how to find purpose in your work, I launched Food Tribe.

The speaker that day, Adam Smiley Poswolsky, said that in order to find purpose in your work, you’d need to combine:

• Your talents
• The impact you wanted to have
• The lifestyle you wanted to live

That day was the beginning of the rest of my life — shortly after, I launched Food Tribe and hadn’t looked back.

A “delusional dreamer,” I knew that I wanted to create something big.

Like really big.

Having grown up the youngest in a single parent household, I had a certain penchant for getting attention.

A marketer in the making.

In addition, my mother and brother would always tell me that I was a kind child.

“You were always trying to save the world,” my brother recently told me.

The second part of Smiley’s equation was there — my impact was to help people.

As I sit here in Paris, sipping a cup of tea and listening to my favorite mellow playlist (check out Spotify’s Jazz Vibes playlist and thank me later) — I can’t help but remember that I also “wanted to have enough money to travel whenever I wanted.

Smiley’s equation was sound, and I’m proof.

The journey to get here though, has been perfectly the most challenging thing I’ve ever done.

And this is coming from a guy who lost 170 pounds via diet and exercise.

Entrepreneurship at its finest tells you who the best version of yourself is.

And it also tells you who the worst version of yourself is.

And there ago — living in ultimates again.

Here’s what I mean — as a delusional dreamer, I can see the big picture, the end goal, and just how magical that “moment,” is going to be, whenever it arrives.

The problem with dreams though is that they don’t always equate the work, effort, planning and execution to get there.

The pressures of life get to me.

I’m constantly second guessing myself — my motivations, my ability, my plan.

On the other side of the equation, i don’t believe there’s anyone who can do the job I’m looking to do BUT me.

A constant battle within.

And what’s crazy, is that both sides of my rationale are correct.

Henry Ford once famously said, “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.”

Which is why I’ve chosen to live in the middle, or what I believe my ex was trying to teach me — to be present for the “good” and “bad” in life, free of judgment, but seeking understanding and gratitude.

Grateful for the lessons learned — which are more often than not painful. Sometimes excruciatingly painful considering how impatient I am.

To use my wins as opportunities for reflection and growth, and ideally, as an opportunity to help make someone else’s life a little easier.

Which takes me to the title of this post.

Its taken me sometime, but I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I’m ok with being the crazy guy in the room.

The guy who gets excited about what’s coming up.

Who sees the big picture, and how many people I have the opportunity to help if I can just get there.

I’m also ok with knowing that I don’t know everything.

That the ride is going to be bumpy, and oftentimes scary.

That there are other people I need to consider.

Other people who want to help me get better.

Who’ve done before, and can provide guidance as I reach the pinnacle of self.

I’m grateful for the lessons learned and the dreams dreamed because they offer a sneak peek of my soul — that living, breathing thing who is constantly evolving as I feed it with my experiences.

I write this post today not in pain, but in awareness that this is a journey that I CHOSE.

While some arguments exist on the impact of society and culture and family have on decision making, I acknowledge the freedom to choose what I allow to influence me.

While I didn’t choose the scars, I did choose the battles.

So rather than sit here complaining about it, I’m going to get back to work.

Working on building my dreams.

The work of being a delusion — as a I seek a version of myself who can call this life one that was well lived.

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