I saw this image and I was immediately transported back to my favorite book from childhood, The Phantom Tollbooth written by Norton Juster and imaginatively illustrated by Jules Feiffer. Though the book is on its face an adventure story, a major theme is the need for a love of education; through this, Milo applies what he has learned in school, advances in his personal development, and learns to love the life that previously bored him. 

Milo and Tock travel to Dictionopolis, one of two capital cities of the divided Kingdom of Wisdom, and home to King Azaz the Unabridged. Here, he learns how the two rulers, King Azaz and his brother, the Mathemagician, had two adopted younger sisters, Rhyme and Reason, to whom everyone came to settle disputes. All lived in harmony until the rulers disagreed with the princesses’ decision that letters (championed by Azaz) and numbers (by the Mathemagician) were equally important. They banished the princesses to the Castle in the Air, and since then, the land has had neither Rhyme nor Reason.

Norton Juster mastered the use of homophones in this book, meaning words that sound the same but are different in meaning or spelling. I was so excited by this book, I made my parents read it. If I were smarter… I would have asked them to option it. It has since been made into films, operas, plays and translated into most languages.

Building a castle in the air is the essence of the biggest daydreams. Elon Musk is doing it with colonizing Mars and converting America into auto driving electric vehicles. Kennedy did it when he promised we would get to the moon in that decade, knowing we did not have the knowledge or resource to do it. In Good to Great, Jim Collins refers to this process in business as a BHAG. Big Hairy Audacious Goal. People rally around BHAGs like none other. Sizzle is a BHAG and that is why our team is so proud and dedicated to achieving it.

I realized at a very early age that I was addicted to the experience of promising The Illusion Factory could do something that no one else had ever done. Then committing to a time line and a budget. Right after the deposit was received, I always had the same first reaction… a giant lump in my throat and an intense fear of what the hell had I just committed to? But the truth always proved the same… you end up taking a first step with either the left foot or the right one. In either case, it was probably the wrong one… but it was the first step of a journey we had committed to. The only option left was to do what we said we were going to do and surpass all of our expectations.

If I could impart any single thought into the mind of a very young entrepreneurial mind, it would be this….. never, ever limit your dreams, as no dream is too large for contemplation, consideration and development. Even if you fall short of the dream itself, the quest to get there will bear fruit for something magical, almost without exception. 

And once that castle has been visualized, as Thoreau so aptly states….put the foundations under them.

Happy Saturday!

The Phantom Tollbooth

What ultimately does it mean when we say, follow your heart?

Does it mean it is appropriate for us to discard rational perspective and yield entirely to emotional whim?

Or perhaps, in the course of following one’s heart, one discovers that the traditional boundaries of fear may be more elastic than we might, at first, be willing to estimate?

The opportunity to pursue something that is speaking to you from deep within, is as tempting as anything could be in life. If you are feeling some form of divine inspiration pushing you to a goal, then is it appropriate to discard all fear and give it everything you’ve got?

I do not believe there is a black-and-white answer to this quandary, there is only the answer that is appropriate to each individual when these questions are being contemplated.

I can speak from personal experience and say that I have spent most of my life following my heart, sometimes to gigantic success and other times to dismal failure. There is no cut and dry formula that I have been able to ascertain.

The best that I have been able to draw from my own personal experiences is that I must be willing to face that dismal failure and if it proves to be so, the best that I might be able to do at that moment is to learn from the failure and lean forward into the success that that this failure is propelling me into.  This has been expressed as, when one door closes another one opens.

Sizzle is jampacked full of many of the failures of my past, all aggregating into something greater. None of those failures were fun when they presented themselves, and some were downright painful. But the ability to recognize that sometimes a failure is just a point in time and not final as Churchill would say, allows us to grow from the lesson and continue to follow our hearts.

I certainly do not profess that I am right. I’m just a guy on a timeline, reporting things that I see and things that I observe and the cumulative knowledge that has come to me along the way for sole purpose of sharing with anyone who has need or desire for this kind of knowledge. 

This quotation above is from Rumi who is one of the most beautifully poetic souls of all time. I think that one of his other aphorisms has been one of the biggest driving forces of my life and is the reason why I am resolute in following my heart, knowing that there is more power within me that I might imagine. That aphorism is:  You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop.

Once you can envision that the entire holographic universe is contained in every cell of your body, the power that you are able to wield grows exponentially. And that gives you the strength to follow your heart, even when your brain is terrified at the prospect of failure.

I hope your Monday is off to a beautiful beginning!