Who are you allowing to steal your dreams?

Fun is not a dirty word. Seriously.

In fact, fun is your secret weapon, in business, in life in your relationships in challenging times, good times, and frustrating times and whether you feel like it or not. Happiness is your secret weapon. How long has it been since you have experienced that amazing contagious, unstoppable head dizzying happiness? How long has it been since you put your head back and laughed until you had tears running down your face? And maybe even your legs? How long has it been since you laughed so hard, your face hurt and your ribs felt like someone punched to you? For most of us, the answer is, it's been way too long.

So where is the joy we once felt? And can we get it back? What if there was a way? Well ready your face muscles. The fun is not a dirty word challenge begins Monday, May 17. And runs five days through Friday, May 21. And all you have to do is head to the link in the show notes and get enrolled. It's 100%. free for you. And my dear, I can't wait to prove to you that fun is not only not a dirty word, but it is what you need. Every single day. I was recently posed this question. Who are you allowing to steal your dreams? It's kind of a trick question because no one steals your dreams. Not a spouse, not a parent, not a sibling, not a friend, not your haters, not yourself. no one steals your dreams. You give them away. We give them away quite freely. In fact, we give them away. They're not stolen at all. We are born with such powerful imaginations. When we're children, we spend hours daydreaming, watch a toddler playing outside, they don't even need a toy. They will make the most amazing games up because they allow their dreams they allow their imaginations to lead the way. They're creative.

They love their surroundings, they're mindful of their surroundings. ever call the toddler in or a young child in for dinner. You know why they can't break away because their imagination is in full force. when my kids were little, we had a trampoline in the backyard. And that trampoline was everything from something to jump on to an incredible bed to sleep on and watch the stars. Sometimes it was the very object of a great forensic mystery. They would come in the house, or my oldest daughter loved forensic science as even as a little girl. And she would come in she was maybe eight years old and she would question me on the DB which is the dead body underneath the trampoline. She was fascinated with entomology, forensic entomology, the study of bugs on about issues to watch CSI with me when she was all the way up till she was probably 14 or 15 years old. And she loved it. her imagination was so it was always in full force. Always. And yes, she went to college for forensic entomology. her imagination never turned off. What what turned her on. She went after all of my kids were like that. They had these these powerful imaginations and they could dream and they would play But somewhere along the lines when we grow up, we lose that. And we give our dreams away. I was also asked recently what my superpower is. And I think about this all the time. And when you are interviewed on my podcast or when you come on my podcast, that's one of my questions. What's your version of your pal pal shows? What is your superpower. And my superpower is connection. It is connecting you back to your dreams, it's connecting you to others.

My superpower is helping you reconnect with your dreams and step into the power of them. We are all born with this gift of dreaming and intuition. We've all experienced that still small voice in our in our heads trying to tell us something trying to get a point over. The thing is as we get older, we start to ignore that voice. we prioritize function and practicality over our intuition that gut feeling maybe chills that go up your spine or that feeling in your stomach that's like a punch in the gut when you know something's not quite right. The world around us praises logic.

They want fact, how many companies give you an hour in the afternoon, that is time for you to think and reconnect? How many companies say okay, make sure that you schedule in thinking time today. They don't want thinking time. They want productivity. Go go go go, go go go. I don't know if you could hear me snapping my fingers. But that's the way the world is. We're told to think rationally. Right? How many of you have here have heard something so emotional? Gosh, you let your emotions get in the way? How many times? Did you How many times have you because I've done this, this is not a judgment call. You go off and you do this thing that you just know isn't right. And then when it all falls to pieces, you're like, shoot, I had a feeling that was going to happen. Why didn't I listen? our intuition talks with us, we're all born connected to our intuition and to our dreams. That's a guide. That's an inner guide. And if we can't hear that voice, if we can't hear that inner guide, we're destined to chase someone else's dream, because we're too exhausted, to chase our own. You deserve way more than that. You deserve to follow your own dreams, your own intuition. You deserve to have thinking time. That's why we end every single podcast episode with a journaling prompt. Because when you don't take the time to think when you don't take that time to be quiet with yourself, life becomes this wheel that a durable runs on life becomes harder, because you're not even doing what you were created and born to do. Again, it's not a judgment call, because we all fall into it. There are days where all think, gosh, I haven't picked up my journal in a month.

We all fall into that rat race. But let me challenge you to take your dreams back. Let me challenge you to reconnect with you and who you are. Let me challenge you to take the time to dream to schedule in thinking time. Instead of working through lunch at your desk, Leave, leave the office, sit in your car if you need to take a walk, reconnect with yourself and the things that you really want out of life. Your Dreams are still there. And they're waiting for you to acknowledge them. How do we do that? How do we do that? Let's talk about meditation and intuition. Three steps here. First one is meditate meditation and intuition. Meditate. Okay, so stop rolling your eyes. I'm not saying you have to do it daily. I'm not saying that you have to sit for 40 minutes a day and chant. But I am saying to take a few minutes every day to sit with yourself and create space to hear your intuition to create space to pay attention to your dreams. Pay attention. Meditation doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to be long. Let's call Thinking time, thinking time, time to reconnect with who you are time to reconnect with what you really want.

Meditate, be silent with yourself. And then and then pay attention to what comes in, have a notebook with you. So that when those when those inner voices start speaking, you can start writing it down. Even keep that notebook next to you, maybe you'll have dreams, when you start doing this, you may start having dreams, because your dreams are there to work out the things that are going through your head. And if you wake up, grab that notebook and just kind of jot down what you dreamed about. As soon as you wake up from a dream, start writing it, because they they fade quickly. review them later and see if there's anything that's relevant. Meditate and pay attention to those dreams and follow your intuition. Listen to the cues, it builds your confidence to that, to that inner voice, that inner sense. We have those chills, we have those gut punches, we know when we're supposed to follow something. And when we're supposed to walk away, we just so often ignore it, we are so used to ignoring it that we don't even realize we're doing it. So let's start paying attention. Meditate, listen to your dreams, follow your intuition. Number two, practice mindfulness. We're on autopilot most of the time. We are programmed to execute the same thing at the same time, day in, day out. And it's not just our physical actions, we think the same things every day, we unconsciously repeat these self fulfilling mantras, if you will. We see them over and over again, I'll never be able to get out of this job. I have such a failure. I'm too old to do what I want. And we repeat these things. So it's not just that we got to but we do the same thing every day.

But then we start repeating the same things the same, probably negative things over and over again. But when you start practicing mindfulness, when you start thinking about your steps, instead of being on autopilot, when you get up what if you got up and you thought about everything you're doing? What if you paid attention, that same notebook, start writing down those thought processes you have. So that you can then you can be mindful about it. And take those unconscious scripts in your head and rewrite them to,

I am not too old to follow my dreams, I am valuable, my dreams are valuable. Start being mindful of your thoughts so that you can reframe them, start being mindful of what you're doing so that you can maybe do something different. Maybe when you get up in the morning, instead of grabbing your phone and started going through social media, maybe you spend time with you. Maybe you spend a few minutes, being mindful, maybe you spend a few minutes listening to your intuition, meditating, sitting still and journaling. Starting your journal prompt with Wouldn't it be amazing if and letting your mind just dump on the paper, what would be so amazing, your dreams will come out, you'll be quieting the noise in your head and create space for you to focus on the thoughts that are there that are hidden. And you can practice it anytime, anyplace. So instead of getting in your car, turning the radio or on or turning music on, or when you go out for a walk instead of immediately plugging in a podcast, spend some time in silence. Just be silent with yourself. See if you can hear more of that intuition creeping in. And number three, nurture your creativity. When you nurture your creativity, you start identifying those self limiting beliefs. And you start remembering the imagination you had as a child.

One way that I did this in this was quite by accident. When I broke my right wrist I learned very quickly to write with my left hand. And what I found that found was that when I used my left hand to write, my creative side became very, very strong. It tapped into my self conscious my subconscious, more than when I write with my right hand because I had to slow down. I had to think more about what I was writing, which connected with a different part of my brain because I had to slow down I'm not well, I guess I'm ambidextrous now I'm pretty good with my left hand now because I had to write with it for so long. But it slowed me down enough that I started to tap into my creative side. And I'm sure there's a neuro neuro part of that, that a neuro neuro physician or a neuroscientist could tell us the scientific reason by I'm Matt. But tap into your creative side, switch hands, right with your non dominant hand and see if your creativity doesn't flip back on. When you are mindful and when you are meditating and listening to your intuition, your creativity is going to kick it up a notch or two or 10. We deserve to have our dreams we deserve to light up. We deserve to, to walk in the life we were created to walk in. No one is stealing your dreams but you they are not being stolen. You are literally handing them off. Stop handing your dreams away. You're worthy of them. You deserve them, and the world deserves them. Your journal prompt today is this. The dream that I have forgotten is write it out. The dream I have forgotten is write it out. And the second part is the next step I will take on the way to my dream is so it's two parts.

First, identify the dream and then identify the next step. And along the way, don't forget to laugh. Don't forget to have fun. I have a free challenge coming up. As you heard earlier on embracing happiness, head to the show notes and get enrolled in that challenge. Because reconnecting with your dreams is a whole lot easier. When you are reconnecting with the fun and the happiness and the joy in your life.