Hazen Christensen

Dream killers and stealers really tick me off. What is it that gives them the right to shatter another’s dream? The bad thing is that the world is full of these dream killers. Parents, friends, teachers and coworkers do it all the time to people whether they realize it or not. In my opinion those who say it can’t be done, shouldn’t attempt to crush the people trying to do it.

The sad truth is that not everyone will get behind your dreams. I will never forget the day that I spoke to a career counselor about one of the first business ideas I had as a sophomore in college. I had the idea to build a career search website with videos from top experts in every field. Picture Monster meets thousands of mini instructional documentaries and materials on how to get jobs. Basically you could search for any job, and get advice on what the job was like from qualified experts in video format. You could learn what their personal experiences were, how to climb up the ladder, what to do what not to do, the real stories of what it was really like, strategies for getting the job and much more. Pretty cool idea… eh?

I asked her advice about how to accomplish my dream. She quickly gave me hundreds of reasons why I couldn’t do it. There was too much competition from other companies, It wasn’t a good idea and people wouldn’t buy into it, I wasn’t “qualified,” I didn’t know anything about business, my major was wrong, who was going to fund a crazy idea like that…. yada, yada, yada… she killed my dream. As I was getting up to leave, this career woman asked me: “Why do you want to start a business in the first place? You are too young to be an entrepreneur. Why don’t you go work for someone else for a few years and then THINK about starting something on your own.” I left her office beaten. Sadly, I gave up that dream and never pursued it further. Guess what Monster just launched not too long ago? Career Snapshot. Basically a stripped down version of a similar concept. Hmm… Not such a bad idea after all was it career lady???

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill

Something I always say, “Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something – especially friends, family, and strangers. The only person that has to buy into you… is YOU. YOU HAVE TO BECOME YOUR OWN CHEERLEADER! If you buy into what others say you may wind up with what they have.” Do you really want that? Follow your dreams and don’t listen to these dream killers who rarely know what they are talking about in the first place.