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My dad had a favorite author that he loved to talk about.  It didn’t matter if you were a stranger on aisle 7 or a guest around our dinner table, my father would seize any opportunity to share the gospel of Napoleon Hill.  As a young immigrant, my dad had everything to gain when he came to America.  He built his business, his family, and he even designed his own house. Starting with only a suitcase in hand, he bet on himself time and again even when that belief did not make sense.  

A few years down the road his dear friend gave him a book that transformed the next chapter of his life.  Think and Grow Rich was the key that unlocked an entirely new way of living.  To think bigger, dream wildly and the most important component that Mr. Hill repeatedly shares, you must set a deadline.  A dream is just a dream, but a dream with a deadline is a goal.  A goal can breathe.  A goal can grow legs and eventually run the marathon set before it.  A goal can change your life.

Growing up in our household I didn’t want to hear about Napoleon Hill and I certainly didn’t want to read the book.  I loved and will always love my father very much, but we still had our differences.  He was hard headed and I was stubborn. He wanted to keep his little girl little and I wanted to soar.  He didn’t know how to raise a daughter in America with American culture as the backdrop of our lives and I was not the Indian daughter he expected me to be.  Two cultures playing out constantly under one roof.  In the later years, I understood better.  Having my own kids changed me and softened my rough childhood edges.  I saw his limitations and the way he was raised.  I have come to understand that being bi-racial is a gift, that my life is richer because of my heritage.  Years of emotional scrapbooking and doing my best to take the best parts and leave the hurts and hang ups in the past has been one of the greatest mining expeditions of my life. 

One of the things I picked up was Napoleon Hill.  Reading his book is like having a beautiful and very familiar conversation with my father.  As if he were right here with me, even though we said goodbye two years ago last August.  Throughout his lifetime, I would imagine my dad gave away hundreds of copies of Think and Grow Rich.  To friends, family members and strangers alike.  When he spoke about it, his face lit up and you could hear the excitement in his voice, as if he were telling you that night’s winning lottery numbers. To him, it was better than the lottery because this was real and could work for anyone. All it took was a dream with a deadline attached and the willingness to put in the work.

Oftentimes we get stuck before we even leave the gate.  We see all the thorns and land mines.  We ruminate on how much we don’t know and every worst case scenario possible.  And then we freeze like an animal caught in a predator’s sightline.  Sometimes we freeze for so long, we forget how to move.  We surrender to the mundane, everyday routines of life and forget we ever had big dreams at all.  

The truth is nothing changes if nothing changes.  

In our comfort zone we cling to being busy with both hands, but it is just an illusion.  Our busyness does not equate to progress, it just fills our time.  Especially when we hand over our schedules and let everyone else pencil in their agendas.  I think sometimes we get hung up on the big goals, the life altering dreams and we forget how to take the first step.  How one step can lead to another and six months can turn into a few years.  Time is our best friend if we use it wisely.  If we map out the dream vacation, timeline for the new business, and breakdown the numbers for a college education, suddenly the small steps feel doable.  The mini-marathons are not quite so overwhelming and time actually starts to feel like a gift rather than a thief.

Everything changes when things change.  

The trajectory for my life was greatly altered when my dad decided to get on an airplane and move to America.  When he walked up to my mom in a grocery store and asked her to help him find the milk and then married her a year later.  Leaving her tiny postage stamp of a town in Oregon for sunny California, was a huge decision for my mom which led to a completely transformed life, especially when she met my dad.

When my father read a book that shaped the philosophy of our family, it started a chain reaction of how we would see the world and all the possibilities in it.  My brother and I never knew life without Napoleon Hill or his philosophies alongside mashed potatoes and green beans at our dinner table.  My dad’s desire to give us a world where even our wildest dreams were possibilities was one of his greatest passions.  I can still hear it in his voice, it is a memory I will tuck in my heart forever. 

We don’t know how all our choices will play out.  How our dreams will affect others around us.  The greatest gift we can give each other and ourselves is the unmistakable, unshakeable belief that a goal is just a dream with a timeline attached.  And when we create a plan, apply our best efforts and chase down that goal, we really can do anything. 

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