Brad Webster: Making Your Mark
Brad Webster is brand strategist/ creative director at Webster Branding Strategy & Design. This week, on Sam’s Dream Blog, Brad shares about the importance of planning, taking risks and having right beliefs during the dreaming process.
Sam's Dream Blog: What’s your professional dream?
Brad Webster: To propel people, give them an opportunity to step into their own calling. Some of the best ways I can do that emotionally is to encourage people and continually call out their potential. Practically I can be a person who provides opportunity. So basically, my professional dream is to hire people with potential, give them an opportunity to do what they love and earn a good income.
SDB: What accomplishment are you most proud of?
Brad Webster: Some highlights are putting on a benefit concert for the Costa Rican rainforest when I was younger. I had some connections and brought in Anthony Kiedis, who is the lead singer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers... I used to be a sponsored snowboarder, so getting on the Airwalk snowboard team in '97 was cool... Also I was a snowboard coach and coached two of my kids to national championships.
SDB: What have been the biggest obstacles or challenges to realizing your dream? What advice do you have for others in pursuit of their dreams?
Brad Webster: The main thing is follow through. When we have a dream, we almost always imagine that dream in full glory, but it's quite a process to slog through the initial start-up part. There are details we never thought about, as well as road blocks and disappointments.
Often money can be an obstacle, and right now, for me, that is. What I am learning, and the advice I would give others, is to make a plan. Pretend you have the money sitting there and then make your plan. It needs to be a real plan, not just a pretty plan for investors, one that you will actually execute. At the end of the day, the ones leading any conversation will be the people who actually did it - whether it's a bad movie or a good movie, a book, a business idea, whatever. If you don't do something, there will be nothing to talk about, only what others have done.
SDB: What steps have you taken to get to where you are presently?
Brad Webster: Easy: risk. At the end of the day, you can plan all you want, but at some point, you have to step off the end of the dock. You have to push away and actually try it. It was scary to leave a steady paycheck, and it's always a risk. Any dream you have is a risk inviting you to push the envelope in some area. Otherwise it wouldn't feel so appealing or enticing. That is one step.
Another is having a plan. A third is having people believe in you. You need people to push you on when you don't know if it's possible anymore. I needed to know my wife backed me in my risk. Having people run with you is really, really important.
Wealth is not about money. Wealth is about influence. It is that simple. When you believe that you are powerful and you can make a positive difference in the world around you by going after your dreams, you move forward. When we move forward and bring change, we create momentum for ourselves and hope in others that change is possible.
If you ever speak to a homeless person, they may have definitely had some bad things happen, but the difference is they have lost their belief that they can influence or change the situation. They think if something in the system was changed, or somebody else would make a decision to help them, then things would be different. They basically have lost their influence on their own life. They believe they have 0% influence and the cold, hard world has 100% over them. But it's just a deception. It's a wrong belief. So always believe that you can do something to make a difference.
You pursuing your dream will bring personal fulfillment to you as well as release the potential for others to be inspired by you, and go after their own. Others will see them, and it creates a strong ripple effect. You can do it!
Thanks for stopping by Sam’s Dream Blog!