Every dream is valid, as long as it doesn’t contravene godliness, legality and good conscience. I don’t decide the validity of people’s dreams; that would be making myself God. I’ve read and seen incredible dreams come to fruition. So, your dream is valid, and the onus lies on you to prove that and bring that dream to reality.
However, you can’t dictate how much an investor will invest in your dream whether in terms of finance, mentorship, access to a given market, time etc.
On the surface, every dreamer believes in his dream as the next best thing. While this mindset is good, other parameters make an investor decide whether you are worth investing in. Because in the end, the investment is not really on your dreams, but on you. Dreams walk on human legs and work on human hands to be brought to reality. I’m not talking about how much money you have in the bank or your skillset. Just tiny but important things that show that you believe in that dream.
Four things investors look out for
1. One sign I look out for in people who talk about their dreams is if they are willing to invest their time into making that dream work. Listen, a test of a dream is often in how much time you are willing to invest in it daily until it is realised. Any dream that you are not willing to invest precious time in, including time for other important things, is not worth it. You should be sucked into your dream that you wish you had more time to work on it. That shows you believe in it.
2. Another sign that you believe in your dream is your willingness to invest your money in it. You must be the first investor in your dream. If you can’t put down your money for it, you have no right to ask me to invest mine in the same. If you believe that your dream is worth it, then you don’t need me to tell you that you must feed it with your money. Your money may not be enough, but it must be there. Then, I’ll gladly add mine to advance that dream.
3. The third thing I look out for is what you are willing to lose to make that dream come to reality. You see, sometimes, it is not what you are willing to put in that makes a dream work, but what you are willing to let go. Life is full of trade-offs. And many of these trade-offs are incompatible with each other. Not everything has to do with balance; some dreams require that you have to let go of certain things, some momentarily and others permanently. If you are a Christian, you can’t say that you are a righteous sinner or a sinning righteous man. Those are contradicting statements. It is either you have left sin and so righteous or you are still a sinner.
4. You must be willing to listen to and consider the opinions of selected counsellors. When you are an innovator, the tendency is to think that your product will be the best thing that has ever happened to humanity and that everyone in the world, including the poorest villages in interior Africa will strive to buy it. Ambition is good, in fact, it’s essential. However, you’ll need that ambition to be refined and guided. Your product or service may eventually reach those interior villages, but experience has taught us that in the multitude of counsellors, there is safety. Listen to experienced people and pick lessons.
Once again, your dream is valid, but don’t expect anyone to invest in a dream you don’t believe in.
