When I look back, I realize that I was essentially arguing with myself. Or a manifestation of myself anyway… That’s what they say, right? That each character in your dream is just “another projection of you” interacting with your main-character/dream-self, right? So, that’s how my dream ended before I woke up with my heart pounding and adrenaline pumping: I was arguing with a woman, who must be just another version of me in the dream, sitting behind a cluttered desk as she explains to me dumbfoundedly why her circumstances, grounded in ignorance and bureaucracy, are going to continue to block my path and prevent me from making way back to the conference room where Bill Gates is waiting for me.
She said to me, “Ooooh, Bill Gates. Who’s that?”
Flabbergasted, I snorted, “Bill Gates, the founder and CEO of Microsoft! The software-on-every-other-computer-in-the-world guy! The richest man in the world! Bill Gates!”
She didn’t seem to believe me at first, and then a wide-eyed look of realization slowly rose into her face as her cheeks became flushed and her eyes shifted from dim to bright looking back at me somewhat startled by her awakened state.
Then I woke up with a start in bed anxious and in a rare state of stark recollection about the dream my unconscious mind had just generated.
Although I am an ACHIEVEMENT COACH, I am still just a guy who lives with the day-to-day (minute-to-minute really) challenges of my human nature… The very nature of who I am, and who you are, is to procrastinate, rationalize why “not good enough” is “good enough for me,” and to be comfortable with discomfort. As an Achievement Coach, I “know” better and yet, being human, I still need a coach to support me in my efforts to achieve other than ordinary, or put another way, to be and to act extraordinary. In addition to having a coach of my own, I also practice various techniques of relating extraordinarily to my mind and to my Self to heighten my self-awareness, accountability, effectiveness, and productivity. These various techniques of relating extraordinarily to my mind and to my Self allow me to live as many of the moments of my life as I can with peace of mind and empowered to choose my state of being and my actions rather than allowing my mind to live my life for me as if I am walking through all of life semi-conscious in automatic-pilot mode.
One of the techniques I use to awaken my self-awareness, discover insights, and re-establish peace of mind is to meditate. So, I immediately began to meditate on the clear and detailed memories I still had of the dream from which I had just awoken. The insights I uncovered during that meditation are so profound that I am strongly inspired to share them with you here now…
It all boils down to this: Bill Gates is waiting for you in the conference room. Are your ready?
Put another way, the message that rang for me loud and clear over and over again during my post-dream reflective meditation is this:
What would it take for you to consider the next few moments of your life as so valuable that it is as if one of the richest and most influential people in the world was waiting for “you” in the next room? And what would you be willing to do to be ready for that opportunity?
So, the dream started out that I am in a familiar role as a project manager and team leader inside of an unfamiliar (it is a dream after all) corporate setting… A dreamscape of a what appears to be a mid-sized business building with a professional air yet somewhat dated décor as if the division of the company in which I am working isn’t the executive level, more likely the middle-management level where there’s a lot of maintenance of records, files, reports, accounting, and accountability. The hallways are dark wood-paneled walls cluttered with file cabinets, stacks of paper and files, and rolled-up bundles of flipchart pages.
I’ve been rushed to my office through several crowded halls and hurried past the secretary at the junction of the last hallway on the way to my office. As I am ushered through a backdoor into my office, I am told that “he” is here, and he is waiting for me, just standing there, on the other side of the front door to my office. I know who “he” is, and suddenly my adrenaline spikes, my heart races, and I realize that blood has rushed from face and I am losing my composure. My escort darts from the room, and I am left standing alone. Rather than rush to the door, I turn to a shelf and I begin rifling through some papers as if I am looking for something that is important enough to make “him” wait standing on the other side of my office door. As I rifle through the papers searching, searching, I can feel the tension rising, and I ask myself, “Why am I making him wait?” Every second I know that he’s waiting, I am growing more and more tense. So, I cease my busy fidgeting and I turn the door. I’ve gulped down my tension and suddenly put forth a face of professional warmth and confidence albeit beleaguered. I open the door. The door slides open in slow-motion at first. The door is open and Bill Gates is standing there. Without hesitation, he blithely says, “Hello.” And the tension I’ve gulped down into the pit of my stomach churns up my throat and erupts out of my mouth as a sputter and stammer of incomprehensible gibberish. I abruptly step back startled and aghast at my outburst embarrassed by the baffled expression on his face.
I regain my voice and my wits just enough to apologize and say, “Excuse me.” He immediately nods with a glance to me which communicates that he is used to people acting oddly and being nervous around him, and he forgives me nonchalantly for my spastic behavior. My head somewhat down, I inform him that our conference room is ready, and I lead him out the back of my office down a corridor to a conference room.
When we arrive in the conference room, I offer him a chair. He sits. I excuse myself momentarily and step into the next room to ask my team of professionals to join us for the meeting. As they begin to make their way into the conference room, I slowly realize that the room is very warm, the lighting is bad, and the room feels dank and uncomfortable. In an instant, feeling the urgency to get this meeting started, yet suddenly preoccupied with the inadequacy of this conference room, I declare that I am going to go secure us a different room for our important meeting. Before I consider the implications of abandoning my guest and my team who now sit waiting for me to lead them in a meeting, I dart out of the room compulsively to find a more ideal conference room.
In short order, almost instantaneously (again, it is dreamtime), I’ve found a brightly-lit, cool, modern conference room at the other end of the building. So, I rush from my present location to make my way back across the building to round-up my team and escort my esteemed guest to the newly identified and greatly improved conference room. The trip back across the building to return to my team and guest is daunting and at times harrowing as I navigate cluttered and crowded hallways, occasionally get lost, and come to realize that the building in which I dream-work is apparently not just a cluttered mess of information—but it is also actually a maze! (Dreams!)
I am one hallway from my destination now, just down the hall from the original conference room, and I am very anxious about how long Gates and my team members have been languishing in my absence. I am back at the intersection where a secretary sits like a gatekeeper to the hallway. Unlike when I departed this hallway some time ago, the pathway is now blocked! She has stacked boxes and piles of papers and folders in the intersection of the hall, and she is insistent that it is of the utmost importance that this clutter of stuff remain right where it is because she is working with the information. I am insistent that she must move the stuff so I can pass and get back to Gates and my team. “Ooooh, Bill Gates. Who’s that?” So, you know the rest.
Upon meditation about this dream I kept hearing these questions come up for me: What would it take for you to consider the next few moments of your life as so valuable that it is as if one of the richest and most influential people in the world was waiting for “you” in the next room? Bill Gates is waiting for you in the conference room… Are your ready?
The states of affairs that led up to Gates’ arrival also revealed themselves to me… I realized that the main character of my dream spent the workday as if it were any other—preoccupied by the work-a-day this’s and that’s to be completed on the day’s to-do list. All the while, knowing that Bill Gates was coming in that day, yet allowing himself to be pre-occupied with the this’s and that’s that just popped-up throughout the day. That’s human nature… Just show up, if you show up at all, and then just react to this and that. He neglected to survey the idealness, or even the appropriateness, of the conference room before Gates arrived. He neglected to be fully prepared to greet him. I don’t even know if he had an agenda prepared for the meeting?!
So, I meditate, and I hear:
(1) Why do I allow mundane expectations to engage so much of my time?
(2) Why do I allow myself to run on automatic-pilot mode being a reaction to this and that when I can empower myself to be aware and awake and a chooser-and-doer?
(3) If one of the richest and most influential people in the world was waiting for me in the next room, what would I be willing to do to make the most of that conversation? Will I be ready?
(4) Ultimately, why don’t I experience many, or at least more, moments of my life with as much value, importance, and excitement as the experience of meeting Bill Gates in my dream? Moreover, why don’t I chase down more opportunities that can be that valuable and exciting?
I actually know the answers to all of these questions… The answer to each question is one or another attribute of human nature. The attributes of human nature are who we show up as automatically. Yet, these attributes do not need to be the last word on who we are, what we choose, or how we act. Achievement coaching provides answers to these questions and strategies for making use of these answers for ambitious and excellence-driven executives and professionals who know that excellence and extraordinary achievements are accomplished through values, vision, emotional intelligence, ethics, accountability, and facilitated human performance. At the risk of sounding to frou frou about dreams and dream analysis and the power of the sub-conscious mind, I came away from my post-dream meditation almost certain that the work I’ve been doing recently with my own coach resulted in the generation of this dream in my unconscious mind and in my mind’s trigger to awaken me with such a clear recollection of the dream… Maybe not. Or maybe so.
Either way, this story begs these questions:
Are you living the ever-valuable and ever-fewer moments of your life with the extraordinary possibility, enthusiasm and excitement of meeting with Bill Gates (or whomever my inspire you)? Are you reaching for such opportunities? What’s more, if Bill Gates is waiting for you in the next room, are you ready?
~ ~ ~
Achievement Coach Greg Kilgore
360° Achievement Coaching
Providing a 360° Perspective, Strategies, and Coaching for
Personal Empowerment, Professional Productivity,
Business Growth, and Extraordinary Achievement
