small people, big dreams

photo by Amy Mortimer

In Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, we are given the rare opportunity to sit down - front row and center - and listen to life lessons through the eyes of a man with ten months to live and seventy six minutes to tell it.

If you haven't already seen it you can watch and read about it here.

I was captivated from start to finish but especially love the part when he speaks about how his parents were crucial in enabling his dreams. As a little child living in a ranch, he dreamed of elevators and submarines and asked his parents if he could paint these figures on his bedroom walls. They let him do it. No hesitation. It was to him the most wonderful thing his parents did. They showed him that expressing his creativity was far more valuable than immaculate walls. Long after he has gone, his scribbles remain in the walls of his childhood home.

When Cousin MomPreneur asked me this summer to conduct a workshop on social entrepreneurship to 8-11 year olds, I immediately said yes. I had visions of the usual bake sales and juice stands.

On Day 1 I asked them to design and create their "Dream Business Cards".

We Play Activity Center

One was going to own her own airline that had every imaginable destination, the other was going to be a robotic engineer creating dinosaurs for global shows. I had a future owner of the country's first and largest comic book store in my midst and an airplane designer that could land his planes inside the mall. (So long, Duty Free Shopping)

I instantly knew this was not going to be an ordinary summer. (more on that soon) I wasn't about to stand in the way of dreams.