Fire Lighters and Fire Fighters
Posted on June 06, 2017 by Steve Stuhlreyer, One of Thousands of Christian Coaches on Noomii.
Who you tell your dream to when it is still in its infancy is crucial to it's success.
Passion is a GREAT thing! A person who has passion for what he or she is doing will accomplish a lot more and have a lot more fun at it than a person who does not have passion. As a person contemplates their dreams and begins to consider pursuing their passion, they will often want to tell someone about it. I highly recommend doing so, but I only highly recommend you telling something after you do two things.
The first thing is to take time. By this I mean, take 3-6 months to allow your dream to percolate within you before you start telling other people about it. Now, if you have a spouse or a significant other who you trust, he or she may be the one person who is the exception to this rule. The amount of time is not the most important thing. What is important is that you give yourself enough time for your dreams to take root in who you are so that when you do tell someone, they can’t easily sway you or talk you out of it. Also, taking 3-6 months is enough time for these dreams to just not be another impulse to meet another one of your emotional needs. If your dream and the emotion begins to fade shortly after thinking about it, then it was just a fad and it is not worth your time and effort. If it is truly a passion, the emotional excitement about it will increase over time to the point at which you may have a physical reaction to just the thought of it.
The second thing is to identify who the fire lighters and who the fire fighters are in your life. I am borrowing this illustration from someone else because it seems to perfectly describe what I mean. Let me explain. Having a passion is equivalent to having a burning flame lit inside of you. It is something that you feel like you have to shout from the rooftops and something you have to tell everyone. A fire fighter is a person in your life who, if you were to tell them your dreams and passion, would give you all the reasons why you SHOULD NOT pursue it. They are unrealistic pessimists who only see the risk of your passion and no possible reward. They are like the fire fighter who is called to a house fire, whose job is to pour water in the fire to put it out. That is also what a fire fighter does for your passion, they work hard to dampen your passion – all with good intentions (at least to their way of thinking). A fire lighter is someone who hears your passion and dreams and listens, encourages, and most importantly, in my opinion, stretches your dream. They will also be excited with you about your dreams and passion. They are like people who might see a fire and throw gasoline on it to make the fighter bigger.
With both of the organizations I started and continue to lead, I practiced my two pieces of advice I wrote about above. Before starting Hands of Hope in the fall of 2006, my wife and I spent 18 months thinking about what we should do with a burning desire to help people who most of the community does not pay attention to. In September of 2006, we defined who that group of people were and began to tell just a few people around us. One of whom is a fire lighter in my life. He and I met for lunch and I shared my dreams. Through an hour long discussion and some tears (because he validated my passion, encouraged it, and offered to help with the dream), I walked away from that lunch with a greater desire to see my dream come to pass. He poured gasoline on my fire. In 2008, as I was working on completing a Master’s Degree in Counseling, I began to dream about having my own private practice. For 3 years, I thought about it, dreamt about it, prayed about it, and wished I could start it. I had such a desire for this dream to come to pass that I would literally salivate (I really would) while in class with the thought of my own private practice and how I wanted to lead it. I shared this with one of my classmates and one of my professors, both of whom, poured gasoline on my fire. In both occasions above, I was careful who I shared my dream with. Not that I wanted people who would give me the thumbs up without some serious discussion, I just knew that I could not share this with people who would list all the possible risks and obstacles that come with a dream (I knew all of these anyway as any other passion pursuer does as well). I identified my fire lighters and shared my dreams with them and I also identified my fire fighters and I avoided them like the plague.
Until next time.
