Ever notice how a lot of people treat their dreams like Disney cartoons?

Minor amusements at best. Fun stories, but never something to reflect upon, let alone something that inspires takin action.

Perhaps we could learn from the Disney canon instead?

Take Cinderella — glass slipper, evil step-family, pumpkins, fairy godmother and the rest of it.

While, the story of Cinderella is much older than stop-motion cartoons — it is a 17th century French fairy tale — most of us are familiar with Disney's 1950 animated version (featuring this culture's most famous blue dress not involving the Clinton Crime Family).

Disney's princesses were part of the studio's incredible growth model in the first part of the 20th Century. To wit, in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney's 1937 feature and its first animated "princess" film, Snow White was a dreamer.

But the sweet young princess wasn't much of a "doer." Matter of fact, she "hid out" with the Dwarfs.

Later, Walt Disney himself explained how Cinderella was different than Snow White:

“She believed in dreams, all right, but she also believed in doing something about them. When Prince Charming didn’t come along, she went over to the palace and got him!”

In other words, Cinderella didn't just sit around waiting for things to happen. When opportunity didn’t knock — and it certainly did not because she had been reduced to a wretched existence as a scullery maid by her evil step-mother, after all — Cinderella built herself a door and marched right through it on her own.

Now let’s talk about you.

Are you staring out the window waiting for a Prince Charming — i.e. a "big break" — to show up? Or are you fitting into those glass slippers and heading to the palace yourself?

Success in life doesn’t come from waiting. It comes from doing. From taking action every single day toward your goals — no matter how small those steps might be.

Ask yourself: Are you like Snow White, a dreamer who only dreams?

Perhaps you are like Cinderella—a dreamer who does something about it?

Decide: am I going to wait or am I going to act?

(Remember, dreams do indeed have an expiration date.)

If you choose action, it means you're not going to wait for some fairy godmother to fix your problems with a wave of her wand.

One action step can be getting yourself around the right people.

We're cultivating fantastic groups with our coaching and consulting programs.

Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo

As always,

Brian

P.S.  — regarding "success" . . .  Consider that success is not what you have, but how you feel about what you have.