What Do You Do When All Your Dreams Come True?

Kris Plachy: What do you do when all your dreams come true? Hmm? Let's talk about it today. Here we go.

Welcome, Welcome. This is Kris Plachy. Welcome to Leadership Is Feminine. I'm so honored to have you tuned in to me right now. Thank you. I got a new microphone. And I'm so excited about it. I, I don't know if you'll be able to tell, but my amazing oldest son is a sound engineer and he listened to one of my recordings and he said, Mom, you need new sound equipment immediately. So he sent me all the links of everything that I should have, and we tested it out and I love it. And so I feel so pro, I feel very pro like, I'm officially like one of those dudes on Instagram, you know, with their very pro Mike, and they all look at each other very intensely with their hats on backwards. That's what I feel like right now.

Anyway, last week I was at my good friend Allie Brown's event, Iconic, and she asked that question, 'What do you do when all your dreams come true?' And I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. It's such an interesting thing. And so first of all, how many of us have already had our dreams come true? And we don't even relish them. We don't even savor that we have had a dream come true. We don't even celebrate, we don't tune into the pride of having a dream come true. What, what is that about?

First of all, I do think that's pretty interesting cuz when she asked the question, I thought, Huh, have all my dreams come true? And the answer is yes. At least the ones I have been actively pursuing. A lovely marriage, beautiful kids and family, a home, a thriving business, good friends, travel, nice things, my dog. So to take a minute and allow that I think is vital. And sure, are there things that have happened in my life that were not part of my dreams coming true? Yeah. It's been no, you know, paved walk of gold, there have been a lot of challenging moments, experiences, u-turns, right turns, but that doesn't take away what I do have and what I have created.

It also brings me to a discussion around something that I think is critical that, that we be honest about. You know, we for many, many years have had, prior to Covid, right, we had what a lot of people would call sort of this hustle culture. That we've all just been plagued by busy and overcommitted, you know, under-resourced, bootstrapping, you know, working, working, working, and you name it, right? Lots and lots and lots of things that we've all been saying yes to. And then covid hit and we kind of screech the breaks on. And then we all sort of had this epiphany of, I'm not gonna do this. I'm not gonna hustle, I'm not gonna do this.

And I, I think all of that has been incredibly powerful. In general, I think, I do not think any of that is bad. But what I think is true is if we think about what it takes to make a dream come true, we can't sit on the floor and meditate and call in our divine goddess and sit in stillness to make our dreams come true. We have to work.

Now, how we choose to work is always up to us and we have opportunity there. But I do think we have to be careful that we're not painting this picture now on the other side of where we are, because here I am, I'm 52, almost 53. I just told you all those amazing things have happened in my life that I wanted, and it would be very easy for me to say to someone younger, 'Don't hustle, don't work so hard, don't da, da, da, da, da, da'. Right? And bemone that of a 30 year old and tell her, 'No, no, no, you need to...' Right?

I think that's unreasonable to say because I sit now, I read a book years ago by Bill George called True North. It's very, very good. It was a life changing book for me, and what he talks about though is that we have these places in our lives generationally, right? In our twenties. It's all about figuring ourselves out in our thirties and mid forties. It's all about accumulation. It's all about that gathering and building it up, getting married, having the family, getting the house, creating the career. And then he says though, but as we get into our fifties, we start to think about our purpose. And so for a lot of the people that are out there right now talking to you, this is where a lot of these people are. They're in their fifties and their sixties. They're looking back on having built their dreams and trying to give you advice like, 'Don't do it the way I did it'.

And sure, is there some truth to that? Yes. But I also wanna be responsible. There's work in that dream. We can't achieve simply through stillness. We wanna find it so we can savor. I would much rather see that if I run into you and you're hustling. I would much rather have that conversation with you of, are you having fun? Are you finding joy? Have you celebrated a success? Are you proud of what you've achieved? Do you know what you've achieved? Or do you only focus on what you haven't?

So that's the first piece is let's be careful that we don't dismiss the value of passionate work effort. When we're already sitting on our throne of success, looking back at it saying, 'Oh, no, no, no. Be careful there'.

The second thing I wanna say, and this is speaking to my Sage CEOs out there, if you don't know that, that you are, maybe you will by the time I say this. Most of the women who are attracted to the Sage CEO are women who are asking a version of that question, What do I do now that my dreams have come true? I do have this successful business. I really don't have to do as much in it anymore, and it's still thriving. I have a beautiful life. I have a beautiful home. I have a beautiful family. I have whatever it is that you wanted to curate. You've curated it. It's there. You have it.

And we were just working on the invitation for the Sage program and we wrote this line about that when you achieve your dreams, when you really do live a life that is filled with dreams come true, it's quite powerful to know that you can create anything you put your mind to, right? Anything is truly possible if you put your mind to it. Some things are harder than others. Some things take longer than others, but commitment is where it begins.

But it's also incredibly and overwhelming to know you really could create anything. And for the well-resourced woman who's achieved a lot, what does she do? How does she pick? It all looks good. I could do that. I could do that. I could do that. I could do that. And so it leaves you somewhat unsettled. When you know that all your dreams have come true and you know that you could do it again, what dream do you pick?

And it's an interesting conversation because my hunch is that some people might listen to this and be maybe a little annoyed with me, like, 'Must be nice. Wish I had that problem'. And I would just invite you to be careful if your brain goes there only because it will be you someday too. Even though success is delightful and fun and I would choose success over anything else, like I would never say I would prefer not to be successful or not to have affluence or abundance in my life. It still brings with it confusion, lack of direction, and to be honest, it can be even more humbling when you've already been successful to feel so confused.

Because when you do talk about being unsure of what you wanna do next, people do dismiss you. They do say, must be nice, and they don't hear you. They think you're being frivolous or silly. You can do whatever you want. Just go do something. Just go do that. Go do this, go do that. Go do this. But nothing is touching you the way that first thing did, the way that first dream did that the hunger you had in your heart to make the first one go. You can't seem to replicate it, and so despite your success, you still feel a little aimless.

That to me, is where my sage CEO is. She is abundant with knowledge. She is sought after for her wisdom and her place, and her insight, and her connections, and her network, and her practical and strategic knowledge. She is a guide and advisor to others. She is trusted. She walks in the room and when she is in the room with her people, her players, her peers, her field, she is grounded and safe and competent.

But where does she go to feel vulnerable, to feel unsure, to ask the questions about herself and what she wants. And who is she and how does she know what to do? Where does she go? I've always said, I want to be that place for you, the sage, because I'm a sage and the only place I can go is with another sage because we skip past the part of, 'Well, that must be nice. I wish I had your problem. Just get over it. Like, listen, look at you. You can do anything you want'. Like it's a simple problem to solve. It's not a problem. The truth of it is it's not a problem. It's just that we're in a different place in our lives. We know so much more than we used to. And that sense of internal direction that we've had in the past that propelled us, it's a little harder to find.

So what do you do when your dreams come true? You celebrate, you savor, you acknowledge, you indulge in the pride of achievement, and creativity, and effort. And you also tell the story of a woman who is capable of making her dreams come true. And you also trust that there are other flavors to try, other playgrounds, to find other playmates to explore with. And you allow yourself to be open to what comes from that, that your passion, combined with effort, combined with hard work, combined with maybe a little bit of control, may not be the same cocktail for your next season. It might be something else. And those are the kinds of things that I love to explore with my sage CEOs.

So if you're listening to me saying, 'Huh, I think that could be something I think about. I think I need to think about the Sage program', that maybe we should talk about it. You're not gonna find anything anywhere on it. It's an invitation only program, but you can schedule a consultation with me to talk about it. If you go to krisplachy.com/sageinfo, and we'll take it from there.

There's a little application you can fill out, but mostly all I want you to hear me say that I think that wherever you are, you've had a dream come true, maybe more than one. And have you rooted yourself in the joy and the pride of achievement, of creating, of allowing that dream to become? And can you also see that there was a complimenting level of effort, commitment, and passion that went into it?

Your life is a dream come true. Being here to experience this world, and this life, to me is amazing. But just because that's true, some days it doesn't mean there aren't other days that feel a little bit harder. So wherever this message finds you, I hope that it greets you with a knowing that you're amazing, and to lean into the being proud of who you are and allow that to guide you into whatever your next great adventure might be. I'll talk to you again next time.

Hey, entrepreneur, you started that gorgeous business of yours to do some really good in the world. You probably didn't start your business to manage people. But here you are having to figure out how to manage people to get work done, and maybe it's not going so well.

So head on over to krisplachy.com/howtoceo, and let's talk about how we can help you learn how to lead, manage, hire, fire, and all the things so that you can build a team that expands on your amazing dream.