Several years ago when I was a rookie working in the music business, an experienced executive with a major label told me I was succeeding in the business because I was too naive to know that what I was doing wouldn't work -- and amazingly it was working!
He was surprised that I was trying things that he would never do, because he thought he knew better and knew that they wouldn't work. Yet, they were successful for me, because I didn't have his predisposed opinion and I didn't know that I would, or should fail with what I was trying.
I believed I would succeed and I did. I was taking action each day moving closer to my dreams and desires and believed that anything was possible. Interestingly enough, from that attitude alone, doors opened.
Whether because of youth or naivete, there's something to be said for not knowing any better or not having limiting beliefs. No matter your age or experience, imagine a life lived from that perspective. When you live from that place of possibility, everything changes. To help put this into perspective in your own life, ask yourself, what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?
Very big questions like this birth very big outrageous answers. What could you do to make a huge positive impact on the world, knowing that you couldn't possibly fail? Take away all of your excuses -- you can't fail.
When you look at your life with such a big purpose, monumental things are going to happen. Suddenly the mundane things that we stressed over yesterday seem to disappear and our life is consumed by a greater passion and a bigger purpose.
When my husband and I asked ourselves that question, the Global Hug Tour was born. We're planning to fly 31,000 miles around the world in a small prop airplane on a 5-month tour, stop in 50 international cities to gather inspiration, deliver 100,000 hugs and raise and share more than $1,000,000 with charities worldwide. More importantly, we want to help shift the focus from the current doom and gloom to one of connectivity and possibility through love.
We developed a plan where anyone can go to our site, sponsor a hug for $10 and send it to one of the 50 cities on our path. To make a tangible difference in each area when we land, we'll deliver the hug and the full donation to the non-profit or NGO. For example, one hug in Chicago ($10) will feed 3 homeless people, two hugs ($20) in Cambodia will educate a child for a year and one hundred hugs ($1000) in Chennai, India will pay the cost of heart surgery to save the life of a child.
Our goal for the Global Hug Tour was to raise a million dollars for charities around the world, and I thought that was a pretty big goal.That was, until I met today's Inspirational Luminary, Bilaal Rajan.
Eight years ago while he was eating a clementine, Bilaal was shocked by a newspaper photo of the devastation caused by an earthquake in India. He started raising money by selling clementines door to door to help kids who were victims of the quake. He hasn't stopped giving since.
In the last four years, Bilaal has raised over $5,000,000 for charity. And here's the kicker -- Bilaal is only 12 years old!
Here I am thinking our idea is so cool and we're going to rock the world, and a 12 year old boy in Canada exceeded our goal by 5 times in just the last few years. It's rather humbling and inspires me to think even bigger.
Imagine if everyone in the world asked himself or herself what they could do to make a positive difference in the world. The problem occurs when our fear is greater than our faith and our ideas are set aside because we believe they're just too audacious, too big and too scary. But if a kid can do this, what can we do? We need to be just naive enough to believe that we can't fail!
Big things can only happen from big ideas. Those big ideas are gifts, given to us for a reason. And that reason isn't to put them in our someday bucket along with all the other things we're going to do "someday". It's to take action and move on them today not tomorrow.
Our ideas and our dreams are ours and ours alone. Even when we can't see it, we'll be shown the way. For with the idea, also comes the inspiration, and from that, the path will be shown.
Bilaal made a comment to me that struck me with the power of his words. "As one person, I can make a difference. But as a group, we can change the world." It's a big world and there's plenty of room for all of us to follow our dreams. We invite you to join us and imagine the power you have to change the world- if you knew you couldn't fail.
We invite you to listen to today's FREE Inspired Interview with host, Gail Lynne Goodwin, Ambassador of Inspiration from InspireMeToday.com and today's guest, 12-year old Bilaal Rajan.