My daughter fulfilled one of her dreams the other day when she was invited by Dame Malvina Major to sing for her. Hannah was so excited, and so nervous, she nearly fainted! Minutes before she went in to sing for her she heard another girl singing and she rang me in a panic. “She’s singing the same song I was going to – and she sung it perfectly!”

After calming her down I asked for a bit more information and found out that the girl before her was in fact an older woman who was in Dame Malvina’s master class. “Remember how gifted you are, Hannah,” I counseled her, “remind yourself how you received a distinction pass in your Trinity Music exams and also that you are here to learn and have not had any lessons for a year – just sing from your heart and you will be fine.” And she was!

Hannah is lucky – I have always encouraged her dreams and nurtured her natural talent. But many others haven’t. When she was 6 I recall one day, as she was happily rocking in the hammock and singing on the verandah, the little girl next door popped her head out of her window and screeched, “You think you can sing but you can’t.” Hannah burst into tears and stopped singing.

As recently as last month when she told a careers adviser at Canterbury University that she would like to audition for the voice school the woman soberly replied, “Oh you won’t get in, it’s very competitive.” She hadn’t even heard her sing!

As Christopher Gardner said in his book, and later a movie, the Pursuit of Happiness, “You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves they wanna tell you that you can’t do it. You want something? Go get it period.”

Having a dream is an indispensable part of happiness and success.

What his dad called a “pipe dream” led to a life of happiness and a multi-millionaire dollar career for best selling author Wilbur Smith. As a child Wilbur always dreamed of being a writer. But any notions of making a living from writing were nothing but foolish pipe dreams his father cautioned him. " Get a real qualification" boy, was his instruction.

Wilbur dutifully took accountancy at university and resentfully became a tax accountant. But he never lost sight of his dream. He immediately began moonlighting as a short story writer, selling the odd piece of fiction to magazines.

"I'd been told all along, 'you'll never make a living as a writer. Use it as hobby, but you'll never be a Hemmingway or a Steinberg.'"

Then on the strength of an early story, his first novel, When the Lion Feeds, was commissioned. It was written while he was a full-time accountant for Salisbury Inland Revenue. His publisher and later agent, Charles Pick, gave him advice he never forgot: "Write for yourself, and write about what you know best."

"When it was was actually published and people wanted more, I thought, 'I might make a living out of this.'"

Now aged 76, he has sold over 100 million books and written 32 titles.

"If you have a deep need to write then the hunger will remain."


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Labels: achieving goals, Happiness, Motivation, passion