The Value of Dreaming

In December, 1990, I announced to my classmates at the Dale Carnegie course on Effective Public Speaking that I was going to write a book. I told them I was going to do it within two years. Two years passed by and no book. Then five years went by and I self-published a booklet, but no book. Nine more years passed by. All the while I kept talking about writing a book. Around year eleven, I contacted agents in New York City and was rejected over and over and over. Finally, one agent wrote me back and said that my book proposal had fallen behind his desk and that he had just found it a year later and he wanted to represent me. I hurriedly sent him my updated book proposal and I never heard anything back. Six months later I contacted him again. He agreed to represent me. Seven months after that and about 20 rejections later, we agreed to give up on that project. So I mailed him my third attempt. Seven months later, last week to be exact, I received my first contract for a book, which that agent landed for me. The dream had finally come true.

My first book, Corporate Catalysts: How To Make Your Company More Successful, Whatever Your Title, Income or Authority is scheduled to be in bookstores in the first quarter of 2005.

My goal is to create an extremely pragmatic book on how employees can accelerate the achievement of high priority business outcomes. In order to enrich the real-world, practical aspects of the book, I need your help. I'm looking for true stories about corporate catalysts you have seen in action. Essentially, I'm looking for real-life stories about how people provided excellent leadership and management in guiding their group to achieve significant and sustainable business results. Please make your story 250 words or less and send it by June 1 to info@thecoughlincompany.com along with your name, title, address and the name of your organization. If your story is used in the book, you will receive a free copy of Corporate Catalysts. My goal is to use 20-30 of these real-life stories.

A month ago my wife, Barb, and I had built-in bookshelves put into our family room. That may not seem like a big deal to you, but when I met Barb nine years ago I was teaching high school math, living in a one-bedroom apartment and dreaming of owning my own built-in bookshelves. In this little apartment, I had three desks and three bookshelves. I was dreaming of the day I would work for myself. I envisioned myself running my own business. On the side of one of these cheap, assemble yourself bookshelves I had taped a sign that said, "Library Of Success." Each one of these bookshelves was filled with books by some of the greatest business writers of all time. I read and reread and reread those books. I dreamed of the day I would own my own business and my own built-in bookshelves. Tonight I sat on the couch and stared at those new bookshelves and looked at the books I carried with me all these years.

On February 14th, I attended the retirement party of a person named Jerry Yeagley. He's the former head soccer coach of Indiana University where he won six national championships and won the most games of any NCAA Division I soccer coach in history. For the first ten years of his career, Jerry Yeagley coached the Indiana University club soccer team. This meant he received no money from the university for salary, team travel expenses, recruiting or uniforms. He and his wife, Marilyn, lined the fields themselves, drove the vans and washed the uniforms. At the night of his retirement it was announced that from now on the NCAA Division I Soccer Coach of the Year award will be renamed the Jerry Yeagley Award. He had a dream and would not let go.

What are your dreams? Not what is on your "to-do list." Not what are your quarterly business objectives. I'm asking you what are your dreams. What is it you hope to achieve during your lifetime? Don't just casually dream those dreams. Get involved with those dreams. Make them seem real. Picture exactly what you want and talk about it over and over and over. Who cares how many times you get rejected. Just keep dreaming those dreams. It is the juice that makes life special. Go for it.

By the way, I've just posted two lengthy white papers on this website, that I think can be of value to you. One is called "The Discipline of Acceleration: how to accelerate your critical business outcomes" and the other is called "Corporate Acceleration: Why It's Work and Why It's Worth It." They're free and they are right at the top of my home page. Hope you enjoy them. And please send me your stories.

New White Paper – Accelerate Your Strengths

On June 16th I gave a half-day seminar on “Accelerate Your Strengths: practical ideas to boost business momentum” for GE Capital. It was such an interesting project that I wrote a white paper for the group after the seminar based on what we talked about. In turn, that white paper was forwarded on to 7,000 GE employees. Consequently, I thought you might like to read the paper, except this version has all the references to GE taken out. Here is the link for the

Accelerate Your Strengths white paper: http://thecoughlincompany.com/accellerate_your_strengths.html

New Book, Find a Way to Win: Management Insights from Terry Michler, America's All-Time Winningest Soccer Coach

This book focuses on business lessons that can be learned from soccer. The foundation of the book is how Terry Michler used the powerful simplicity of Dutch soccer to win more games than any other U.S. coach in history.

On July 11th, the finals of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa between Holland and Spain was watched by more than 700 million people. While I was cheering for Holland at the beginning of the game, a major decision by their coach led me to learning a valuable lesson all over again.

Dutch soccer, which is highlighted in my book, is all based on extraordinary technical skill, efficiency, and precise attacking soccer. This is how a country with only 16 million people competes so extraordinarily well with the world's super powers in soccer including number-one ranked Brazil, whom they beat in the quarterfinals. However, in the World Cup finals Holland abandoned what made them great and instead focused on playing brutal, violent soccer. They wanted to intimidate Spain, and in the end they lost the game and the respect of so many people who love Dutch soccer. What happened and why did they do it?

They felt they couldn't compete with Spain if they allowed them to get into their normal passing game. So they consciously decided to physically attack the Spanish players with violent tackles all over the field. One Dutch player even shoved his metal cleats into the chest of a Spanish player. They received numerous yellow cards, a red card, and ridicule from the world-wide soccer press after the game.

What's the lesson to learn here for every business? Stay true to who you are. When the prize is close don't abandon what got you to be one of the best organizations in your industry. Too many companies in the past ten years have decided that what made them very, very good wasn't going to be enough to make them number one in their industry, and so they got away from their strengths. Big mistake.

I believe Holland will return to their traditional style of play, focus on precise, skillful, attacking soccer, and get away from their violent style of play. I think they learned a huge lesson. And hopefully every business that got away from its core strength in the pursuit of being bigger and more successful financially than anyone else in the industry will also return to its core and get back to winning again.

You can learn more about Find a Way to Win at http://thecoughlincompany.com/book_store.html

Republishing Articles

Each month my e-newsletter gets republished in approximately 20 blogs, on-line publications, and internal publications for businesses, universities, and not-for-profit organizations. If you would like to republish all or part of my monthly articles, please send me an e-mail at dan@thecoughlincompany.com with "Republishing Article" in the subject heading. I will send you the article in a word document. All I ask is that you include my name as the author of the article and a short paragraph at the end of the article about me with a link to my website.

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

Back to Newsletter Page

P.O. Box 1245 Fenton, Missouri 63026
Phone 636.825.6611 Fax 636.825.9831
E-mail info@thecoughlincompany.com