PLAY ABIGGER

GAMEDREAM STEALERS

DREAM KILLERSDREAM BUILDERS

DREAM GIVERS

© Rowdy McLean 2011 This Book Is Copyright.

All Rights Reserved. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as per-mitted under the copyright act, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of Rowdy McLean.

e: rowdy@creatingsynergy.com p: 1800 438 732 w: www.playabiggergame.com.au

ABOUT THE AUTHORRon McLean has been known as ‘Rowdy’ most of his life because he is easy going, friendly, light hearted, pragmatic, down to earth and real. Rowdy is an expert on productivity, personal growth and achievement. He is the master of making things happen and getting things done and has achieved some remarkable things.

Ultimately we all want more, more money,more time, more fun, more love, more customers. Rowdy has spent the last decade studying the key drivers of success and achievement. He has developed a process to help individuals, teams and organisations unlock potential and play a much bigger game than they ever thought possible.

We all want more! More money, more fun, more love, more time, more friends, more adventure, more holidays. Play A Bigger Game is all about testing the boundaries, becoming better, having more, achieving greater things, being a better person, doing things you have never done.

To Play A Bigger Game you need to stay committed, ignore the dream steal-ers and never give-up. Dream stealers and obstacles appear in everyone’s life’s its how you deal with them and overcome them that counts.

This book will help you understand dream stealers and dream killers and how to overcome them to ensure you Play A Bigger Game and Achieve More, Be More, Do More and Have More than you ever thought possible.

You are awesome and capable of far more than you can imagine!

WHAT IS PLAY A BIGGERGAME?

Play A Bigger Game is all about staying committed, ignoring the dream steal-ers and never giving up. The first stage in overcoming dream stealers and the dream killers is to recognise who they are, avoid them, block them-out or set out to prove them wrong. Focus on being around the dream builders and dream givers and avoiding those dream stealers.

Dream stealers are the people experts who have

never done anything, yet they’re experts on everything.

DREAM STEALERvsDREAM GIVER

DREAM STEALERS A Dream Stealer is someone who makes subtle suggestions that cause you to doubt yourself, give-up or even not want to try in the first place. Dream stealers are the people with this attitude… “That’s not a good idea” or “Why are you working out, all you do is complain!” “that won’t work” or “why are you working 60hr weeks you don’t get anything out of it” or “that will never happen” or ” you don’t have the will power for that”.

You know the dream stealers, these are the people who have never done anything, yet they’re experts on everything. These are the people who want to hold you back and stop you stepping out of the cotton wool because you might prove to be a little better than them.

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Hewlett Packard tried to steal the dreams of Steve Jobs when they rejected him as an employee, “We don’t need you, you haven’t finished college yet” they told him. He went on to found Apple computers.

Thomas Edison was told by his teacher he was too stupid to learn anything and needs to go into a field where he can succeed by the virtue of his pleasant personality, he later went on to invent the light bulb, phonograph, the motion picture camera.

DREAM KILLERDream Killers are those who have a huge effect on you. They keep pushing and pushing until they get to you and you give up. “I don’t know why you are spending all that money on a gym membership, you have tried it 10 times and have failed every time,” or “it hasn’t worked yet, it won’t work this time either!”

The dream killers want to pull you back into the cotton wool so you won’t move away from them and leave them alone in their average space. Dream killers are the type of people that are terrified you might achieve a bit more; you might be a little bit more successful, or even worse you might do something they haven’t done.

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DREAM BUILDERSThen there are the Dream Builders who know you are called unto excellence, they hold you accountable and they support you. “I know how much you want to lose that 80 pounds, and I know you can do it this time!” or “You are so deserving of that promotion, and I know how hard you are working to get it, just keep it up.”

Dream Builders are the people that are going to encourage you to Play a Bigger Game they are going to support you when the going gets tough, and they will be there to catch you when you fall and promptly get you back-up again. We all need dream builders in our lives, so when you start to Play A Bigger Game look-out for the dream builders and commit to dedicating more time with them.

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Oprah Winfrey often says that her fourth grade Mrs. Duncan’s was her dream builder as she often stayed after school to work with her, and for the first time she wasn’t afraid to be smart. Oprah even accredited and thanked Mrs Duncan in her fairwell speech on her last ever show.

DREAM GIVERSThen there are the Dream Givers. Dream Givers are special individuals who inspire you to dream. They want you to reach your full potential and can see what you are capable of, even if you can’t; they keep you wanting more – they speak the dreams into you.

There aren’t a lot of Dream Givers out there, but when you come across one, you will know who they are. Dream Givers are often people very close to you like your parents, siblings, partners or best-friends. Dream Givers are around to stay for the long-term, they are not going to let you fail and they are going to be the helping hand across any obsta-cles you face.

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Take some time and really think about who are your DREAM STEAL-ERS, DREAM KILLERS, DREAM BUILDERS and DREAM GIVERS. Once you have identified them in your life make a conscious effort to avoid the dream stealers and killers, and surround yourself with the dream builders and givers, show thanks to them and support them in their dreams too.

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Actors Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood were fired after co-starring in the “Riverboat” television series. Burt, recalled, “They said I had no talent and Clint’s Adam’s apple was too big,”

Not only do we have dream stealers in our lives but at times we are our own dream stealers. There are several ways we steal our own dreams, we sabotage the things we want to achieve.

One way we steal our own dreams is through fear; we have this fear of get-ting out of the cotton wool. Fear of stepping out and stepping up, for if we try something that nobody else has tried and it doesn’t work out then we’ll be labelled a failure.

We also have this fear that it might be too challenging, it might be too hard so we’re better off staying wrapped up inside that cotton wool and just being average. We’re afraid that we won’t be good enough, strong enough or dedi-cated enough to finish something.

BEWAREOF‘YOU’

Ultimately the only way to overcome fear, is to either do enough re-search and investigation of what it is that you want to achieve, to build enough knowledge to believe it is possible or jump in the deep end, give it a go and see what happens.

We also steal our own dreams when we accept labels from other peo-ple. People tell us we’re something and we accept it’s true and live our lives with that label. It starts right from the day we’re born; he sleeps a lot; she cries a lot, he eats a lot.

We get labels at school; he’s good at maths, she’s a good runner, he can’t dance. Then we go to work and we get more labels; he is not dedicated, she’s not a team player and we accept all these labels and they weigh us down as we carry them into life. We carry them from job to job, from relationship to relationship.

We must be able to shrug off those labels and get rid of them for good. What labels are you carrying around that either were never true or are no longer true?

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Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper because ‘he lacked imagination’. He went on to found The Walt Disney Company (worth $38billion), create charac-ters such as Mickey Mouse. He has won countless awards and done everything creative you can imagine from movie productions to theme park designs.

Even Lucille Ball got thumbs down when it came to acting. Just one month after she started attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts her mother received a letter from the school saying, “Don’t put any more money into this. This girl will never make it.”

The other thing we do when stealing our own dreams is we make ex-cuses. It’s easy these days in this cotton wool society to make excus-es. Think of the last time you or someone close to you said they were going to lose weight. “Starting Monday I’m going to go on a diet and not eat any fatty foods”. After a few successful days, at afternoon tea you’re faced with that last Tim Tam and you say “One Tim Tam won’t hurt!” And the next thing you know you’ve eaten a whole packet.

Or maybe you decide to give up alcohol and Jump in the deep end, give it a go and see what happens while in a bar at a conference drink-ing orange juice or soda water somebody says, “Come on, have one chardonnay”. The 10th time they say it you give in, “One won’t hurt”. Two hours later you’re dancing on the tables drinking Tequila. Then we say things like “It wasn’t working anyway” or “I wouldn’t have made it”. It’s easy to give yourself an excuse to give up and the more often you do it the easier it becomes.

I think the other thing we do is create a false sense of achievement. This cotton wool society has lent itself to us giving people pats on the back when they don’t deserve it. We get into this habit of telling our

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We have lost that ability to be honest.

colleagues that they’re doing a great job when we don’t really believe that’s true. We go to a restaurant and have a bad meal and the waiter asks “Was everything okay?” You respond, “Yeah, no it was all right, fine thanks”. But secretly you’re saying I’m never coming back. Does this sound familiar?

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If we let the dream stealers rule we wouldn’t have a lot of the little things, simple inventions that the dream stealers would have described as stupid, like the paper clip or liquid paper. Some dream stealers even thought computers would be useless, Tom Watson chairman of IBM in 1958 said “I think there is a world market for about five computers.” How wrong was he!

If we let the dream stealers rule, we would not have a lot of the big things either. India would still be ruled by the British. Nelson Mandela would still be in prison. If we let the dream stealers rule, the Berlin Wall would still divide Ger-many. John F. Kennedy would never have realised his dream of putting a man on the moon. If we let the dream stealers rule then Martin Luther King’s dream of having a black man in the White House would never have happened.

GIVEIT AGO!

International singing star Julio Iglesias was discouraged from singing when he was a teenager. When he auditioned for the school choir in Madrid he was turned down. The teacher told him he couldn’t carry a tune.

If you let the dream stealers rule, you’ll never get off the path of aver-age and onto the path of awesome and ultimately play a bigger game. If you don’t get off your backside and start to do something different and get outside that cotton wool society then you will remain on that loop of the average for the rest of your life.

We all have dreams stealers and dream killers present in our life’s, even the big achievers do. The featured famous and successful people refused to let dream stealers stop them, they just kept trying until they succeeded.

Jump in the deep end, give it a go and

see what happens.

USEFULRESOURCESTO HELP YOU BEGINTO PLAYA BIGGER GAME!

USEFULRESOURCESTO HELP YOU BEGINTO PLAYA BIGGER GAME!

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