What is the Meaning of Faith? Dream the Impossible Dream

 

 

What is the meaning of faith?

 

I forget who said it but the quote was,

 

"If you are going to dream, make those dreams big ones."

 

I can understand the point. If we have the bravery to follow our dreams, take action on the things we desire we will sooner or later achieve them if we truly believe we will. So why only have small dreams? If through determination, self confidence and faith we can succeed in creating our dreams we may as well make those dreams as big as possible.

 

Recently I have been reading a book by Richard Branson. This is a person that I particularly admire albeit I only see his public persona. I really appreciate his less than formal approach to business, his fearlessness and his ability to fulfil his dreams. He has created a global brand and has succeeded in many different industries. His belief that he must create a first class service whilst building a workplace for all his employees to enjoy, seems certainly to have paid dividends. And dividends that shareholders can enjoy also. Whilst it is obviously important for a business to be financially successful, the overriding factor is always to provide value for money for the customer. By providing value this has been returned to Richard Branson thousands if not millions of times over.

 

A few years ago a friend of mine flew to Florida, USA. from Gatwick using Virgin Atlantic. Unfortunately when he and his wife went to check in they found that their seats on standard class had been double booked. They were offered the opportunity of free tickets the following year if they were prepared to give up their original seats and take the next available flight which would be sometime in the next twenty four hours. My friend decided to take up that offer. The upshot of this was that the next available flight to Florida was just boarding and business class was only available. He and his wife now had an earlier flight than the original, far better seats than the original plus free flight tickets for the following year. This is Richard Branson looking after the customer particularly when Virgin Atlantic had made the mistake.

 

One of Richard Bransons' current projects is Virgin Galactic. He is looking to open up space travel to the public. A very big and extremely ambitious dream one might feel. But I wouldn't bet against him. Why not dream big dreams? If it is not he, then someone else will develop the technology.

 

A few years ago I worked in Nigeria and have built a great love for the country, despite some of the precarious incidences that occurred whilst I was there. Undoubtedly there is extreme poverty in this country. I have recently been developing contacts again within Nigeria and my big dream is to help as many people as I can to help themselves move out of the poverty trap.

 

I asked of my contacts what sort of products Nigerian people would be interested in, my intention being to source the products and hopefully be able to offer them at a price that they could afford. One of my contacts however came back to me with his dream. He wants to build a company that offers IT products. This would be to include research and development, training, various IT products, internet service provision… the list went on. And to top it, once established in Nigeria he wants to expand across the African continent.

 

Now this is a BIG dream. And I am not discouraging him. He has gone off to do his research, establish contacts and for my part I am doing all I can to help him.

I think he really believes in his dream and why shouldn't he make it a reality if he is prepared to put in the work and build a team necessary to make it a success. He is a Christian man, has a deep faith in God and if he truly wants to deliver a first class service like Richard Branson does, then he will succeed.

 

How fantastic is that?

 

Terry Norrington

 

www.whatisthemeaningoffaith.com