This is a lesson I learned from Dan Miller (www.48days.com).

“The story is told that one night in 1990 when Jim Carrey was a struggling young comic trying to make his way in Los Angeles, he drove his old beat-up Toyota to the top of a hill. While sitting there, broke, looking down over the city, and dreaming of his future, he wrote himself a check for $10 million, put in the notation line ‘for acting services rendered,’ and dated it for Thanksgiving 1995. He stuck that check in his wallet – and the rest, as they say, is history.”

It is easy to question how much impact a simple check would have on Carrey’s life.  However, I believe that this simple act of writing down his dream had a significant impact.  It is not talent, or skill, or intelligence that causes us to achieve success.  Instead it is awareness.  The simple act of writing the check to himself and believing opened up a door for him to see opportunities that many would miss.  If we do not imagine it is possible, then we do not look for that option.  However, if we look for the possible (and even the impossible) we allow ourselves opportunities to achieve success.

Experience has taught me that we need to reprogram our brains to look for opportunities.    The problem is that we process an unimaginable amount of information every day.  Our five senses are always working.  So we need to teach our brain what should stand out above the rest of the garbage.

Reprogramming our minds is actually easier than it sounds.  All you need to do is write down what you want to do and then look at it every morning and every night.  By reading it constantly and consistently you are programming your brain that this is important.  You are teaching your brain that if anything even remotely appears to be related to this then I want to know!  It puts our dream in front of everything else.

Oh, by the way…

“…by 1995, Jim had seen the tremendous success of Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, The Mask and my personal favorite, Liar, Liar. His per film fee at that point had escalated to $20 million.”

What are you going to write yourself a check for today???

– Catalyst John, Business & Entrepreneur Coach