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about my future circumstances. (Please refer to my note about the number of business cards we ordered, most of which are still in my garage. One day, when I’m really, really huge, I’ll sell them on eBay for millions!)
    Where I failed, and where you will too if you’re not careful, is that I was wildly unrealistic about my future and my present.
    That was my biggest mistake. Had I been brutally realistic about my present circumstances, I would have realized:
    1. I didn’t know the guy from church that well. We’d only known each other for six months. We didn’t have enough relationship equity to justify me trusting him with sole control of all the money for our ad agency.
    2. I didn’t have much time to dedicate to the agency. I had a full-time job, a family, and a lot of other responsibilities I’d already committed to.
    3. I didn’t have any of the aforementioned skills needed to make this project successful.
    Had I accepted all that and been honest about my present, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have started the agency. Not at all. That’s the great misconception—that if you’re honest about your present you can’t be hopeful about your future. That realism has no role in dreaming.
    Realism wouldn’t have prevented me from chasing my dream; it would have prevented me from chasing the wrong dream. I would have done a different project. I would have said to the church, “We’re new; can we do a beta project for you? Something small like creating a new site for your preschool department? If that goes well, we can talk about doing a bigger project.”
    I would have talked to mentors and friends about the challenges of two strangers starting a business together. The size and ambition of my dreams for the future would not have changed one iota, but the shape of my present would have. My start would have looked different.
    Our contact at the church ended up being incredibly kind to me. She was as crushed as I was that the money was gone. She actually said that I didn’t have to pay the remaining money back. But that didn’t seem right, so my wife and I sent them a check for $2,310. I don’t know if that’s carrying-around cash for you—the kind of thing you use to buy cashmere socks when you want to treat yo’self—but at the Acuff house, that is some serious cake.
    People always tell you that failure teaches you the best lessons, and that’s true, but that doesn’t mean I want to learn that way. Of the two options—lose $2,310 and learn a great lesson, or keep $2,310 and learn a great lesson—I know which one I’d pick. Don’t be dumb like me. I implore you.
    Dream Honestly
    Be brutally realistic when you answer the question from the first chapter, “Where am I right now?” Answering that question honestly is critical to your career and maybe even your whole life.
    In Good to Great , Jim Collins tells the story of Jim Stockdale, a US military officer who was held captive for eight years during the Vietnam War and tortured regularly. Collins asked Stockdale which soldiers didn’t make it out. Stockdale answered,
    Oh, that’s easy. The optimists. They were the ones who said, “We’re going to be out by Christmas.” And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. They’d say, “We’re going to be out by Easter.” And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.
    This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. 3
    Avoid the temptation to believe that being honest about your current reality is somehow not the right way to dream big. Don’t you dare be like my friends who say, “I’ve got $100,000 in student loans, but I’m going to pretend those don’t exist and instead just dream about the future!” Honestly