Identifying And Avoiding Dream Stealers

Here’s an ugly truth for creators and entrepreneurs:
Not everyone wants to see you succeed.
There are some people who would like to see you fail.
There are some people who would like you to not even try.
And sometimes, this person is you.

Julliane Terry, who runs Tok Stret in Papua New Guinea, calls these people “Dream Stealers”, and it’s a good descriptor.
Dream Stealers are people want to pump the brakes on your progress.
From my experience, they come in a range of shapes and sizes, and aren’t always easy to spot.
Let’s have a look at some of them now:

Jealous Rivals
I heard a great example of how different people perceive status.
Some people see status like a ladder – the higher up you rank, the more status you have.
Others see status like a web – the more close connections, the more status you have.
Both types are prone to jealousy, but the ladder ones are unlikely to be happy for your success.
Your improvements “push them further down”, and that makes them feel bad.
Unhappy with feeling bad, they naturally look for ways of dragging you back down.
e.g. direct criticism, indirect criticism, gossip behind your back, biased advice, shutting doors on opportunities, diminishing your work, or generally draining your enthusiasm.
Part of the reason for this might be that dragging others down is easier, comparatively, than building themselves up.

Jealous Bystanders
Not every jealous person is your rival, nor are they even in the same field.
Sometimes people just take a dislike to someone, even a stranger, and feel compelled to take a small disparaging action.
Try it yourself: when out in a large public space, and someone walks by in a slightly unusual outfit, what do you hear others say?
I bet you hear “commentary and observations”, often unflattering, for no discernible purpose other than humour and to feel good by comparison.
This isn’t a nice experience, but it’s also not a reason to blend in at all costs.
You won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s ok.
Just remember that some people like criticising tea they don’t like, and won’t hold back from making cutting remarks.

Concerned Conservatives
Not all Dream Stealers are malicious – some people want to keep you safe because they love you.
These are the well-meaning friends and family who don’t want to see you experience a failure, because they hate seeing you upset.
Here’s the problem: in order to do anything interesting and new, you’re guaranteed to experience some sort of failure.
These failures can be made smaller, made valuable, and be a healthy part of creating something great.
Concerned Conservatives don’t always see that upside.
In order to protect you, they’ll nudge you towards work that they know and understand.
This comes in the form of old-school advice, lived experience and raising lots of red flags.
You can see how this comes from a good place, and a lot of old-school advice is helpful in some way, but this also crushes any dreams that are new or in emerging fields.
Imagine telling your family that you want to take up coding rather than going to university.
You will meet a lot of resistance, but people who have done exactly that are now working in cool jobs earning 3x more than their undergraduate peers.
Remember, they don’t think they’re stealing your dream, it’s more like replacing your dream with a dream they like and understand.

Small Picture Thinkers
Sometimes the problem isn’t discouragement, but rather a limited view of your options.
You might find people in your circle assume that your dreams are small, and encourage you to aim low.
This sets a “false ceiling” on your options, like how many people you can reach, how much money you can make, how large your project can grow.
In this case, they’re not so much replacing your dreams, but perhaps stunt their growth.
Bill Gates offers a great example: “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years”.
My suggestion is to look at the top performers in your field – how long did it take them to get to where they are?
Would their advisors have though their success was possible in that timeframe?
A lot of the growth you see in top performers today would have seemed impossible 20 years ago.
People are likely to assume your goals are either modest or deem them unrealistic.
There is a third option – big and doable.

You And Your Brain
Sometimes the person undermining your dreams is you.
More specifically, it’s a small portion of your mindset that doesn’t like either success or failure, anything that presents change and strong emotions.
This might emerge in the form of self-sabotage, negative self-talk, declining opportunities, and undervaluing anything that you’ve made.
In my experience, this type of negativity can be a constant undercurrent in some people, or emerge in self-conscious bursts.
e.g. my photographer friend taking hundreds of great shots overseas, hitting a burst of self-doubt, and wiping his camera card to get rid of the negative feeling.
What’s interesting to me is the mix of “fear of failure” and the “fear of success”.

Your Role In All Of This
My concern with some advice I hear on Dream Stealers is that people sound helpless, as if their dreams were easy to destroy and that other people’s opinions were rock solid facts.
Your dreams are your responsibility.
It’s great that you have them, but you are the curator and the defender of your goals.
Nobody else will ever truly understand them, or care as much as you.
That’s ok.
Just don’t hand over ownership or control to anyone else.
Members of your circle can reinforce, support and help you clarify what you’re after, but you can’t abdicate responsibility.

So What To Do With Dream Stealers?
Blanket advice for dealing with Dream Stealers is unhelpful, since so much of the problem is contextual.
A big sweeping statement like “Cut them out completely!” might not be suitable for your culture, living situation or family ties.
Instead, I’ll give you a great question paraphrased from The School of Life:

“If your work was to suffer a setback or misfortune, are there members of your circle who would not be too unhappy to see it?
Why are they still in your circle?”

I’ve asked that question of a lot of people, and it often makes them take a sharp gasp.
They know.
They instantly know who the question is asking them about.
And they are surprised at how quickly they knew and how strongly they felt.

Here’s what I recommend:
·      Naming something can reduce its power; label people accurately.
·      When starting something new, make progress in secret – let people see once you’ve understood what aspects you enjoy and can show some evidence of your skills.
·      Stop looking to Dream Stealers for career advice.
·      Depending on the context, avoid seeking permission from Dream Stealers, and instead look for opportunities that you can control.
·      Change the balance of your conversations with Dream Stealers away from your projects, instead focusing on sport, hobbies or entertainment; shallow and friendly is much easier than tension and hostility.
·      Seek out alternative mentors who will support and reinforce your dreams – people who want you to succeed and who can offer valuable perspective.
·      Add a few more constructive accounts to each of your content feeds; some cynicism is helpful, but feeds full of cynics can be discouraging.
·      See if there are any ways to bring the Dream Stealer some benefit from your project, like bragging rights – they might not have liked your work at first, but people change their tune when there’s reflected glory up for grabs.
·     If this person is a direct manager, start looking for new roles, even if it ends up being a six-month process.

If the Dream Stealer is you, my suggestion is to find a coach, mentor or trained professional who you can trust with your innermost thoughts.
Every single person I know who’s done this says it was money well spent – professional listeners and therapists exist for a reason.
Articles like this can be helpful in flagging the issue, but now it’s worth getting experts on your team.

I hope this gives you the courage to take the first step – deciding that your dreams are important and worth defending.
Not everyone will understand what you’re working towards, so it’s worth adjusting how loud and influential you make their voices.
 

P.S. When researching this topic, I noticed that a lot of similar sounding articles written by MLMs.
I have huge concerns about MLMs, their morals and their results.
If your dream involves working for an MLM, please know that you have other options, and that your dreams might have been exploited or compromised by a MLM leader for their financial gain.
I don’t sell anything here so I can write this without bias – everyone I know who has joined an MLM has not ended up closer to their dreams.
These companies offer a lot of “training” designed to have you overlook genuine concern from your loved ones, so here’s a few good questions to take with you:
Is this person asking a fair question?
Do I have evidence to back up the claims I’ve been told?
Is this evidence from someone outside of the company?
Is my friend questioning my dream, or are they questioning the MLM mechanism?