The equation for reaching your dreams

I’d like to share with you guys a story. This story is about a girl, teenage girl, like most of us, and she wanted to be a nurse because she felt very pleased to take care and help people. Well, one day, she was going to travel by plane, and she had the opportunity to fall in love with that huge machine that makes people fly around the world. She was quite confused because how could she manage those passions she had of taking care of people and flying at the same time? How could she do this? When she entered the airplane, she saw a very good-looking woman wearing uniform helping people to find their seats with a beautiful smile in her face, and she decided to be like her someday. She wanted to be a flight attendant, to have these opportunities to fly everyday, to feel this freedom, and to be with different people of different places and far places, too every day. Okay, that was her dream. Well, a dream for us can mean lots of things. It can be something that happens inside our head while we are sleeping, It can be also a compliment. You can go to the person you have a crush on and say to him or her that, “oh my god, you’re a dream.” But it also can be an ambition, and that’s what we are talking about today. An ambition is the strong desire to reach something, and I believe that there are a range of factors that can determine whether or not we will reach our dreams. Some of them are the self-esteem we receive, the will to succeed we have, the support we receive, and the reality, our realistic vision, actually. And to make this way of thinking easier for us, I decided to turn all these factors into a math equation, although I’m not as good at math as I wish. The equation was like this: Y times Z times W times R equals X, it’s very simple, where Y is your self-esteem, Z is the support you receive, W is your will to succeed, R is your realistic vision and X is your ambition, your dream. Interpreting this equation, we can see that every factor is essential. There are two observations that I’d like to tell you guys. The first one is if you pay attention here, you can see that if there is only one negative unknown in this equation, it can mess up everything in your life. For example, if you have self-esteem, you receive the support, you have will to succeed, you have also an awesome realistic vision, but if you don’t have an ambition in your life, you have no focus. It’s like you’re running as fast as you can with everything but you don’t know where you’re going. Another observation, if you have the support, also the will to succeed, you have an awesome realistic vision, and you also have an ambition, but you don’t have self-esteem, you will hardly reach your dreams because you won’t feel able enough for it and if you reach it, although it’s a victory, you won’t feel completely satisfied with yourself because you’ll feel there’s a part of you missing. Another point that I’d like to share with you is that the only external element that is here in this equation is the support we receive. This support we receive is directly related to our society and what it enforces. So when we are called to do something, something that we never saw someone like us, apparently like us, doing, you won’t feel able enough to do it. Can you understand that? So I’d like to ask you guys a question. How much support do you get from this current society? Getting back to our story, our protagonist, she didn’t receive a lot of support from society. She decided to search more about this career that she wanted to have, and she realized some huge variations between her and the idea of flight attendant according to this current society. This current society, in her thoughts, couldn’t agree with the idea of a black-skinned woman with curly braided hair to be a flight attendant. Of course, she was sad about it. She couldn’t do, be, or live the way she wanted to because of her apperance. She decided to quit about this dream she had. One day at her school, she was going to an event, a vocational guidance, and the special guest in this vocational guidance was a British guy. While the event was going on, he was paying attention to her, and that was kind of weird to her. And when the conversation moment arrived, she told him she was almost giving up on her dream, but she didn’t tell him why and what was her dream. At the end of the event, he took her hand, looked her in the eyes and said, “I believe in you. I believe in your talent Please don’t give up on your dream. I believe in you.” She was shocked, of course. Who wouldn’t be? Because that man went from so far to tell her so simple words and at the same time, so intense words for her. Based on this support, she decided to take a risk. She decided to take an exam called General Aircraft Knowledge, and this exam you must take if you want to be a flight attendant, and she was approved on it. That girl I told you the story about was me two years ago. I am a black-skinned girl with curly braided hair from the suburb of Rio in Brazil, and I’m now believing again in my dream to become a flight attendant. I couldn’t believe in the dream before because my equation wasn’t complete. But I know I wouldn’t be here believing in this dream again if it weren’t for awesome people in my life supporting me in different ways, like my family, my friends, all of you, for sure. And there is one thing that I’d like to share with you. I’d like to say that in this current society, I am part of the dreamers club. I dream, I make dreams, and I love to help people with their dreams, too So there are two questions that I’d like to make for you guys. Are you a dreamer in this current society and you help people’s dreams, too? Or are you just another face in the crowd that can’t dream anymore? Henry Ford is often reported to have said that: “When everything seems to be against you, remember that the plane takes off against the Wind, not with it.” I don’t know how the wind is blowing for you today, but I know you’ll solve the equation that’s in your life that I showed you before and you will reach every dream that are inside your heart. Thank you.