Is It Time to Break Your Dreams Free?

Do you have ambitions you’ve kept hidden from everyone around you? Maybe it’s time to break them free from the shelter you’ve built to protect them.

Had you been walking by Henry Ford’s Detroit home that summer day in 1896, you might have thought he’d lost his mind. There he was, ax in hand, chopping away at the doorframe and surrounding brick of his makeshift garage. What you actually would have been witnessing was history in the making.

Ford had spent seven years building what he called a “Quadricycle.” Today, we call it an automobile. It was a two-seat carriage with four bicycle wheels and a gas engine he’d designed and built himself. But after he fired it up for its maiden voyage, Ford discovered his quadricycle was too big to fit through the building’s door. That’s when he got out his ax and went to work. The shelter he’d used to protect his greatest invention had become a trap, holding it back.

It’s not uncommon for people to keep their dreams hidden. A hopeful musician refuses to let anyone hear his music; a would-be artist never shows her paintings. They shelter their ambitions, so no one can insult or criticize them. But like Ford’s makeshift garage, what was intended to protect eventually becomes a trap, holding them back. Maybe it’s time to break your dreams free and share them with the world.