Dreams

Dreams, we all have them.

We start working on our fantasies and aspirations when we are just little tikes. For girls we might pretend we are the princess who gets swept off her feet by prince charming. For boys maybe it’s hitting the winning homerun in the final game of the World Series.

But something happens as we get older. I have seen it with my own eyes as my small children have grown up and are now teenagers.  Their childhood dreams have all but fallen by the wayside and now they find themselves wrestling and grappling with “real” world realities.

My daughter asked me the other day why some people’s dreams come true and some don’t.

Why do some of us fail and some of us succeed with our dreams. What happens to us when we lose sight of our dreams? Do we fail as human beings…no, of course not. But I do believe there is a part of a person’s heart that does fade away…which in my book is never a good thing.

As we grow up we are given advice along the way…this advice I think can make us or break us as human beings. Some people are dream squashers. You know the type…“You can’t do that! You’re too short. You’ll never reach it!”  OR  “You’ll have to compete with thousands of people to get that audition…are you crazy? You’re just not that good.”

Some people are dream riders…they keep your dreams as their own and live vicariously through you…at all costs.  “You can’t quit now…We’ve worked so hard. Now we only have three more hours of practice today and the pageant (insert game, match, tournament, contest) is tomorrow. We have to win tomorrow.

And still some people are dream seekers…always chasing another tomorrow and always looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. “Honey, I know it’s the last of our savings, but I really think this time it will pay off. All of those people on that TV commercial can’t be lying.”

 So how do we do it all? How do we stop listening to the nay sayers, swipe the suckers of life off our backs and believe in ourselves? How do we live our dreams and not someone else’s? How do we keep our inner soul happy dreaming, and balance the realities of life?

Dreams can be small or they can be big and can last a lifetime. I still have a lot of things in my “dream book” of life.  I want a motorcycle ( I know, my mother would cringed at that one), I want to write a book, I’d like to teach for a while, and I would like really like to go to culinary school to become a chef, which transformed itself for a time into a pastry chef.   My kids and I used to have this dream when they were little of owning a bakery together. We had built it in our heads for years and when things got too stressy in our house that would be the bedtime story. We would decide wallpaper (edible of course), counter seats (peppermint swirls tops), edible spoons and whatnot, and before I knew it, they would be asleep with happy thoughts (and me too). This dream, for me anyway, has given way to owning a pub on the beach on some distant island with my boyfriend. Sounds much more fun and less work than a bakery. I also really want to learn how to play the sax. That one I had forgotten about until I starting writing this blog. And my favorite of all my dreams is being a great grandmother. I don’t know why, but I just know that I’ll live to be 108 and be the biggest kick in the pants great granny ever!

I have so many things I want to do when I grow up. I seriously just want my finger in every pie possible.  Learning to me is fun and I can usually pick up and handle pretty decently anything put in front of me. So most things I approach as a new adventure rather than drudgery.

 I do think though that somewhere we all get pretty pragmatic about our dreams and realize that reality has a different notion of what is fantasy and what is fact. I think that’s why we play so much when we are kids…and why we let our children play.

I think as we get older we believe somehow we gain some idiotic, monumental perspective that gives us the right to push away our dreams and insist we grown up. I for one have quite the Peter Pan complex and so does my boyfriend Craig. We get into sooo much trouble. Our kids are always telling us to “stop…you’re embarrassing us” or “grow up!” I swear we get the giggles at the most inappropriate times. But Craig makes me smile. He makes me laugh so hard I can hardly breathe sometimes. And on days when we are both beaten up so hard from life’s crummy blows, we sit back and dream about our pub on the beach. What it would be like, what the inside will look like, the floor plan and the different food we would serve.

We all need dreams…even if they morph over the years into something else. They are all still inside us and drive our very soul.

When I started my STEPABLES® in 1999, people in my industry said it was a stupid idea. No one would buy plants you could walk on….that’s crazy! No one will buy them.  No one!!!  Well, after only a few short months on the market we were featured on Rebecca’s Garden and to our surprise Rebecca brought our plants along to Good Morning America and showed off STEPABLES® as a cool thing to get if you are a gardener. Charlie Gibson even introduced us as a cool new thing called STEPABLES®….Now I would say that was definitely a dream come true! I never envisioned that happening or remotely even dreamed it, but it changed my life forever…It was better than any dream I could have thought up…so I think it merits a big gold star in my dream book. We immediately became an overnight sensation and launched the product nationwide soon after.

So 2010 to me is our official 10 year anniversary of STEPABLES®.  What I set out to do with my business was to create something that would get a lot everyday people really interested in gardening and at the same time have a major impact on the horticultural industry. The year 2000 was the year when my dream became a reality. As I look back over ten years, I can say that we have inspired millions of people to dig in the dirt. We inspire people take off their shoes, feel the love of their yard, all the while doing something ecologically sound for the earth.  We’ve also managed to “lighten up” a very tightly wound-up industry…just by being passionate about what we do and enjoying the ride along the way. We have more fun than anyone in our industry and it shows.

I am very proud of what STEPABLES® has become. It is a dream that I could have never mapped out, yet it has been an adventure of a life time.

Rachel, I am not sure why some people’s dreams come true and some don’t. Maybe they do and some people are just too busy trying to find the pot of gold that they don’t realize it’s been at their feet the whole time. It may not be full of gold, but memories, smiles, laughter, tears and a life rich with dreams.

Life is what you make folks….dream away, and dig in the dirt with unbridled passion until you are completely covered from head to toe. I think that’s when it happens…It’s at that moment when you are completely saturated in your life that you realize dreams do come true.

Now go get dirty out there!

 Fran

So you have these moments in life…things that change your trajectory without you really even knowing it. I have had one of those moments, and I want to share it with all of you.

This is our third year doing our We’ve Got Sole Display contest. I started this contest to not only rev up sales, but I also wanted my garden centers to get involved with their customers. I wanted them to reach out to their community with a personal handshake that says “We care”.  So we decided to award the prize money to the local charity of the winner’s choice instead of directly to the stores.

At the same time, I had hoped by sharing my values and opening up my own wallet, we might be able to start something amazing in this industry and really pay it forward. I try to live my life doing good things for others. I personally feel a company or an individual in the public eye, should, when given the microphone (an audience who is listening), not only have something profound to say, but their actions should show the world who they, and what they are made of without even a saying a word.

So this year we had a lot of entrants to our contest. One in particular stood out. I should have known this garden center was going to be special when I got numerous emails in the winter asking for our contest kit…over and over again. This lady…Jenny, she just wouldn’t leave me alone. She emailed me and emailed me, called me a number of times to register for the contest, get her a kit and so on. I finally got her hooked up with her distributor and thought that was that. Nope! Then she called over and over again about a seminar. Could I give a seminar at her nursery? Please. Please, Please!!  My schedule fills up so far in advance these days that I had to say no…but she was sooo persistent. Who was this lady?!! I still had to decline but she was beginning to make me wonder if she was going to be my first stepstalker? Little did I know what big fans I had.

Now…some history, things I didn’t know until just recently…Jenny and Bill own My Garden Nursery. Apparently upon walking through my trade show booth a few years ago Bill decided to propose to Jenny (in a matter of speaking) at this trade show using my STEPABLES tie dyed wristbands. They wear them proudly, and Jenny told me if she forgets to put hers on…Bill gets a bit sad!

When I opened the photos they emailed me I immediately knew they were going to be my winners. In their nursery, there are two life size figures of Bill and Jenny made out of moss and chicken wire. This year, they planted them with bright yellow STEPABLES and dressed them up with We’ve Got Sole t-shirts! Okay that was pretty cool…but then they made this super happy looking display with yellow crates and killer stepping stones…all the while planting STEPABLES in between the stones…directing traffic right through the display area. I always say the proof is in the pudding with these plants. This is exactly the way I want to see all my stores display STEPABLES!!! Why? Three reasons: One…because frankly, stepping on plants is fun. Two…merchandising plants in a user friendly way is smart. Which, by putting them on top of crates was brilliant instead of traditional block and board.  Three, planting the plants right there for everyone to walk on…kids, dogs, grammas and all, makes believers out of everyone.

They made amazingly cute signs, plus used ours…..then they did something above and beyond the norm…they had a seminar…not just any seminar, but a Sole Sister Soiree!  They had musicians, they raised money for charities, they had tasty treats, they planted the coolest shoes with STEPABLES and then they even had foot massages! All with the Sole message! This is what Jenny was bugging me so much about to participate. What enthusiasm, what spirit and what Sole! These people got it! They understood how to get people excited about a product, but they also knew how to have fun! Brilliant!

Here’s the life changing part…I call Jenny to tell she has won the contest…she is thrilled…beyond thrilled and is hoping to split the charity money in two directions.  One for Alzheimer’s Research (which is near and dear to her heart because of her parents) and the second for Susan G. Komen For The Cure because she is at the moment battling breast cancer and fighting through her first few rounds of chemotherapy.

Now here’s where it got me. Jenny is a pretty young spark like me. I expected to see an older lady. I know I have met Jenny and her staff before, but for some reason just didn’t put two and two together. 

Now, I have my aches and pains, and as I have gotten older, there are a lot more of them than I care to admit. Some of my days can pretty grueling between horrid back issues and other ailments.  I have always considered myself a toughie. As most peeps cringe over a small back spasm, in my world, a day with just a little pain would be a pleasure.  You get used to it, move on and just realize this is how it’s going to be…forever. It’s just the cards I got dealt. 

 But Jenny has changed that for me. I don’t think I’ve tried hard enough to get past this thing. I can get feasibly better. Not perfect, but I want to be able to do things I haven’t been able to do for a while. I want to get out my roller blades again. I want play softball again. I want to learn how to ski!!!  I have this life that I had to put on a shelf the past five years because of my back and I no longer am willing to do that now that I have met Jenny. What I thought were barriers weren’t really barriers at all. They were hurdles. Some, granted, taller than others, but nonetheless, none insurmountable. 

Pain is a state of mind. That’s all. It can whittle you done to nothing if you let it.  Some people do their best work in pain. Michael Jordon comes to mind…throwing up crazy shots to win games in unbearable pain. Gene Kelly sang Singing In The Rain with 104 fever…I always had my best games being sick or injured. When I was in my element, diving for a fly ball came instinctively as I would forget about the pain I was in…then of course I paid for it later! But by gosh the stretching beyond what I should be able to do…laying my entire body out to get munched just to catch a fly ball…that’s what life is all about.

Jenny is doing her best stretch ever right now. By opening up her world to me, to you and to her customers, her sharing has brought about an awareness in me that I have not felt before. Not only for Breast Cancer, not only for Alzheimer’s Research, but for my own wa’aa moments, when I feel 64 instead of 44. Life is a challenge. No doubt about it. Sometimes we get shining moments, sometimes we get the crud kicked out of us.

This is Jenny’s shining moment. She may not see it, she certainly may not believe it, but this woman is, has been and will continue to be a bright star to people around her.  Her life has pushed open a door for me I could not do by myself.  You never know when your world will change forever. You never know where the next little push will come from. You never know just what events will put you on a different path and you never know what hurdles become speed bumps just because you shook someone’s hand.

Get involved out there people!! We can all make an impact on someone, somewhere!

~Fran

www.stepables.com