Walking in my pajamas from the nice absurd house outside to the porch, the heat unexpectedly smacks my face. The buzz of the overworked air conditioner compressor drowns out the sounds of birds, nevertheless the bugs' buzzing is drowning out the compressor. In the distance, the rap of a hammer — someone is up early on, working on their dream home.

Building a dream home has never been high on my bucket listing, withal every domicile, every building you lot laissez passer, was at one fourth dimension or another someone's dream.

I ofttimes look at one-time, crumbling buildings, often near the point of being condemned or razed, and think that building was someone's dream at 1 bespeak. Someone spent their life coming upward with the money, working diligently over the plans, working with the builders (or building it themselves) over months or years, spending endless amounts of fourth dimension working on their dream. If walls could talk, they'd reveal what took place within those buildings and the effect of those dreams.

Old Vs. New

Though headaches can abound with old buildings, if given a personal selection of a brand-spanking-new home or building versus something onetime with grapheme and great pattern, I'd cull the erstwhile. Maybe I'm an quondam soul, mentally living in another era. I like former paintings, former buildings, sometime houses, old boats, and erstwhile books.

Compression Me

Though I sometimes fantasize about living in historical times and hanging out in the cafes with painters like Monet or Van Gogh, thinking how magical it would be, in some ways I feel as though I'm living that life today, and that people will await dorsum on these times, wishing they could accept been a office of the art movement today. Sometimes I have to pinch myself when I realize a nifty artist is staying in our world famous artist'south cabin .

Artists Discovered

I feel extremely blessed to spend fourth dimension with the greatest painters of our day, some of whom will come to my event in the Adirondacks next week, and some of whom will exist discovered there once I run across them paint and finish upward doing articles on them. I tin can recollect of several unknown painters, at present famous, whose careers were given nativity by attending that upshot and others.

Two Special Movements

Though it's fun looking at other times as romantic and a place we would love to be, we need to realize that the time we are living in is one of those special times in history. If you're reading this and are not an artist, there are two movements going on at the present moment that volition become down in history as two of the near important in the history of fine art. I feel fortunate to exist able to play a small role in each of those movements.

Cocktail Party Stories

A little piece of fine art history for your next cocktail party … today's plein air painting movement ("plein air" is a French term for "outdoors," as I explicate on my podcast ) is the largest motility of whatsoever kind in the history of art. There are more people going outside to pigment, more events, more than shows, and more than participants than at whatever time in history. Fine art historian Jean Stern of the Irvine Museum says this is the largest movement in the history of art. Of class, I also call it "the new golf," considering people love the challenge, the social aspects, and the lifestyle.

A Youth Movement

The other movement is what I call the modern realism movement, which is led by droves of young people who are moving away from their parents' and grandparents' modernist roots and, like generations before them, shedding the sometime for the new. The new, in their eyes, ways realistic painting practices perfected by the One-time Masters 400 years before them, whose techniques were almost lost later on the mod motion was launched in the early 1900s.

These artists are painting works at levels of quality that friction match some of the great masters of the past, though their subjects reflect modernistic sensibilities. Our little part in this was to kickoff a magazine focused on this movement about 15 years ago, when we saw some early signs, and today we attempt to fuel that movement with a training event and convention and the magazine.

Treasures

In both cases, those who take the gift of owning paintings from these eras may cease upwards with the high-auction pieces that fund future generations of your family, just as if you had owned a Monet or a Raphael. But what'south most important isn't the money, it's the pleasure of having these works on your walls, enriching your life.

1 never knows how history volition treat one'due south own times, but I believe historians will expect back on these moments equally rare and special, and look upon the artists every bit function of a special fourth dimension in history, especially when at that place are two major movements happening simultaneously.

Living in Special Times

Each of us is living in a special time, when special things are going on. I call back my grandmother talking near inventions created in her lifetime that she could barely believe; they seemed to her beyond scientific discipline fiction. I've since realized that you and I will be telling our grandkids nearly things nosotros've seen that once seemed impossible. The rate of innovation in our lives today is greater than the rate of innovation at any time in history, impacting everything effectually u.s., including our health.

I Can't Believe I'1000 Here

During the dot-com boom of the 1990s, I was an outsider looking in. I heard stories well-nigh "idea people" who ended up changing the world and sometimes making billions. Some stories became legendary. One day I woke up and told myself, "I don't desire to be an outsider, I desire to be an insider. I want to be one of those people trying to change the globe through technology."

And so I went to Silicon Valley with an thought, raised a agglomeration of money, started a company, hired employees, and changed the world of Internet sound forever. The people I was encountering in my daily life were all with the immature startups that had not yet changed the world. For example, I met 2 immature guys at a party who had just started a company called Google. I met the fellow who started Napster, which changed the music world forever. I met with the founders of startups chosen PayPal and Ebay, and hundreds of other tech giants.

Insert Yourself Here

Though I was belatedly to the party, once I realized at that place was a major movement going on, I fabricated a decision to find a way to insert myself and then I could be part of the dialogue. Rather than telling my grandkids most seeing things happen in my life, I'll be able to tell them that I was able to play a small role in those things.

The gift of life may be cursory, merely why not look at that souvenir and try to be function of something bigger, something that will change the globe, something that will allow you lot to influence the outcome?

Insecurities and Hangups

Though you may not feel deserving , yous have things inside of you that tin brand a major difference in the earth. Your perspective, your lifetime of wisdom, is of swell value, and information technology's something others need to hear. In fact, most of the people I've met in the world of modify are no different than nosotros are. They accept their insecurities and hangups, they lack conviction in many areas, they have doubts and negative thoughts too. The merely divergence is that they move forward anyway considering their dreams are bigger than their doubts.

No Regrets

You have something inside you lot right this infinitesimal. You may not fifty-fifty know what it is. You may be questioning what to do with your life, or you may have an idea that you've lacked the confidence to pursue. Do you want to get to your deathbed with regrets because you did non attempt? I'one thousand not sure who said it, but it's better to effort and fail than never to try at all.

In that location are so many things on my bucket list that I'll need a couple of lifetimes to get them washed. Some are old, some are new, but I'm very focused on making them happen.

An Old Bucket List Detail

I tin only remember of 1 thing on my old saucepan list that I've not washed even so, a dream I've had since I was a teen, which is to play a office as an actor in a major moving-picture show. I'm not certain why the dream is in that location or what drives it, just I fully intend to check that off my list. Knowing the itch that has to be scratched is one-half the battle, considering you'll tell your encephalon about your need and your subconscious heed will brand it happen.

Edifice a Museum

Though this is important to me, there are new saucepan list items that hold more importance. For instance, Isabella Stewart Gardner inspired me to create a modernistic-day museum, just every bit she did, to reverberate the two major art movements and the great artists of our time. I want to create a museum of plein air and one of modernistic realism. I merely need a major donor to create an endowment. This needs to be done and then these ii movements are given proper recognition in a major metropolis, so they live on for generations. It's too of import to let the moment pass.

There are many other bucket listing items, like education a million people to pigment. It'southward a small goal, and one I promise to blow past one day, but it'southward important because painting changes souls and opens eyes. Information technology remakes u.s.a. and then we have the optics of an creative person, and that is life-changing.

Giving Ideas Attention

I suspect you lot besides have a bucket list. Some are just fun things you want to get washed, which may involve travel . Others may be most creating memories for your family, while others may be ideas that will modify the earth. They are all of import, and if yous give them enough time and attention, you'll overcome all the obstacles in the manner, including money. I certainly don't accept the money to start an important museum, but someone out there who has the ability may share the vision to make it happen.

What are your big dreams?
 What is on your bucket listing?
 What practice you feel you need to accomplish in your lifetime?

Perfect Timing

Some people beginning fast, others start slowly. Most of the good things I've done in my life happened after 50. Don't tell yourself in that location isn't time, or that's it's as well late, or you're too young or too old or as well poor or that your circumstances forbid it. Passion overcomes everything. Information technology merely starts with conventionalities.

Mind Blocking

The world has been blessed with amazing things that would not exist had some woman or human being allowed their dreams to exist prevented past their negative mindset. Nosotros have incredible buildings, institutions, museums, fifty-fifty cities that happened considering of the single dream of ane person. Nearly of those people started with no coin and no special advantages, but their passion drove their minds to find a way.

Make Your Listing

Y'all've been blessed with a not bad mind, great ideas, and slap-up passion. You lot have what information technology takes. I hope that today, you'll find some serenity time to make a list, and make up one's mind which items are at the top of the list, so you'll remind yourself every day. Earlier long, what seems out of reach will start getting into your subconscious mind, which then will notice a way to drive it dwelling.

I have confidence in y'all, no matter what things are going on in your life that may be preventing yous from living that dream. Nigh, if not all, of these things will pass and y'all'll notice God's perfect timing. Accept confidence, and don't allow go of those dreams.