Are you taking risks in life and going after your dreams (See the post Will You Take More Risks in 2013…Spread Your Wings and Soar)? Yesterday I saw the perfect example of someone taking a risk and going after her dreams. I attended a press conference where my friend, Jenni Hayman talked about her endeavor Wide World Ed, a MOOCs (massive open online courses) platform for Canada. Some non-Canadians view Canada as the 51st state of the USA, but the truth is that although they share a long border, the two countries are very different. Jenni noticed those differences and decided Canada needed its own MOOCs.
She understands that there is a large risk in doing something of this magnitude, but that isn’t stopping her despite the many naysayers. Jenni has an excellent job developing online courses for a Canadian university, but she has taken some time off to live her dream – that’s taking risks and going after your dreams. She knows that there are no guarantees in life, but she is willing to take a chance and create her own kind of “art.” She is stepping outside her comfort zone. Jenni has conducted a lot of research in the area, and based on her understanding of the art and science of education, she is developing a product to fill a need. How many of us are willing to step outside our comfort zones, take risks and fill the various needs that we are aware of?
For me it is very important to support my friends, and I try very hard to do so, and I plan to support Jenni in this endeavor in any way that I can – lending an ear, developing a course or two, sharing my experiences participating in MOOCs. If you haven’t noticed it yet, I can be quite quirky at times, and I often latch on to random things. Interestingly enough, one of the things that struck me at the press conference is an example Jenni gave about Victor Saad. Victor wanted to do a Master’s degree but found the price to be prohibitive. He didn’t let that stop him, instead, he created a personalized “Master’s” program based on meaningful experiences he deliberately immersed himself in. What a novel idea!
For the past few weeks, I have been feeling like a slacker after I have learned about what amazing things others are doing – people like Jenni who is building her Wide World Ed and the five year girl who reads over 870 books in one year. But on the other hand, I would like to think that I am taking a risk and going after my dreams. The only thing is that my dreams may be very different from yours. Pursuing many important smaller dreams result in major accomplishments in life. I would like to think that the Virtual Literary World Tour is a worthy ideal. It has not turning out the way I expected, but talk about major lessons learned. I now know how to do it better the next time around. Are you taking risks and going after your dreams?
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