Dream Big and Win

Introduction

The unspoken truth about succeeding in business—or life, for that matter—is that hopes and dreams on their own are not enough to create success. Of course, passion is a must, but you need more than that. Having a mantra can be a powerfully motivating touchstone, but amorphous concepts like “manifesting” or “believing” will get a person only so far. Constructing a vision board is a fine way to imagine where one might be in 10 years. The problem is that cutting and pasting and opening tubes of glitter have nothing to do with the steps needed to realize that tangible representation of the life you've depicted on that poster board. (Also, you're never going to get all that glitter out of your carpet.)

So I wrote this book as a guide not only for how to dream big, but also how to win.

I learned that the surest way to satisfy my desire for success was to act. TransPerfect, the billion‐dollar language solutions company that began as a dream in an NYU dorm room, required me to employ something more than a mantra; I needed verbs.

Why verbs? Because verbs are actions.

Verbs are the beating heart of a sentence and they're the most fundamental element of language. The written word can't exist without them. Verbs create a mutual understanding by delivering the same meaning to all involved in the conversation. That's why verbs are among the first words students use when learning to communicate in foreign languages. For example, French teachers start conjugating avoir (to have) ...