Thoughts on Business, Church, and Life

Dreaming and Doing

I love to dream, and I love to do. And my best works come when I do what I dream.

Sometimes I dream without doing. That’s fun, and, sometimes it even serves me well. Undone dreams often lead to bigger and better undone dreams, and eventually one of these really big and best dreams gets done.

Sometimes I do without dreaming. Everyone can do this, though. When I do things devoid of a dream, they are boring and simple and usually not very fun.

One of my dream themes over the years has revolved around the creation of a good “place” to be in my community. Whether that be a coffee shop, a bar, a reading room, or a lounge, or maybe a mix of these, I think it’d be really great to create a place with an atmosphere and a personality of its own. I dream that people might come to this place and rest, relax, and relate to others.

While this place might offer rest for visitors, it would be a place of recovery and rehabilitation for a small group of employees. I want this place to hire workers and train them to serve well and live responsibly.

At times I have thought that this place would be a sort of loft, with a professional place on the street-level, and a living space above or behind it. Some workers may live on-site, and could learn and be grown and changed and challenged as they also serve and work in the public lounge. It may be a halfway house or rehab center of sorts, but it would need to remain small and intentional with the people who come to us for work.

In the past few days, this dream has morphed a bit and it’s taken a turn towards practicality, I think.

See, my current businesses occupy office space already, and we pay rent and utilities and are self sufficient as it stands. We’re steadily growing, and we may be in need of a larger space to work in the near future.

My new dream is to move this office to a storefront in a downtown area (maybe Fullerton, Orange, or Yorba Linda). We’d move to the new space and settle in for a while, but we’d have an area in the front that is cozy, comfy, and creatively decorated. This space could be our own internal coffee shop, break room, conference room, and hangout zone for our own team and friends to use to work and meet and play. Then, eventually, maybe we’d open this space to the public and allow others to come to our place to work or rest or converse or play.

Our traditional office space would be in the back, and we’d still operate our day-to-day business from there, but at any time I or another one of the team may be lounging on a sofa and working in the front area, surrounded by some random collegiates or independents or small business owners.

This front place could employ a handful of people, teaching them how to serve well and be responsible after they’ve maybe slipped up in life, giving them a second chance. These people could learn from us, we could learn from them, and we’d underwrite the whole thing with the business that uses the offices in the back. It’d be fun, unique, challenging, and it would be an opportunity to give back and serve our community well.

So far, it’s just a dream. But maybe it’s a dream that will be done.

  • Colleen says:

    If you can dream it, you can do it. Way to go Trav!

  • Green says:

    Oh…dear…Lord! I have been waiting for you to have an idea like this! I love it man, especially the “work-shop” idea of equipping others with skills to have future success! Do it, do it!

  • Green says:

    Also, can I have a job? 😉

  • I know, right?!?

  • Mark Rouleau says:

    Hmmm, how to respond to this is what I cannot determine. To know Travis Austin as a friend and business colleague has been a something very special to me. There are times when Travis and I go back and forth for days on a thought or we do not talk for months at a time. But to see somebody that has such a heart for the greater things in life and that has such a motivation to be a better person is inspiring.
    Travis; thank you for being such a kind and caring person as I cannot wait to retire fly on your private jet to my private island and brainstorm how to change the world.

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