Dare To Dream 2026: The Conversation That Changed the Room

Speaker 1I'd like to ask you a question. If you could be anything, if you could be anyone in the world with 100% success rate, who would you be and what would you do? Just think about it. The difference between dreams and actions is just the idea of risk factor. And so, I dare you to dream. It was not too long ago we believed we could do and be anything in the world. Well, what changed? Was it the world? No. Just our perception of it, really. So as we gather around today, we think about dreams and the pursuit of such dreams. I want you to disregard any limit you have on yourself.

Any limit you have in your brain, on your life, on anything. Because truly, the world and our divine consciousness is limitless. Today, I'd like to introduce my great friend Ben Beeri, the great entrepreneur and great dreamer up on the stage to give a warm welcome.

Ben BeeriEveryone give a hand for Melania. I'm excited to be here with you guys today. Dare to dream twenty twenty six. First event of its kind. And I was really inspired by this theme of the event because I feel that so many of us get to a point in our lives where we stop dreaming. And the thing is is there are no actual limits to what we can dream about except for the ones that we self impose. So we're here tonight to be in a place where we can foster some conversation and really reflect on the life we have lived and the life that we are living and the limitless potential future that we have that we can live, uh, so we can all live our dream lives. So thank you guys for being here.

And I would say for me, I, uh, it really started, I would say, when I was six years old. And my dad took me to a basketball game in the summer of two thousand two. And I went to this basketball game. I had this little rubber basketball with me. And it was a Team USA exhibition basketball game. And there was this player there that I saw sitting on the bench. Name's Jay Williams. He used to play for Duke University. And I remember watching him on TV, And I walked up to him and I asked him for an autograph.

And I thought that that was the coolest thing in the world. He signed this basketball for me. I got this ball. I looked at it and I'm like, I used to watch this guy on TV. This is amazing. And that led me to a place of wanting more of those interactions, wanting more of those connections, wanting more of those autographs from those different players. And I remember when I started going back to school, I went to first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, I was already burned out of school. I was just done. Wasn't feeling it. I'd started my different autograph collections.

It was fun. I enjoyed it. Every day I would look forward for the school bell to ring so I could head home and I would go to my room, close the door and start sorting binders of basketball cards so I could take them to basketball games and get them signed. And for me at the time that was the dream, to be around autographs from the professional athletes. Basketball players, baseball players, celebrities, football players, anyone who is famous that I could connect to as a person. I viewed the autograph as a connection and that was the dream.

Then things got a little bit difficult for me because I wasn't doing very well in school. And my parents didn't really like that I was going out and getting autographs. My teachers really didn't like it. The other students thought that I was kind of smug. They're like, oh, there's Ben. He's just bragging about getting an autograph from some basketball player the other day. And I was at a place where my parents and the teachers were trying to figure out. It's like, hey, what are we going to do with Ben?

All he cares about is these autographs that he gets from these basketball players. And I ultimately kind of got more isolated from the other kids, got more isolated from the teachers. And that led to me at a certain point in time being kicked out of school when I was in middle school. And I went to a place where at that point the dream was no longer about what are these autographs that I want to be around. The dream was, how can I just fit in and be accepted at this new place that I was going to go to school at?

While I was going to school at this place, things were not very easy for me. And there were kids over there who were committing crimes and they were going to juvenile hall. There were certain kids that were doing drugs. And the dream for me at that point was how can I stay in a place where I am safe and I am separate from this and I am not involved in these different situations that can get me in trouble? And as you can see over time the only things that really changed were my current circumstances and what I thought was possible.

And I stopped looking at the potential bigger picture of I like autographs. And I started looking at the more zoomed in picture of I may need to fit in with the other kids or I don't even want to fit in with the other kids anymore. I just want to stay safe. And I want to keep my life safe. And that got me in a very isolated spot. As I continued to move through school, I got into a place where I'm like, I need to get back to who I have always been as a person. I rediscovered the whole autograph thing and remembered how much I always loved it.

And before people told me, hey, you shouldn't be doing this. This isn't a thing for you to do. And I started getting back to it and having fun doing it. And I started collecting all these autographs and it was fun. That led to me over a certain time starting a business in that field. And that for me was the dream that I wanted to step into. So the the first question that we asked you guys was about your dreams when you were a kid. Before anybody asked you what was reasonable, what you should do, what you could do, what was it when you were six years old that was really interesting to you that you may have been told was unrealistic or you may have been told wasn't much of a dream at all. I remember for me, it was about autographs.

And autographs for me was even deeper. It was about connection. And I was told that I a either couldn't or b either shouldn't engage myself in that because that was not a very realistic dream. So I'd like to invite you guys to take a few minutes in your groups, two, three, four people per group and share the first question with each other. Share what you put down with it. And in addition to sharing what you guys put down in the questions, I'd like for you guys to reflect back to the other person what it is that they said or they shared with you about that.

And also share with the other person what your feelings are about that and where maybe certain things kind of took turn for you or where you kind of stopped dreaming that or thinking that or seeing that as a possibility. So we'll take a few minutes for you guys to share with each other. And, uh, and I look forward to hearing from you guys and seeing what you guys came up with for your reflections. So how's everyone's reflections going? Awesome? Yeah. Hell yeah. So you guys got to share some stuff with each other. You guys got to reflect on some things that you had going on when you were younger.

Before others told you couldn't do it. But the person who tells you can't do it the most is usually yourself. And we all put these different limits on ourselves. So who would like to share with us what they put down for their reflection for when they were younger and what their dreams were before they thought it wasn't realistic? Melania, you wanna pick someone? There we go. Let's do it.

Speaker 3You want me facing you?

Ben BeeriYeah. Let's do it. You and I, we're gonna duke this out.

Speaker 3Anyways, question number one, yeah. So what did you dream about becoming creating or experiencing before you started thinking about what was realistic? What I really thought about, I was like, when I was younger, even like about four or five years old, I was like, I need to be on a stage, I need to have a presence, I need to be out there in the world to experience all the opportunities I can exchange energy with other people because they're like, who's this guy? He's super positive. They get a little dopamine hit. Shake a hand, meet a friend, make somebody's day, right? So whether it's speaking on stage, performing at a sports arena, whatever the case may be, was like, I need to be out and about in the future. Well, your ass up here.

Ben BeeriHere we go. All right, Nella get up, stay up here, sure.

Speaker 3But it's kinda like have that spirit of excellence, right? How many options, opportunities, touches of favor can I put out there into the world that people can exchange this energy and feel it? Because every one of y'all are smiling at me right now. So anyways, I'm not gonna take the whole time, but go ahead. Well, why did that stop? Like what stopped? Don't think Where did you stopped. I just don't think I've put myself out there enough to expose myself. So like having a personal brand in that presence where people can be like, okay,

Ben BeeriI can see, like, follow this guy. So when did you first start having those thoughts or that dream coming up in your life? About four or five. Before five? Yeah, right around there. Okay. And then as you kind of progressed through life, where did you start going with that? Like what started being the dreams as when you were 10 or 12 or 15?

Speaker 3Where it started going was I hit it off with grandparents and they're like this guy's got an old soul, he's helping elders and they're like I saw the value that I placed. They saw the value that I placed on them and I wasn't just writing them off. Because a lot of grandkids will write their grandparents off, oh they're just old, fuck them. But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, was like, oh, I see the value, the life experiences they've had, the wisdom they've shared with me so that I can pass it on to not only myself, but share it with others in my community.

And I was like, okay, it started there at a younger age. And I was like, I need to get out there more and more and more. Does that answer your question? Did that open up a new dream? Yeah, and I started working with more people that are advanced age but and then that led me to opportunity.

Ben BeeriYes. There you go. How'd it feel to be on stage? Oh, I love this shit dude. I'll sit here all day, come on. There we go. Awesome. Stay up here. What? Yeah, sure. Until you're done, right? I'm done. You're done? Yeah. Alright. I feel like I answered the question. Yeah. You can give the mic back to Melania. Where's Melania at? Alright. Here we go. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Everybody give Keaton a round of applause. And it's interesting to think about it because he's talking about his dreams when he was younger and the dream never actually does go away.

It's like you continue to have it and you take all these detours and exit routes and you'd maybe go into these different side quests or for Keaton it ended up being, hey, I'm going to help elderly people realize their value. Right? But he had already planted the seed for the dream that he had. Right? And there were times where he's sitting there and watering it and maybe there's some roots growing underground, but the roots are there. You can keep watering it. You can come back to it at any point in time, right? You know where you planted the seed. You planted that seed when you were five years old, right? And it's like and you keep watering it and then one of these days you'll start seeing a stump and then you can keep watering it and then one of these days you'll see a full tree, right? A full tree will start out and I mean you see every tree you see nowadays started as a seed that was planted somewhere at a certain point in time and it really only grew because somebody nurtured it and watered it and kept going back to it and wanted it to happen, right? And you can take a break, can go away from it for a little while but at a certain point in time you're gonna get pulled back in and you're gonna want to do it if it's something that's on your heart. And if it's on your mind, it's on your heart. So you may wanna go for it at a certain point in time.

Speaker 5What do we got? Alec, you're gonna share with us? Well, just wanted to comment. Let's do it. So I think you're particularly, I don't know if this is unique or not, but you had the dream since you were like six years old, right? That you wanted to be involved in sports memorabilia and autographs and all that, right? Sure. And you actually ended up creating that business based on something that you wanted to do when you were younger. At least for me, the things that I wanted to do when I was pre teen, it's like not what I wanna do now, you know what I mean? So I think some people figure it out later on in life what they really wanna do but I think it's cool though that like you wanted to do something from like a really young age and like that stayed really consistent.

Ben BeeriWhat did you wanna do when you were younger

Speaker 5that you don't want to do anymore? Okay, so I think the first thing, I don't know if this is just because this is what everybody wanted to do but I probably wanted to be a fireman, right, when I was five or six. How many of you wanna be a fireman? Anybody? Just 40, that's it? Might as well. That was like the cool thing to wanna be when you grew up, when you were like five or six years old. At what point did you realize you were no longer wanting to be a fireman? I don't know, probably a year later. Okay.

Great. After I started to like think for myself maybe. And then what did you wanna do? I wanted to be a shoe designer. Yeah. I wanted to design.

Ben BeeriReally? Yeah.

Speaker 5Okay. There it is. Natasha and Alec can start in business. It's not too late. There's a lot of similarities between her and I. Anyway, but I wanted to design I was super into like basketball shoes. Like, I really wanted to design like Nike basketball shoes. Like, that was my thing. I was like a shoe collector, kinda. Like, I had the Kobe fives back in the day, know, talking about those cool. Anyway, yeah, then I just I didn't want to be a shoe designer. And I think it's always been for me an iteration of what I wanna do like for example, ten years ago, I didn't think what I'd be doing is what I was doing five years ago. Five years ago, I didn't think what I'd be doing is today. So I think for me, it's constantly evolving.

So I think, yeah, just an observation. Sometimes some people really do know what they wanna do when they're really young, but at the same time, a lot of jobs and careers that maybe weren't even possible back then are available now. So I don't know. I think interesting.

Ben BeeriIt is interesting because we all get to a place. There's no limit to how many dreams we can have or seeds we can plant. Yeah. And so when you're five years old and you're like, I wanna be a firefighter. Great. You go and you plant that seed in the soil. And it doesn't cost you anything to plant that seed. And then when you're six year old, you're like, fuck this. I don't wanna be a firefighter. And you're like, I am like done wasting water on this shit. Right? You're like, I'm gonna be a shoe designer.

Yeah. No. Exactly. Right? And then you're a shoe designer. You wanna be a shoe designer. Right? And then you're like, you know, this really I really can't draw. This really isn't for me anymore. Right? Yeah. That's okay. Like there's so many things in our lives and I'm not even talking about from a career standpoint. Right? Some of us wanna have a certain dream house, we wanna live in a certain place, we wanna move there. Some of us wanna have a family, have a certain relationship. Some of us wanna have a certain lifestyle.

Maybe our dreams are fitness related or maybe our dreams are, hey, we wanna go eat at these types of restaurants on this frequency or this amount of like, hey, I want to go and travel and eat at best restaurants in the world. Right? We all have these different dreams at different phases of our lives. And it's okay to say, hey, this dream was okay for me when I was five years old. But today with where I'm at in life, I'm choosing to pursue something different. Yes, I planted the seed for that dream.

If you wanna go be a firefighter, Alec, I mean, hey, look at you, you're in good shape. You can go and make it happen, right? Do it. Go and make it happen, right? Get get get in the gym, get going on, take whatever test you have to make, right? That seed was already planted when you were five years old. Yeah. But you don't have to go back to it. Absolutely.

Speaker 3Yes.

Ben BeeriI get you want to give him the mic Give him the mic because we've got the recording going on. You got a mic for him? Yeah. Get a microphone. Stand up for us. First of I didn't mean to cut you off. No, no, please join in. Please introduce yourself to everyone.

Speaker 4So my question to you is what was your it's our decisions are emotional. Yeah. Okay. So when you were five years old, whether you were driving down the road and you saw a fireman rescue some kid from a burning house, there's a lot of things. There's something that made you think why you wanted to be a fireman, whether it was a TV show, Right? It was in a moment that you had watching TV. So I'm going, no matter what your vision is, whatever seed you're planting, there's a reason why you wanted to grow. It's an emotional. And that's what really, at the end of the day, no matter what you get involved in, if it's an emotional one, right, there's a lot of commitment behind the emotion, right, how passionate you are. It's it's passion. Isn't passion a big part of business?

Ben BeeriIt can be at times, right? Yeah. Sometimes you have a certain level of passion, you're wanting to push forward. Sometimes you've built a business for yourself that you no longer have passion for, but because it's working for you and because you're making a living doing it, you're continuing to push forward. And now you're ending up in a place where you're working hard, you're good at something, you're making a living. On the outside it looks great not only for you but for everybody else. But for you, your passions may be somewhere else or maybe you're looking for something else.

So, it's different in different stages of life for different people. Sure. And that's the beautiful thing is we all have our own journey. Okay. So, you can tell by my blonde hair that I have.

Speaker 4Blonde hair. It's called Hard Knocks Blonde, by the way. Here's the deal. It's drive or it's passion. You call it whatever you want. But at the end of the day, you get involved in, you're gonna have to have one or two. It is not going to be an easy road. That's a fantasy. A lot of people's fantasies, whether it's going to be your reality, a whole different thing. I'm just saying it's a hard road so we make these changes. You can't feel bad about investing in something. I'm telling you I've learned that you can plant that seed, can put money, and you make yourself emotionally committed. What I mean by that is that I have to do this because I've $10,000 into it. I have to do it because I'm worried about what my friends are going to think of me because I told them I was going to get this done.

Mhmm. Right? And what you're doing, you're diverting it. Right? There's a reason for it. A lot of it comes with prayer. A lot of it comes with finding people that are older than you, like you mentioned, with experience. That's what they're there for. They're not gonna be around for a long, long time. You don't think an 83 year old entrepreneur you know how much value is sitting in a home, right, facility, care facility, unbelievable stories, commitment. Those people dug in the dirt, fed themselves in an outhouse. That's drive. That's commitment. That's passion. Right? It really is. So I don't mean to defer what you were saying, but it's really about emotion. No matter what you get into, no matter what you get involved in, it's going be a very emotional one. It's really positioning yourself in making good decisions, hard decisions.

Okay, it's black and white.

Speaker 5So just to wrap this up, what was your question to me?

Speaker 4Your question to you, you changed at five and then six, you wanted to be a shoe designer, what made you want to be a shoe designer, I'm just talking about the emotion that took you a different direction because you're going to do it all your life.

Speaker 5Passion. Yeah, passion. Yeah, that's all. And I think every dream that I've had since has been led by passion.

Speaker 4It's been what? Led by passion. Sure. That's been the ultimate Yeah, it's definitely the drive. Driving factor for sure. Yeah. Getting up in the morning, you should love getting up in the morning. Yeah.

Ben BeeriSo, did we get for you? What did we get for number one for you?

Speaker 4Brother we don't have a long we don't have long We've

Ben Beeritime, we're not going anywhere.

Speaker 4I've taken a It's hard for me. Well,

Ben Beeriit's hard for all of us.

Speaker 4Well I've done a lot of different careers mine was being a police officer. Okay. First

Ben Beeriof all thank you for your service.

Speaker 1I'm gonna interrupt you because I'm a professional singer and you're driving me crazy. You're gonna sing? No. Oh,

Ben Beerithere we go. Alright. Thank you. Thank you, Aubrey. Alright. You. Alright. So when My right hand. When did you first realize you wanted a career in law enforcement?

Speaker 4When I was five years old. Why? Because when I was taking out the trash, when I was five years old, there was a guy with a ski mask that was coming over the fence where I was taking the trash in the back area and I he scared the hell out of me and I was running to my house to get into the house and the door was locked, Okay? And he followed me a portion of the way and then he ran, but long story short, police officer came to our house and I remember how scared I was standing at the door and I was expecting Superman to be at the door.

What came was a very large male that ate probably a lot of tacos at Del Taco. It wasn't very impressive. He gave me no comfort whatsoever. And it was at that moment I told myself that when I grew up, I'm gonna be a police officer. And to this day, when I was a police officer, I was in Los Angeles around the Rodney King era. But every home I went to, you know what I did for those children? You were there for them. That's right. You know what I did? I drove by that house, told them the light of the house, I had strobes going, I checked on them all the time. So, it's a story but where I'm going it was an emotional one. It was a commitment.

And then, that was a career that I've always wanted to do and then I had a tragic event. Had a father, a plane crash and a mom had breast cancer and a grandfather who had a heart attack with back to back and I had to take care of a house and it took me down a different road. Never thought I was gonna leave a career. I got into security business, which was a big struggle, Then I got into a software business. And then the software business led me to getting it acquired sixteen years later. Yeah. Became successful, made money.

But I will tell you that was a compromise. So be careful when you're building a business. Don't forget your core values. Family,

Ben Beerifriends. First of all, thank you for sharing. That's an incredible story. Yeah. And it it really it really hits home because so many times when we're younger we try to become the person that we needed when we were younger. And the beautiful thing is in your case, it sounds like the seed was planted when you were five years old. You went, you nurtured it, and you really made it happen not just for yourself, but for all the people that were there that represented your five year old self that really wanted that law enforcement officer to be the person that was gonna say, hey man, you're okay.

I'm here. I'm here to protect. And that's incredible. And it sounds like going down the line, the other things that you went through doing are also protector based, right? You start this business. When you say you exit a business, you've got a team of people with you. You likely did not build that business by yourself. And as you continue to grow, you're protecting the people on your team. You're helping them grow, you're helping them build. Now you're in a place where you're doing a security company, You exited a company, I imagine that the security company money isn't really life changing.

Now you're back to helping people and protecting people. And the premise for you really seems to be in the common theme seems to be, hey, how can I be that person that was there for other people to help give them a sense of security and knowing that they are safe and that there is somebody there to hold them? So that's incredible. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 1There's something I'd like to add. Melania, go ahead. Okay. So there's a word for this. I studied a passage in my class. I think it was my religion class. There's a word called vocation. And what vocation means, it's our greatest desire. Our personal greatest desire is the world's greatest need. So when we're bringing up like our passions and everything we love to do, I want you to think about, it's not just selfish. Like, our passions aren't really selfish. It's what the world needs. And by being a police officer Hello? By being a police officer, it's not only helping himself and his inner child, but it's helping those around him. So I want you guys to really just think about that word and like just enter it in every conversation coming forward. Awesome. Thank you for sharing, Melania. Of course. And

Ben Beeriand it really is so interesting to see the path that we all go down. And there are times where we do just simply want to be that person that we just needed when we were younger. We see somebody that we needed that would have protected us or been there for us or understood us. And for me as I continue to go down the path of, hey, I want to go and collect autographs but I'm being told I cannot do this. I'm not supposed to be doing this. It got to a point where I was like, I shouldn't be doing this. I am probably not in a place where this is realistic for me to do.

And then I want to continue growing with it but it's not actually possible. I should find something more realistic. And I got to a place where I'm like, know what, I'm shoving all of this off to the side. I'm gonna go to college like everybody else. I'm gonna go get some jobs, go to a job interview, see if I can get a job. And then I realized I'm like, you know, I really shouldn't do this. I should really go back to that seed that I planted all those years ago. And the thing about that is is that really just becomes a culmination of let me be the person that was there that I could look up to when I was younger.

Five, six, seven year old Ben would have dreamed to be this person. And the thing that's really interesting about that is it started when I was young, but as an adult, I was more looking to serve the person that I was when I was younger, rather than serving the person who was going forward. What's really interesting for me is as time went on, and yeah, Alec shared it earlier that I am in the field of memorabilia and autographs and collectibles and that was my business that I started. It's actually in a couple of weeks, it's gonna be ten years ago and I'm very grateful for that. Thank you.

And it's been fun. It's been a fun ride. I absolutely love it. I love what I do. It was my dream when I was younger to do, like to be in that field. And the really cool thing is is looking at it now and looking at the journey of the ten years in business is it's a part of such a bigger dream. And just because you go for something that is a dream doesn't mean it's the one singular focus. None of us human beings have only one dream. We all have so many different dreams. So if Alec wanted to a firefighter or he wanted to be a shoe designer, that was valid.

And it may still be valid. It may also not be valid, but we all have these different things that we wanted. And for me, what I discovered over the last few years is a big dream for me is connection. And just one word, connection. And connection with not only me to myself, I wanna make sure that I can connect to myself and understand myself, recognize who I am as a person. And by doing so, I wanna help other people understand themselves and recognize who they are. And that's another thing that was very near and dear to me when I was younger because I felt like I was misunderstood.

I felt like I was the person that was told I shouldn't be partaking in a field of interest of my own and that I was going against what I was supposed to be doing which is the worksheets I'm being handled at school. Like, hey, Ben, why don't you do this? Oh, here's another c. It's like, I don't actually care about what you wrote on my paper with your red marker, missus. And that wasn't taken very kindly at school when I was younger. But the idea is is we get to have dreams where the picture keeps zooming out.

And what I mean by that is my dream of start of being having an autograph collection, which has turned into a memorabilia company that has over 30,000 unique memorabilia items in stock. I ended up just growing a very large autograph collection. Was really a part of a bigger dream of connecting people to their favorite athletes, celebrities, and allowing them to own that piece and get that feeling that I got when I was a kid. And I walked up to a basketball player when I was six years old, and he signed an autograph for me. And I'm sitting here and looking at this basketball and going, oh my god.

This is cool. I feel seen. I feel understood. I feel like somebody who has chased their dreams in life and is playing basketball at the highest level has taken time to acknowledge me. And maybe I can do this one day. And by this, I don't mean play basketball. I mean follow my dreams and do what I want to do in life. And that's different for all of us, and it's different at different stages for all of us. But once you keep zooming out and you keep stepping back and you see that whatever your original dream was is really a part of a much bigger picture.

It's just a really big map of, hey, they may be connected, they may not be connected. They could be in completely different fields. They could intertwine and both have a certain connection to each other and be directly correlated. So it's interesting to see all the different seeds you plant and the roots that they have in the ground that you may not be able to see. Some of us may have a dream where we planted a seed and we tried watering it for a little while and it hasn't come up yet. There is no tree sprout or anything.

You're just looking at some empty soil and there's nothing there. And you don't actually know if there's roots beneath the ground or not. The only thing you can do is to just keep watering and see if eventually the tree sprouts and see if anything comes from it and see if there's a place where you can actually grow a full tree of your dreams, of the life that you're wanting, and see where that goes. So with that, we're going to segue into we're gonna cover, uh, the second question. We're gonna cover the third question as well. We're gonna discuss it with each other.

And what are the things in our lives? And question number two is what kind of looks good in life but may not be the thing that you actually want or makes you feel fully alive or what could possibly be working in your life right now but you're looking for something else internally because you may want to be a firefighter but that may not be what you always are going to want. You may want something else too. So let's take some time and discuss that and reflect that and I look forward to hearing some more of your guys' reflections.

I heard some amazing reflections from you guys. It's really interesting to see where we are when we peel the curtain back on the things that we have going on in our lives, where something may, on the surface look good or we think it's good and we think we're heading down the right path or other people think we're heading down the right path. And there's really more that we want to see in that picture. And it doesn't mean that anything is actually missing. What it really says is there's just more to the picture.

You're just focused on a certain area of the picture And when you take a couple steps back, there's just more there. So you can go after whatever the dream is. You can achieve something or accomplish something or be in a place where something looks amazing in your life to not only you but to everybody else. That might just be the first doorway to the next thing that you have in your life. The next thing that you're gonna bring to the world, the next thing that's going to inspire not only yourself but the people around you because the picture is always bigger. The picture is infinite. It doesn't actually have a border to it.

It's like we may be focused on a specific area at a specific time of our lives. For me when I was younger, it's like, let me just fit in in school or let me just be safe with certain things. And that was just the part of the picture that I was focused on at the specific time. And when I took a couple steps back, I'm like, hey, there was this. The autograph stuff that I liked when I was six years old. Let's go back to that. I planted that seed in the ground. Let's go back to that. Let's go water that. Let's go play with that.

And I'm really grateful that I was able to take steps towards that. I'm really grateful that I was also able to take steps towards being here with you guys tonight. I feel like we had such a great night out here and we're able to have so many great conversations. We have another surprise for you guys. And when you guys walked in, you were each handed a blank note card with no instructions at all. And I now have some instructions for you guys for this note card and it's gonna be fun. So if everybody can be in a space where you're ready to receive and close your eyes and I want you guys to take something in and take in a message here.

It can be really important for you guys. There's nothing to be, there's nothing to do, there's nowhere to go. All you have to do is remember the person you've always been. You've always been that person. The person that's been dreaming, the person that's been wanting, the person that's just been waiting to receive. And everything that you are looking to receive exists. And because it exists it can be yours. All you have to do is look at that part of the picture and if you don't see it yet look somewhere else on the picture.

It's there. And think about it. Go there. Live it. Be present with it. And whatever you guys came up with, write a quick, I'm gonna give you guys thirty seconds to write something on your note card about what you guys just saw and what you guys just were. And maybe it's a word, maybe it's a phrase, maybe it's a message. But whatever came to you during that time that you are remembering on what to receive, go ahead and write that down for yourself because it's yours. It's awesome and you guys got one other, uh, piece of literature and that is for our next event Living in Trust which is gonna be happening on April 28. I'm excited to be back here with you guys.

I really enjoyed having you guys here tonight and Living in Trust is about understanding that the roots are beneath the ground. The seed that you planted is going to be a tree and you really don't have to worry about whether it's there or not. You just have to go back and keep watering it. And if you don't get a tree out of that seed, you've always had other seeds in your life and there's many other seeds that you planted. And those have roots as well. So you can go back and water the seeds that are meaningful to you and trust that the roots are there and that it's going to grow into a tree and that any dream that you have in life really is yours.

So I'm excited to be here with you guys on April 28. Would love to have you guys there now. We actually do have a loyalty offer on there for you guys. If you scan the QR code right now, there is a loyalty offer for you guys for coming here tonight and the loyalty offer I believe expires at midnight tonight. So if you guys would like to be here on April 28, uh, you guys can go ahead and redeem your loyalty offer until midnight tonight. And it was really great. I'll give you guys a second for that. Please.

Uh, you wanna get a microphone? Yep.

Speaker 5Hello. Okay. So this whole event, Dare Your Dream, a lot of people have been talking about their own dreams within this room, which has been really amazing and awesome. And, uh, but something I like to touch on is from what I know of Ben's dream, so we spoke about Ben when he was younger, he wanted to have a sports memorabilia company and he ended up going through with that and having a great company and all that that he's still doing but Ben is also a multi passionate person and he has a lot of things that he's really excited about.

And what I've seen him light up the most and just have a lot of passion for are these events. Like Ben really likes bringing people together and there's not a lot of organizers out here in Orange County that are putting in the effort to do events every single month and I can just tell that there's a lot of inspiration and passion and motivation that has gone into this because Ben really cares, so I just I wanted to bring a little bit of light to Ben's dream and what he's doing and I'm really excited and I'm proud of him and I love what he's doing. So I'm excited to see you better fulfill your dream while being the facilitator and leader and speaker. Like you can just see it, guys. He's a great speaker.

He just has that passion. He's not afraid to be himself. Something that I had in my mind during that exercise is I am who I am. Ben. Ben is who he is and I see it, I see it shining so I just wanna say, yeah, I'm proud of you, man and excited about everything that you're be doing in the future.

Ben BeeriThank you, Alec. And I'm sure as you know for me receiving is not always the easy part of things for me. So thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that. And I will say for me it really it really does touch my heart to see you guys come out here tonight and share these conversations with each other. Because right now with where I am in life, it is on my heart to continue to foster these environments for all of us to come together, for all of us to have these conversations. As Alec touched on, uh, the memorabilia company for me, uh, has really was really like a childhood passion turned into a dream and a career.

And I absolutely love what I do. And I really have been in a place where I have gotten to live out that childhood dream and I know what it feels like. And because I know what it feels like, I know the next stage of what I'm dreaming is real and it's there for me. And I know that stepping into my original dream of building Golden State memorabilia is just the beginning. It is just a doorway into the next dream, which as you guys see this event tonight, we also have the Authentic Journey podcast where this episode will actually be broadcasted on tonight.

We had Nick on our cameras tonight. He's gonna be putting together a really special episode for us. So, um, everything, we have the microphones here tonight. So everything that was said will actually go live into an episode that can be looked at on Spotify, YouTube, Apple. And the goal for me is to allow people to give permission to themselves. The authentic journey is your individual path to embodying your true self. And the beautiful thing about that for me is everybody's authentic journey is different.

And that's okay. Like no two people's paths will be exactly the same. Like, we don't have to follow what somebody else wants for us or what somebody else thinks for us. And when people tell us we can't do our dreams or things that we wanna do, that's okay. Because they really have whatever their dreams are, whatever they're worried about that they should probably be focusing on. As do we. We have the things that we wanna focus on, that we're dreaming and that we wanna grow on. And we don't ever wanna be in a place where we're telling ourselves that we can't have something.

And for me, that's something that really hits home for me because years of hearing people tell me that I can't do something led me to be in a place where I told myself I can't do something. Only to realize that once I started telling myself I can do it, I decided to water the seed and go for it. And I kept going back to the seed and watering it. And I'm excited over these next couple of weeks to celebrate my ten year anniversary in business. And I also look forward to the day where I'm celebrating my ten year anniversary of hosting events, hosting podcasts, and really celebrating your guys' growth and successes because I know all of you guys have incredible dreams.

And the goal for tonight was to get you to dare to dream. So I dare you guys to dream. Thank you.