Imprisoned by My Own Dreams

Growing up, I didn’t have time to dream.

Starting at 8, I had chores on the farm and work to do.  If I was dreaming, it meant I wasn’t getting my work done.

While I aspired to be a veterinarian, the dream wasn’t enough to overcome the challenge of Bio 101, my freshman year at Cornell.

For me, it was just put my head down and work.  It was the only way to survive – a prison in and of itself.

Dreams were for people who wasted time; there was always work to do.

A few years ago, my wife and I read “Put Your Dreams to the Test” by John Maxwell. It spurred us to have a conversation about dreams.

She, like John, is a dreamer and has more dreams than days available to live them out.

She couldn't believe I didn't have dreams, as John later revealed when people said to him they didn't have any dreams to test.

My lack of dreams is what imprisoned me.  For others, the rigidity and absoluteness of dreams are their prison.

It's why John wrote his book. He lays out ten questions to test each dream.  As he shares, dreaming isn't the hard part — testing the dream is.

That's what made my conversation with Nikki Barua this week hit so hard. 

She had the opposite problem. She had a dream so big, so vivid, so consuming that it became the only measure of her worth. 

Her father had made a collage of powerful women—Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher—and sketched Nikki’s face in the center. That image carried her from India to the U.S. on a one-way ticket with almost no money and unfashionable clothes.

That vision fueled every step. Business school on borrowed textbooks and Wonder Bread. Corporate America in pantyhose and pearls. Golf lessons she hated because her boss said that’s where deals get done.

But the dream also came with a deadline she’d quietly set for herself—she believed she’d die at 40. Not only did she have to scale Mount Everest, but she had to do it on a clock.

She told me, "I was imprisoned by my own dreams."

Same prison. Different walls.

The Things We Hide - Moment

Here’s what I didn’t realize until Kelley looked at me that night with the Maxwell book between us: my “no dreams” wasn’t grit. It was a wall.

I had convinced myself that dreaming was impractical—something for people who didn’t have real work to do. But underneath that story was something I didn’t want to face: I was afraid of wanting something and not getting it.

If you don’t dream, you can’t fail at your dream. If you never name the thing you actually want, you never have to sit with the gap between where you are and where you wish you were.

That’s not work ethic. That’s self-protection disguised as discipline.

Nikki hid behind the opposite wall. She dreamed so loudly and so publicly that questioning the dream felt like questioning her identity. She said the more she mimicked everyone around her in corporate America—the clothes, the etiquette, the golf—the less there was of her to see, even to herself.

Then in one week, everything was stripped away. Her partner died by suicide. She lost her home. Wall Street crashed. There was nowhere left to hide.

And from that raw, exposed place, she rebuilt—brick by brick, from the inside out. She defined her core values for the first time. She chose what her relationships would look like. She decided what her work would be about. Not because of a collage on a wall, but because she finally asked herself who she actually was.

She described what emerged as “a completely new person that wasn’t imprisoned by her own dreams.”

Whether we hide behind the absence of dreams or the obsession with them, the hiding is the same. We avoid sitting with who we actually are—right now, in this moment—without the résumé, without the “someday,” without the armor of busyness or ambition.

Every time we hide a piece of ourselves—to fit in, to measure up, to stay safe—we send a quiet message to our own brain: 

Who I am isn’t enough.

The real work isn’t chasing bigger dreams or avoiding them altogether. It’s getting honest about what we’re holding—and whether it’s still ours.

Podcast

Nikki Barua is a serial entrepreneur, bestselling author, and globally recognized expert on transformation. She came to the U.S. from India with almost nothing and built a career at the intersection of technology, leadership, and human potential. Her latest venture, Flipwork, is a workforce transformation system that helps organizations turn AI into ROI by reinventing how people work.

But what makes Nikki’s story remarkable isn’t the business success—it’s what she had to lose, shed, and rebuild to get there.

Here are three key focus points from my conversation with Nikki that we all need to sit with:

1. Reinvention Isn’t Optional—It’s the New Constant

Nikki made it clear: AI isn’t just a tool—it’s a catalyst that’s changing who we need to become as people. We’re wired for safety, certainty, and comfort. But in a world where machines are evolving daily, staying the same is the biggest risk. The leaders and professionals who thrive won’t be the ones who resist change—they’ll be the ones who master the skill of learning and become comfortable with uncertainty. As Nikki put it, “Do you have trust in yourself to figure it out?”

2. Authenticity Isn’t a Brand—It’s a Rebuild

Nikki spent years mimicking what she thought success looked like—dressing a certain way, taking golf lessons, hiding her identity. The result? Relationships that were superficial, confidence that was hollow, and an inner life that was quietly collapsing. It wasn’t until everything was stripped away—the loss of her partner, her home, and her financial security, all in the same week—that she was forced to rebuild from the inside out. What emerged was a version of herself that was finally aligned. And her message is powerful: authentic leadership doesn’t come from adding layers. It comes from shedding them.

3. Focus on the Reps, Not the Destination

One of the most practical takeaways from our conversation was Nikki’s shift from obsessing over a massive end goal to simply focusing on the daily reps she enjoyed. Writing every day, walking, cooking, going deep on a subject—not for an outcome, but for the love of doing it. Over time, those reps built into mastery. And that mastery became her unique contribution. It’s a lesson for all of us: stop measuring your life against a destination and start investing in the process that shapes who you’re becoming.

See Nikki Live — The IDL Summit, May 7–8, Spokane

This conversation was one of the most honest I’ve had on the show. And it confirmed something I already believed: Nikki belongs in the room we’re building this May.

The Impact Driven Leader Summit on May 7–8 in Spokane, WA, isn’t a conference where you sit in the back and take notes. It’s 120 leaders in a room, telling the truth—about wealth, relationships, insecurity, and what it actually takes to lead from the inside out.

Nikki will be bringing her story and her framework on reinvention—how to shed who you were to become who you’re meant to be, especially in a world where AI is accelerating the pace of change and the need for what makes us uniquely human.

She’ll be joined by Dr. Abbie Maronó, Joe Delagrave, and me. Four perspectives. Two days. One room where nothing gets hidden.

If Nikki’s story resonated with you on the podcast, imagine what it will be like to be in the room with her.

General Admission is $499. VIP is $1,999 and includes a private dinner with the speakers, along with a deeper, more personal experience.

Seats are limited to 120. If you’re ready to stop hiding and start leading from truth, I’d love to see you there.

Get your tickets: idlsummit.com

Did you catch this podcast? If not, listen to it here.