Man of La Mancha rocked Broadway in 1965 with its thundering theme song, The Impossible Dream.
You remember that song, don’t you? It opens in soft reflection, “To dream the impossible dream… To fight the unbeatable foe…” but then it defies mortal gravity to rise heavenward on a column of fury like an old Apollo rocket from Cape Canaveral:
This is my Quest: to follow that star!
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far!
To fight for the right
Without question or pause,
To be willing to march into hell
For a heavenly cause!
And I know, if I’ll only be true
To this glorious Quest,
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest…
Wise Men follow a star when they believe the destination will be worth the journey.
Time and money: you can always save one by spending more of the other. But money can be replaced and time cannot. We spend the hours of our lives like a pocketful of pennies, one by one until they are gone. What are you buying with yours?
Can you name your current journey? You can call it your 5-year plan, your business plan, your goal, your mission. You can dress it up with numerals and call it a pro forma or wrap it in legalese and call it a prospectus. All that really matters is that you understand your time, your energy, indeed the hours of your life are being spent in the pursuit of something.
“And I know, if I’ll only be true to this glorious Quest, that my heart will lie peaceful and calm when I’m laid to my rest…”
Wait a minute… are we talking about business goals, life goals, the Christmas story of Matthew chapter two or the Broadway musical of 1965?
Yes, yes, yes and yes; we are talking about those. That’s the thing about an archetypal story. Its message will echo through different actors dressed in different costumes but the play never changes: Each of us follows a star. How clearly can you see yours?
Wizard Academy is a 501c3 nonprofit educational organization committed to helping individuals achieve the things they have committed to do. You choose the star. We don’t care. Our only job is to get you there.
A solid limestone plateau rises 900 feet above downtown Austin, overlooking that city from 20 miles away. We cut perfectly northward into that limestone with heavy diesel equipment for 4 months, then planted a vertical sword in the wall of the Stardeck that sits like a crown on the million-dollar tower we built at the end of it.
Walk to the center of that deeply cut limestone becauseway and stand on the Laughlin stone on any clear night. The point of light just above the hilt of the sword is Polaris, the North Star that rises above the axis of the earth. The whole world revolves around it. Polaris has served as a navigational tool for millennia because unlike other stars, its position never changes.
Can you name the star that beckons you?
We cut a 300-foot furrow 14 feet deep in solid rock on top a 900-foot plateau and then built a landmark tower with a sword in its crown purely as a symbol to help us make a point: that’s how serious were are about the importance of picking a destination and launching your life’s journey.
Wizard Academy is not a school for whiners, posers, devil’s advocates, nitpickers, hand-wringers, crybabies, complainers, chicken-hearts or fools.
But it is definitely the school for you.
Come. The next chapter of your adventure is about to begin.
Roy H. Williams