Following a dream isn't about having a plan. It's about taking the next step.
We're often told to follow our dreams. The advice sounds inspiring. It's not useful. What exactly are you supposed to do, if you know what interests you, and don't know where it will lead? Do you quit your job? Make a five-year plan? Wait until you know exactly what you want?
My conversation with writer and filmmaker Bill Robertson suggested another possibility:
You don't have to know where the path leads to start walking down it.
Bill's career doesn't look like the execution of a carefully constructed plan. After college, he wanted to get involved in theater. So he moved to Boston and got a job bartending at a theater on the Charles River. His reasoning was simple. If he worked at the theater, he'd meet people who worked in theater.
He did.
At the end of the season, the director asked him to become his assistant director the following year. That led somewhere. Then something else led somewhere. He started a sketch-comedy troupe. That led to writing for National Lampoon and a children's television show on PBS.
Bill then moved to Los Angeles, where he wrote a musical stage show called Paradise, A Town of Sinners & Saints. The first production went up in 2013. The project didn't march toward success from there. At one point, people from Broadway became involved in developing it. Bill felt the process was taking the work in the wrong direction, so the project sat for a while.
In 2018, he and his collaborators rewrote it. It went up again in Los Angeles and later at the Austin Playhouse. They considered Broadway again. The economics made that difficult. Then an experienced independent-film producer who had seen the stage show asked Bill a question he hadn't been asking:
What about turning it into a low-budget feature film?
Bill hadn't planned to make a movie.
He hadn't raised money for a film before.
That became the next step.
Maybe We're Asking the Wrong Question
When someone is thinking about changing careers, writing a book, making a film, starting a business or pursuing something creative, we tend to ask:
Will it work?
It's a question we're often not capable of answering. Bill couldn't have known that taking a bartending job would lead to directing. He couldn't have known where the people he met would eventually lead him. He couldn't have known that a stage production in 2013 would become a feature film.
The information needed to predict those outcomes didn't exist yet. That suggests a different question:
What's the next action I can take, that puts me closer to the thing I'm interested in?
That's a more answerable question. Bill said something during our conversation that captures the distinction: “It's all about the action. It's not about the results.”
Action produces information. You meet someone. You discover you're good at something. You discover you're terrible at something. Someone introduces you to someone else.
You learn that the thing you thought you wanted isn't actually what you want. Or an opportunity appears that you couldn't have put into the original plan because you didn't know it existed.
Planning can help us choose among possibilities we already understand.
Action can reveal possibilities we didn't know were there.
Put Yourself Where Things Can Happen
There's another lesson in Bill's bartender story. He didn't simply sit at home hoping someone in theater would discover him. He put himself in an environment where the thing he wanted was already happening. That doesn't guarantee anything. There was no contract saying, bartend here for one year and receive an assistant-director position. It changed the probability.
Bill described a version of the same principle: surround yourself with people involved in whatever you want to do. That's more useful than the familiar advice to “network.”
If you want to become a filmmaker, find ways to spend time around people making films.
If you want to start a company, spend time around people building companies.
If you want to write, spend time around writers—and start writing.
You're not trying to extract something from everyone you meet. You're putting yourself where relevant opportunities, information and relationships are more likely to occur.
Create Before Someone Gives You Permission
Bill challenged the assumption that making a film requires having access to Hollywood-sized resources before you begin. His experience with independent filmmaking reinforced a principle that appears throughout his story:
Start with the resources, knowledge, and relationships available to you, then solve the next problem as it appears.
People may say they want to write a book, sometimes for years, without ever putting pen to paper. His answer is action. Action doesn't mean you know what you're doing. Bill didn't know how to write a screenplay.
He took classes.
He read books.
He started reading scripts.
He reached a conclusion: “There's no such thing as writing. There's only rewriting.” The first attempt doesn't have to prove that you're a writer. The first song doesn't have to prove you're a songwriter. The first business idea doesn't have to prove you're an entrepreneur. It gives you something to improve on.
You can't rewrite a screenplay you haven't written.
You can't improve a business you haven't started.
You can't learn from an experiment you haven't run.
Making the imperfect thing is what creates the information necessary to make the better thing.
Fear is Part of the Experiment
There's a reason people don't take those steps. You might fail. You might embarrass yourself. Others might decide you're not very good. Bill offered a way of thinking about fear. He described hearing someone say that he actually welcomed situations that generated fear, because getting through them produced greater self-acceptance.
The takeaway was don't be afraid of embarrassment or vulnerability. F
Fear is not telling you: Don't do this.
Fear is telling you: You don't know what will happen if you do this. The question is whether the potential downside is genuinely dangerous or just uncomfortable.
Ask
One of the simplest moments in our conversation may also be one of the most useful.When Bill was making Paradise, the production needed studio time. A friend of the composer gave them a deal.
Why?
Bill asked.
As Bill put, “That's the key. You have to ask.”
The same thing happened when he needed investors. He contacted people through LinkedIn. Someone would say no, and suggest somebody else. Bill would thank them and ask, " Is there anyone else you can think of?"
One introduction produced three names. One of those names was interested and brought in two investors. Those three provided part of the financing for the film. “Follow your dream” can sound mystical. Bill talks about intention, visualization, spirituality and purpose. He explicitly paired those beliefs with something less mystical:
You still have to do something. You can't simply visualize all day. You have to take action, ask questions and become a student of what you're trying to do.
Your Dream Doesn't Have to Replace Your Life Overnight
There's a part of Bill's story that I think disappears from stories about pursuing dreams. For years, he had a regular career too. He worked in corporate America, while writing and producing creative work on the side. He worked in recruiting and finance-related organizations, while simultaneously running a sketch-comedy show.
That's different from the romantic version of:
Quit your job and follow your passion.
Maybe you don't have to choose immediately. A job can pay the bills while you discover whether something else is worth pursuing. Skills developed in one world can turn out to be useful in another.
When Bill formed Paradise the Movie, LLC, he described himself as a writer and producer. Some of what he was doing involved budgeting and hiring, skills that transferred from his corporate career. His description of himself was simple:
“I'm a bit of a hybrid. I know corporate and I'm a creative.” Careers don't have to be as linear as we make them appear on résumés.
It's Never Too Late
Bill moved to Los Angeles at 40.
He made Paradise at 61.
At 63, he described himself as having created an entirely new career.
Paradise wasn't the end of it. Bill later sold two scripts for Lifetime, one of which was produced and aired, and by the time we spoke, he had two more films in development. The film wasn't something he checked off a bucket list. It became another beginning.
That's evidence against thinking: "If I were really going to do it, I would have done it already. Maybe you didn't have the know-how yet. Maybe you hadn't met the right people. Maybe you were raising children, needed money, or weren't ready and you simply didn't do it. Nothing establishes that you can't do it now.
Bill repeatedly came back to:
“It's never too late.” His life is an example.
Following a Dream May Not Look Like Following a Dream
Following your dream doesn't mean knowing exactly what your dream will eventually become. It can be smaller than that.
Take the class. Write the first page. Make the thing. Talk to the person. Ask for the introduction. Take the strange job that puts you around people doing what interests you. Show somebody your work. Accept that the first version may be bad. Then make another one.
Bill's story didn't unfold because every step worked. It unfolded because each step made another step possible. That's a better way to think about following a dream. You don't need to see the destination before you begin. You need enough direction to take a step.
Then pay attention to what becomes possible because you took it.
The question isn't: “How do I make my dream happen?”
It's: “What can I do today that gives something new a chance to happen?”
Listen or Watch
Apple Podcasts • YouTube • Spotify
I created a short, Why We Are Here ? video based on insights Bill mentions during our conversation. Writer and filmmaker Bill Robertson reflects on creativity, purpose, and what it means to follow the inner pull toward meaningful work.
About Bill Robertson
Paradise, A Town of Sinners & Saints
On AmazonPrime, YoutubeMovies, GooglePlay, and TubiTV: https://tubitv.com/movies/100021051/paradise-a-town-of-sinners-saints
The Book: Uncle Bill's Animal Tales - Life Lessons for Adults, on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Uncle-Bills-Animal-Tales-Lessons/dp/1959555375
Editor's Note
This article is based on my podcast conversation with film maker, Bill Robertson. The ideas discussed here originated in that conversation, while the structure, emphasis, and commentary are my own. Any errors or interpretations are mine, not Bill Robertson.
About the Author
Daniel Stih (danielstih.com) is an aerospace engineer, software engineer, indoor environmental consultant, and author of 12 books. For more than 30 years, he has investigated complex problems spanning engineering, technology, the built environment, and human decision-making. His work explores how evidence, assumptions, and systems shape the conclusions we draw—and whether we're solving the right problem. Learn more about his approach in Why I Think This Way.