How to make your dream happen
Inside all of us there are dreams and goals. When I was growing up I wanted to be an inventor then somewhere along the way I thought that was going to be too hard and I wasn’t smart enough to make it happen. I wanted to be an astronomer and even had my 10th birthday party at the planetarium a few minutes drive from my house. But I couldn’t see what career I would have so I gave up on that one too.
Then school became about surviving and getting through it without a big dream of what I wanted to do when I finished. I had totally forgotten about my dream.
This wasn’t the case for Anousheh Ansari. When she was a young girl growing up in Iran, she dreamt about going to space. She moved to the USA at 16, became an electrical and software engineer and spent her career in telecommunications consulting. Anousheh then started her own company with her engineer husband and brother in law, creating groundbreaking VOIP technology which enabled phone calls home to Iran go from $4 a minute to free.
While she didn’t work in space, she kept talking about her dream. It was in her media interviews, blog posts, articles - everywhere. This was heard and noticed by people who had the same dream. One of those was Peter Diamantis.
Peter was seeking funding for the first X Prize - a monetary prize for a team who could make space travel happen. Anousheh had exited her company in 2000 and, along with her family, chose to invest $10 million for the X Prize money. This pushed hundreds of millions of dollars of funding into the commercial space industry and, you could say, kick started commercial space travel.
Through this journey Anousheh met the Russian Space Agency and undertook the rigorous training program of the Russian Astronauts. Just before a space mission she got the call up. A crew member was unwell and there was a spare seat. Anousheh became the first female private space explorer.
Anousheh is also passionate about gender equality in the world and in space. Just 10% of people who have been to space have been women. Space suits are based on the default male body and size.
One of the new X Prize competitions will focus on closing the gender data gap.
So what do you do after being a space explorer? Anousheh now has the very cool job as CEO of X Prize and they have some amazing prizes and competitions on offer to solve really big challenges on and off our planet. Her passion and mission in life is to inspire people to follow their dreams.
To make her dream happen Anousheh:
Kept her dream and her goal front of mind
Unashamedly shared her dream everywhere with everyone
Said ‘yes’ to opportunities
Oh, and will we have commercial space travel in our lifetime? Anousheh said she thought it would happen this year, but then coronavirus, so it could be as close as 2021!
Anousheh’s story got me thinking about my abandoned dreams. I dreamt of learning to fly and going to space too and it’s now back on my goal list. It’s printed out as a poster and on my bedroom wall so I can see it everyday. Are there dreams have you forgotten about?