Don't Follow Your Dreams. Chase Them Like They Owe You Money.

You have heard it your whole life.

Follow your dreams.

It sounds beautiful. It sounds inspiring. It sounds like something you stitch onto a pillow or put on a motivational poster with a picture of a mountain at sunrise.

And it is almost completely useless advice.

Not because dreams are not worth pursuing. They absolutely are. But because following implies a casual stroll. A brisk walk at most. Like your dream is somewhere up ahead and all you have to do is amble in its general direction and eventually you will get there.

That is not how this works.

If you have a big dream, you do not follow it. You chase it. Full sprint. Blood pumping, sweat going, breathing heavy, running after it with reckless abandon like it owes you money and you are done waiting to collect.

That is the difference. And it changes everything.

Why "Follow Your Dreams" Falls Short

The problem with follow your dreams is that it makes the whole thing sound like a cake walk. Like you just have to try a little, point yourself in the right direction, and eventually you will arrive.

For small dreams, maybe that works. For big ones, absolutely not.

Big dreams require sacrifice. They require late nights and early mornings and missed social events and money spent on things nobody else can see the value of yet. They require you to show up on the days when you genuinely do not want to, when everything in you is saying this is not worth it, when the couch is right there and Netflix is free.

Following will not get you there. Chasing might.

I live in Chicago. It is summer right now and I see people posting themselves on boats on Lake Michigan and honestly, I want to be on one of those boats. I could be. I could drop some money, rent a boat, spend the whole day doing nothing, and post a photo that makes it look like I have already made it.

But that is not what I want. I want to earn it. I want to get there because I did the work, not because I performed success before I had achieved it.

So instead of the boat, I am in a spare bedroom at my CTO's house on a Saturday afternoon, huddled a little too close to a laptop screen with my business partners while a two year old plays with my dog in the background.

It does not look glamorous. If I showed you a picture you would not say "wow I wish I was them." You would probably say "wow that looks boring."

But here is the thing. I left that meeting more fired up than when I walked in. Because what is happening behind that picture matters so much more than what it looks like.

That is what chasing actually looks like. And most people never show you that part.

What Social Media Gets Wrong About Chasing Dreams

People post the highlights. The curated moments. The one picture a month where everything looks polished and intentional and successful.

What they do not post is the other twenty nine days. The late nights. The problems with no obvious solution. The hours spent on things nobody will ever see. The version of themselves that is tired and stressed and running on caffeine and sheer stubbornness.

As someone who runs a business, I can tell you that the glamorous moments are few and far between. Most of it is just sitting in a room with headphones on, staring at a laptop, doing unglamorous work that needs to get done.

It does not look like a party. It looks like a couple of dorks. And I mean that with love.

But those moments where you go out for a photoshoot, or you talk to someone new about what you are building and you can see the idea landing with them, or you get a message from a stranger saying that something you created genuinely helped them. Those moments make all of it worth it.

They are not picturesque. They are not something I can really put into words. They are just a feeling that I am finally finding my calling and that the work I have done is starting to matter.

Those moments are what you are chasing. And they only come to the people who do not stop when it gets hard.

What Chasing Actually Costs

Let's be honest about this part because nobody else will be.

Chasing a dream costs time. Money. Sleep. Energy. Social life. The version of yourself that gets to relax without guilt.

Over the last year building Bait Dogs Apparel while working a full time job, I have put in hundreds of hours on nights and weekends. Whole weekends spent on content, on the website, on photoshoots, on the thousand small details that go into building something real. I will not pretend that does not add up.

I am burnt out right now, honestly. Between the day job, the business, and all my personal obligations, I have no real break coming. That is the truth.

But here is the other truth. I would not trade it. Because this company is mine. This mission is mine. And the feeling of building something that actually matters to people is worth every late night and every missed boat trip.

You are going to have to make sacrifices. Real ones. The question is whether what you are chasing is worth what it costs.

If it is, you already know the answer.

There Is No Right Moment

If you are waiting for the right moment to start, I need to tell you something.

It is not coming.

There will never be enough time. Never enough money. Never enough certainty or preparation or confidence. You will never feel fully ready because readiness does not come before starting. It comes after.

When I started Bait Dogs I had ideas and concepts. But it was not until I actually started working that I learned what I needed to know. You figure it out when you have no other choice but to figure it out. Paint yourself into a corner and suddenly you become the person who can find the way out.

Start now. Start with what you have. Start scared and underprepared and uncertain.

You will learn everything you need to know exactly when you need to know it.

The People Who Keep Going

The difference between someone who chases their dream for a while and stops and someone who keeps going is not talent. It is not luck. It is not even how good the dream is.

It is the willingness to be uncomfortable and keep moving anyway.

Chasing is not "oh this is uncomfortable, I should stop." Chasing is "this is uncomfortable and that means it is working." The discomfort is the signal that you are outside your comfort zone, which is exactly where growth happens.

Nobody starts out amazing at what they do. You might have a natural aptitude for something but you are not as good on day one as you will be on day one thousand. You get there by doing it badly first and doing it better over time.

Lots of things will suck along the way. But at least you got to pick which things.

Chasing a Dream Is Biting Back

This company is my version of biting back.

I was not happy with where I was. I was tired and lost and bored and ready to just accept a life I did not want. Working on Bait Dogs changed that. It gave my creative and business minded side somewhere to go. It gave me something to point my energy toward that felt like it had a genuine impact on the world.

Chasing a dream is biting back as simply as I can put it. You are biting back the moment you decide that you are worth the time and effort. That you are not going to take no for an answer. That whatever life has handed you, you are not done yet.

Not following. Not strolling. Chasing. Full sprint. Everything you have.

Start Right Now

Here is what I want you to do when you finish reading this.

Start. Right now. Today.

Start scared. Start unprepared. Start when you do not feel like it and when the timing is not right and when you have no idea how it is going to turn out.

Taking that first step feels like being blindfolded at the edge of something you cannot see. You do not know if you are about to step onto solid ground or off a cliff.

But I promise you this. That first step is the hardest and scariest part. Once you take it, you realize it is not so bad. And maybe, just maybe, the rest of the way will not be so bad either.

Nothing is going to come to you because you wanted it. It comes to you when you work for it.

Go get it. Everything you need is already inside you.

Chase it like it owes you money.

We are the underdogs. We don't stay down, we bite back.