This past Christmas, I gave a friend a copy of my new book, The Young Eagle. It is an inspirational tale of a young eagle that leaves the nest to pursue his destiny. He is encouraged to dream big.

My friend, Dave, is in his late 50s. After reading this, he said to me, "This message is good for the younger guys, but what about the old guys like me? How are we supposed to dream?"

I always listen to feedback, whether or not I want to hear it. And Dave's question got me thinking. Pursuing one's dreams is not age-specific. It's for everyone, at all ages. Consider the following:

• The average age of those assuming the presidency of the United States is 54.8 years old.
• Handel wrote his famous Messiah at age 57.
• Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II at age 58.
• Alfred Sloan, Jr. wrote My Years with GM at age 89.
• Martha Graham won a Pulitzer Prize for her book, Personal History, at age 79.
• Ray Kroc got the idea for McDonald's at age 52.
• Harland Sanders was 65 years old when he founded KFC.
• At age 58, Cliff Young ran and won the Westfield Sydney to Melbourne marathon, defeating a field of younger competitors.
• Frank Lloyd Wright created the famous Guggenheim Museum in New York when he was 80 years old.
• Any list of long-in-the-tooth dreamers and achievers must include Peter Drucker, who published his last book, Managing in the Next Society, at age 93. And how about W. Edwards Deming, the man who took quality to Japan? He lectured well into his 80s, still committed to a mission of improving quality for the world.

Dreaming and sales go hand-in-glove. This is a profession built on dreams. For us, dreaming is our motivational fuel. It gets us out of bed in the morning without an alarm clock. It provides the impetus for us to make one more sales call in the afternoon when we feel like calling it a day. It helps us rebound from a slump.

Dreaming helps us escape from our present reality into our future successes. Dreaming is creating our future in the present. Dreaming is a way to leave yesterday as our past because our past is not our potential. Dreaming helps us avoid becoming trapped in time.

So you see, Dave, dreaming is not just for the young; it's for all of us. It's never too late to dream. It's always the right time to dream. You do it every night when you go to sleep. We are hard-wired to dream. Imagine using that same creative power in a conscious state.

I'll finish with a challenge from Robert Schuller: "What would you attempt if you knew you couldn't fail?" Everything, of course.