How a Dream About Sharks Showed Me the Key to My (and All) Businesses

Last night, I had a dream in which my mother had caught a giant shark on her fishing line. She didn't want to pull the shark up and she couldn't get the hook out. She also felt guilty about leaving the hook in the shark's mouth, so she dove into the water and somehow managed to get the hook out of the shark's mouth and jump out of the pool unscathed. She then walked away and I stood in awe and confusion.

I woke up feeling pretty much the same way.

This dream is ridiculous to me in a lot of ways. First of all, my mother hates fish. She is violently allergic to seafood. She barely tolerates seeing all the fish my dad catches when they are in the fridge, let alone wanting to go fishing (though she has done it on occasion because she is nothing if not a people-pleaser).

My mother is an animal lover. In fact, she started out in college wanting to be a veterinarian, but switched to botany when she realized she couldn't bring herself to dissect a dog. After a 35-year career managing rates and tariffs for a gas & electric company (where she actually started her employment making sure there were no endangered plant species where power lines were going to be erected), she began a second career as a dog trainer.

She is now the proud owner of Patiently Positive Dog Training– a name that truly embodies the business owner and method. Great branding.

But we will get to that a bit later...

The part of the dream that had me truly reeling (fishing pun intentional), was the idea that she would jump into a nest of sharks in order to diminish the pain of one particularly large, mean and nasty one. No matter how much of an animal lover my mom is, I know she would never do this in real life.

As I sat in reflection this morning, I realized that she did that for me nearly every day. Though it took me a long time to see it, she was in the shark's den doing her absolute best to make sure the shark wasn't hurt and didn't attack. She isn't the accolades type though, so she would turn her back and walk away from her heroic acts, just as she did in my dream.

Without getting into too much detail, I will say that I had to learn to be a caretaker at a very young age. The