The moment you share a big dream, the world will test whether you'll hold on to it. At Dare to Dream Leadership Consulting, we work with gifted people who could change their industries but keep getting held back by the critical, dismissive voices around them.

Daring to dream means accepting a hard truth: not everyone can see what God has shown you. If you need other people's approval to keep going, you've handed them the power to take your dream away. Leading well takes a firm belief in yourself and the resolve to protect your vision for the future.

Joseph's story shows you how to stand firm when people try to shrink your calling.

The Making of a Visionary

Long before he ruled over all the land of Egypt, Joseph was a teenager with a big dream. In Genesis 37, God gave him two dreams showing that he'd one day rise to a place of great leadership and influence. In the Dare to Dream model, this was Joseph's Spark, but he didn't yet have the maturity to carry it.

So he naively told his brothers about the dreams. They didn't celebrate him. Scripture says they "hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words" (Genesis 37:8).

Later, when they saw him coming from a distance, they started plotting to kill him (Genesis 37:18). "Behold, this dreamer cometh," they said to each other, and then, "we shall see what will become of his dreams" (Genesis 37:19-20). They stripped off his coat of many colors, threw him into a pit, and sold him into slavery (Genesis 37:23-28).

Joseph spent the next thirteen years as a slave and then a prisoner in a foreign land, falsely accused and locked in a dungeon (Genesis 37:2; 39:20; 41:46). This was his Struggle, the gap between receiving a dream and seeing it realized. He had every reason to wonder if he'd imagined the whole thing, and betrayal, slavery, and years alone could easily have convinced him he was delusional. He held on anyway. He kept believing what God had shown him, and neither a prison cell nor his family's contempt could take it from him.

The Hebrew Words Behind Joseph's Confidence

Two Hebrew words help explain how Joseph came through all of that with his confidence intact.

The first is aman (אָמַן), the root of the Hebrew words for believing and faith. At its core, it means to be firm and established, and it can also mean to support or hold something up. A word from the same root is even used for pillars. That's a good picture of Joseph's faith. It was the pillar holding up everything else in his life.

The second is otsmah (עָצְמָה), which means might or strength. It shares a root with etsem, the Hebrew word for "bone," which can also mean a person's very self. Put the two together and you get a working definition of believing in yourself: aman in your own otsmah, a steady conviction about who you are and what you've been called to build.

Joseph's confidence held, and ego had nothing to do with it. His brothers could throw him into a pit and turn his whole world upside down, but they couldn't touch what he believed. He took his sense of who he was from the dream in his heart, and his critics had no vote.

Two Greek Words for Guarding Your Vision

The New Testament adds two Greek words that fit Joseph's story. The first appears in Hebrews 10:35, where believers are told, "Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward." The word for confidence there is parrhesia (παρρησία). It means boldness and courage, the freedom to stand firm without fear. It's the opposite of shrinking back or apologizing for your vision. Joseph had that kind of boldness in his soul. Whether he was running Potiphar's house as a slave or overseeing the other prisoners in a dungeon, he acted like a leader because he never threw away his confidence (Genesis 39:4, 22).

The second is syntēreō (συντηρέω), which means to keep something safe and preserve it from being lost or damaged. Your dream is worth protecting. If you don't guard it, other people's jealousy and small thinking will chip away at it.

Becoming Thief-Proof

When Joseph was finally brought before Pharaoh to interpret the king's dreams, everything he'd believed was proven right. Even then, he didn't take the credit. He told Pharaoh, "It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace" (Genesis 41:16). Pharaoh saw "a man in whom the Spirit of God is" and put this former slave over all the land of Egypt (Genesis 41:38-43). Years later, the same brothers who had mocked "this dreamer" bowed before him with their faces to the earth, and Joseph remembered his dreams (Genesis 42:6, 9). The dream came true, and Joseph outlasted every person who tried to steal it.

Here are three rules to put this into practice as you live out the Dare to Dream model:

1. Stop auditioning for small minds. Joseph's mistake was expecting his brothers to understand a palace-sized dream when they had pit-sized thinking. You can't make people approve of a vision they don't have the capacity to see, so stop trying.

2. Build your pillar (aman). People will downplay your goals or forget what you're worth, the way Pharaoh's chief butler forgot Joseph in prison (Genesis 40:23). When that happens, look inward and re-anchor your mind in your purpose every day. Your potential is settled between you and your Creator.

3. Guard your vision (syntēreō). Learn to recognize the people who drain your dream, and do it early. If someone keeps bringing doubt, passive-aggressive comments, or cynicism, limit their access. You can still love them, but you have to lock the doors to your inner circle.

The Dream Belongs to You

People will tell you that you're aiming too high, changing course too late, or asking for too much. You don't have to win that argument. Their doubt only shows the limits of what they can see. Keep your eyes on the future and trust the blueprint you've been given.

Joseph's brothers took his coat. They never got his dream. Hold on to your calling, and keep daring to dream.