THINKDROP 16: Dreaming is building
- Pierre Stanghellini
- Sep 16
- 5 min read
They imagine what others can’t. Then build it anyway.
🎤 From Me to You
Some people optimize.
Others originate.
This drop is for the dreamers — the ones who move through the world with visions no one else can see yet. The ones whose ideas seem too early, too vague, too big... until suddenly, they’re everywhere.
Dreaming isn’t just a mindset. It’s a force. It bends time. It challenges logic. It terrifies the spreadsheets.
Just ask Walt Disney — a man who was told a cartoon mouse couldn’t carry a business, that no one would drive into the middle of nowhere to visit a theme park, and that “fantasy” was a liability, not a strategy.But Disney didn’t just dream — he built. He scaled wonder. He turned imagination into infrastructure. He operationalized vision before the world had a category for it.
Dreamers don’t just escape reality.
They reshape it.
Let’s go.
Pierre Stanghellini -
HARi.wtf founder
PS: Stick with this one all the way to the end — you'll not only uncover the power of dreamers, but also see how Walt Disney turned imagination into strategy with one of the most visionary maps ever drawn.
1. Dreaming Is Not Passive — It’s Directional
Real dreaming isn’t fantasy.
It’s strategic visioning.
It’s what happens when you hold space for what doesn’t exist yet, and let it start influencing your decisions now.
Dreamers see across timelines. While others focus on what is, they explore what could be — and reverse-engineer their next move from there.
Try This:
Write down the version of your business or idea that feels too ambitious, too expensive, or too early.
Then ask: What decision would I make today if I believed that future was inevitable? Now go make a small version of that decision.
2. Vision Is a Threat to the Status Quo
Dreamers make people uncomfortable. That’s the point.
Because to dream is to challenge what’s accepted.
To say: this doesn’t work anymore.
To ask: what if we built something that did?
This kind of thinking breaks systems.
It threatens legacy. And it’s exactly why dreamers are so often dismissed — until they’re undeniable.
Try This:
Make a list of 3 things in your industry, company, or culture that “everyone just accepts.”
Now pick one — and write a single paragraph challenging it.
You don’t need a pitch deck. Just a better question.
Start there.
3. Every Ridiculous Idea Was Once the Future
It’s easy to forget:
The iPhone was once a fantasy.
Airbnb was once absurd.
AI was a punchline.
Sending humans to Mars? Science fiction.
Dreamers carry the burden of belief long before anyone claps.
They bet on ideas with no traction — only conviction.
And when they win, the world adjusts its definition of “normal.”
Try This:
Write down a current idea you have that you’d never say out loud — because it feels too weird, risky, or early.
Now imagine it’s 10 years from now… and it actually worked.
What version of that idea could you prototype this week — just for you?
4. Imagination Is a Leadership Skill
You can’t manage your way into a breakthrough.
You have to imagine it first.
And in a world obsessed with productivity, dreamers are the ones building the long arc.
This is where creative leadership lives: in the tension between vision and action.
Between imagining something extraordinary and shipping a version of it now.
Dreaming doesn’t mean waiting.
It means starting with the dream, and making it real one clear decision at a time.
Try This:
Schedule 30 minutes of unstructured vision time this week — no calendar, no Slack, no to-do list. Just space to think expansively:
What future are you really building toward?
What’s the version of it that scares you the most — in a good way.
Make it a ritual. Let your imagination set the direction again.
5. Dreamers Don’t Just Think Different — They Decide Different
Everyone has ideas.
What makes dreamers dangerous is that they act on them.
They’re not waiting for validation. Or timing. Or consensus.
They move when it’s messy. They build while being misunderstood. They decide from the future they imagine, not the present they inherited.
And that’s where real impact begins.
Try This: Think of a decision you’ve been postponing because it doesn’t “make sense yet.”Now ask:
If I were already living inside the future I believe in, how would I act differently today? Then take one bold step in that direction, even if it’s a small one. Especially if it is.
🔹 Quick Recap – The 5 Core Ideas:
1. Dreaming is Directional: Real dreamers use vision to guide action, not escape it.
2. Vision Disrupts the Default: Big ideas challenge the systems everyone else accepts.
3. Ridiculous Now = Obvious Later: Every bold innovation starts out sounding absurd.
4. Imagination is Leadership: You can’t manage your way into a breakthrough — you have to see it first.
5. Dreamers Decide Differently: What sets them apart isn’t ideas — it’s what they do with them.
🔥 FINAL DROP
Being a dreamer isn’t easy. You’ll be underestimated. Dismissed. Laughed at. Ignored.
But make no mistake: The world you live in was once someone else’s impossible idea.
So dream big. Then move. Build what doesn’t exist yet. Say what hasn’t been said.
Design from the future, not the past.
And when someone says, “That’ll never work,” just smile.
You’re not here to follow their vision.
You’re here to write your own.
And hey — thank you, Uncle Walt.
For turning imagination into a blueprint.
For making my life more magical, my childhood more extraordinary, and for giving me a reason to look forward to my next trip to Disneyland like a kid waiting for Christmas.
Dreaming is building.
Let’s keep building.
Pierre Stanghellini
→ Let’s connect, drop me a line directly at pierre@hari.wtf .
EXTRA GIFT !
The strategic map created by Walt Disney in the late 50s.
This hand-drawn strategic map by Walt Disney, created in the late 1950s, is more than a diagram — it's a dream operationalized.
Long before “ecosystem thinking” became a buzzword, Disney visualized how storytelling, IP, technology, merchandise, parks, and media could feed and reinforce one another. Every arrow is a bet on the future — on synergy, imagination, and scale. It’s the perfect visual proof of today’s Thinkdrop theme: dreaming isn’t wishful thinking — it’s infrastructure planning for a world that doesn’t exist yet.
Dreaming is building. And Walt built one of the most iconic, interconnected futures of all time.
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About the Creator
Pierre Stanghellini is a creative strategist, systems thinker, and curator of mental rabbit holes. He created Thinkdrop Weekly to feed the brains that don’t want the same old Business advice. If you’re building something bold, beautiful, or strange—this is your corner of the internet.
About HARi.wtf
HARi.wtf is a creative strategy studio for businesses that hate business-as-usual.
Born in Hong Kong, in 2017, we work with restless founders, operators, and teams who’d rather break things thoughtfully than grow them blandly. We don’t do generic decks or bloated strategies—we build clarity, guts, and traction.
From street-level restaurants to global brands, from Asia to Europe, we help shape ideas that move fast when it matters, and slow when it counts.
→ Explore more at hari.wtf
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