This post has nothing to do with my opinions of pipe organs. Nonetheless, my mother-in-law may still find it loathsome.

After nearly three years visiting almost every place that serves Sunday breakfast in Nashville, I think I found the best one – the one that I could visit over and over again. Of course, I need to go there again (maybe this Sunday) to make sure that I didn't imagine it, get lucky, or that it doesn't catch on fire this week. Sunday brunch with my family is important to me, so you can imagine how excited I am to find a spot that offers enough diversity for my picky family without having the word "cheesecake" in the title.

I'm able to go to Sunday brunch each week because I stopped going to church. This is so not where I thought I'd be ten or even five years ago.

But, I couldn't be happier.

Community – having a place where I belong and can be my most 'me' – is important to me. It's important to humans, really. We're social animals. We crave attention, affection, acceptance and connection. It's good when you can call someone 'yours.' It's better when someone can call you that, too.

But it's so hard to find. Like hope, people need it so badly they'll pay top dollar. So, if you can help create, develop and sustain real community, congratulations. You'll be rich very soon.

For a long time, church was a place where I could find community. It was a place to meet people, talk about stuff that mattered and be encouraged to be my most me. But, something changed. Maybe it was entering the real world. Maybe it was working for a living and understanding that time spent off the clock was time that I wanted to spend only on things that were truly personally enjoyable. Shopping for churches is never enjoyable.

In the process of all that, I started my own faith community. A handful of us gather at my home on Sunday evenings to talk about our weeks, dream together about how to be better people and our most respective selves, and provide support, hope, and insight for each other. We're all (mostly) former church members, vagabonds who have found a stopping point where we'd like to stay for a while.

I don't know if I’ll ever go to church again. Speaking in one (which I do about six times a year) and visiting one with my in-laws on Christmas Eve is about all the church-related exposure I get now. Lots of Facebook friends of mine work in churches and I wonder what their lives are like. A lot of other Facebook friends go to church a lot and really like it. I wonder what their lives are like, too.

Hopefully (certainly, right?), they've found a community there. Hopefully it's the best community they could find or else they wouldn't be wasting their time in a place where they couldn't be their most selves.

My biggest community moments happen each week on Sunday. One is in the morning over breakfast food with my family and the other is in the evening with those who are part of The Story. There's not much prayer, preaching, Bible reading or singing at either one. Maybe churches could provide a better actualization of community if they stopped doing all that.

Blogging (even video blogging) comes and goes for me these days. I rarely share links of interest here, instead doing it via Twitter.

But, I don't find myself at a loss for creative output or for sharing my takes on things. That's mainly because I get a lot of email from people asking me questions. I'm happy to reply as it allows for intimate idea sharing, as well as a natural back-and-forth that I enjoy.

Nonetheless, after a recent exchange with a friend who has some big ideas, I kept telling him to share his vision with as many people as possible. He's never short on ambition or big dreams – he just has trouble when it comes to implementing these dreams, mainly because he's not quite sure what the first step is.

So, whenever you have big dream and are left to wonder what the first step is, it's this:

Tell as many people as possible.

Big dreams require lots of things to become a reality. They require other people on board, a big social network, some financing, lots of time, a stroke or two of luck and an entire list of things that I'm too lazy to come up with right now.

The only way you can begin to get the things you need to turn your dream into reality is to bring more people to the table. So, that's the first thing to do when you have a big dream. Tell as many people as possible.

Here's why:

• You'll know if your idea is stupid. If you start sharing your idea with people and a lot of them think your idea won't work, that it's worthless or they don't want to be involved, then you'll know that you need to scrap it or drastically change it. This will end up saving you time, heartache and even money.
• You'll know how quickly your idea will happen. When you tell people, maybe half of them will want in, maybe most of them will want some kind of involvement, or maybe all of them will call you a genius. By gauging the level of excitement about what you're trying to do, you'll have a rough idea of the difficulty of your idea, as well as the time commitment needed to make it happen.
• You'll be able to move on to step two. When something (a new nonprofit, a business idea, a community initiative) is just beginning, there are countless ways you could go, innumerable next steps and it all can get confusing. Sharing your idea with others will help you determine what the next step is. If you want to build a building and you tell your idea to an architect and she loves it, then maybe it's time to draw up some plans.

Of course, someone could steal your idea. If you're worried about that, then don't tell the kind of people who steal ideas. If you know those kinds of people, you should stop being friends with them.

Somewhere behind the north end zone (which is about mile 3.5 of my 6 mile loop), I wanted to stop. This sometimes happens – the wanting to stop running – especially when you're trying to run a half-marathon each month in a single year. Come Saturday, I'll be halfway towards that goal when I cross the finish line in Kansas City.

But that's then. And this is today. And today, I didn't much enjoy putting one foot in front of the other at 7-something in the morning. Even though it was relatively early by many peoples' standards, it was already warm. And that told me that it would be warm for all of my upcoming training runs until October. In between now and then, I'm supposed to complete half marathons in San Francisco, New York, and Disneyland.

So you can see why I wanted to stop.

But I pushed on. As Ira Glass carried on about classified ads in my headphones and traffic was picking up heading into downtown on Woodland Street, my shirt was getting heavier and I wondered who would really care if I just walked the rest of the way home?

I even could cut the route short and shave off a mile or so. No one would have to know.

Running analogies don't work on everyone, and I don't really have the time to wax theatrical (or poetic) about what happened next, so the point is this: sometimes you feel like quitting.

Don't.

Seth Godin calls it The Dip. That makes sense if you're an entrepreneur. But what if you're not? (some days I don’t feel much like one)

It means this:

• You keep applying to jobs. All 94 of them. You just have to.
• Even if you haven't made a sale in months, pick up the phone. Again.
• Your daughter never listens. Check that – she seems to never listen. But she really is. So keep talking to her.
• They're not returning your calls or emails. They may have a reason. Until you know what that reason is, keep trying to make contact.
• Your marketing plan isn't working. Get a new one, even if means getting a new consultant or firm or concept. Hell – you may even want to change your whole product line.

If you want to succeed tomorrow, you better get busy today. Sweat equity can never be measured. Thus, you can always put in more of it.

The first 16 months of Cool People Care were nearly embarrassing at times. But, now that we've been up and running for nearly three years, people that I tried to get a meeting with in 2007 are emailing me. That's just how it happens.

There is no such thing as overnight success. Unless you want to be a flash in the pan, too. That's the other side of that coin that no one talks about.

I've said it before, but it's worth repeating: If you want cathedrals of better tomorrows, her foundation must be laid today.

I've got a blogging gig over at Corporate Idealist where I write about Work/Life Balance on Fridays.

Here are my first three posts:

• How Important to You is 40 Hours?
• Do Vacations Add Balance?
• Work/Life Balance is All About Ability

Corporate Idealist provides hope for hardworking heroes and was begun by Kate O'Neill, who cranks out posts during the rest of the week. You can learn more about the site here, and I'd highly encourage you to subscribe.

I don't know what sort of epiphany I had the other day, but this idea popped into my head: What would my 28-year-old self say to my 23-year-old self? Regardless of how old you are, I encourage everyone to think about what you'd say to yourself five years ago.

Half a decade ago, I'd been married for less than six months, was thinking about purchasing my first home, and had just been promoted to management at a job I was determined not to turn into a career. So many things were knew and exciting, and I was impatient for a lot to happen. In fact, I'd dare say that I'm a completely different person now.

I know a lot of people who are 23, or close to it. They're recent grads with big dreams and a desire to get where they're going now. I was that way, too. I didn't know it all, but I thought I knew most of it. But now at 28, I don't think I even know half of it.

So, here's what I'd say:

• You can't imagine where you'll be in five years. Embrace that mystery.
• It doesn't matter where you'll be in ten years. Just try to be happy with it.
• You're going to start eating a lot of salads. And you'll like it.
• Religious stuff ain't that big of a deal. You write a lot about it now, but you won't later.
• Love your wife more today than yesterday.
• You'll love running again.
• If you want to find balance in life, discover how important both flexibility and stability are to you.
• There are a lot of fine lines in life. Learn how to navigate them correctly and you'll be okay.
• Social capital is everything and it always will be.
• You don't have a clue.
• Your passions will change in life. Sort of like best friends.
• Go see everyone get married, but don't feel bad if you can't make one or two.
• Get better at learning. Always.
• It gets a lot more fun.
• Ask for help and ask for advice. It's okay.
• It gets harder to lose weight and it takes longer to burn off a night out. So even though you want more, one piece of cheesecake will do.
• For the next five years, save as much money as you can, spend time with your family often, and make a list of every good idea that pops into your head.
• Keeping asking, "Why not?"
• In about 10 months, you're going to get food poisoning really bad. So, steer clear of the shrimp on Easter.

I can't wait to see what I think of who I am now when I'm 33.