Field of Dreams

"Shoeless" Joe Jackson talks to Ray Kinsella.

Most people have seen the film Field of Dreams where Ray Kinsella hears a voice in his Iowa cornfield who whispers, “If you build it, he will come”. So the farmer plows his crop and to build a baseball field.

Everyone thinks Ray is crazy—especially when nothing happens after he builds the field. Then Shoeless Joe Jackson, a long dead baseball player appears and soon brings other baseball ghosts to play on this beautiful ball field built on a farm.

The problem is only Ray and his wife and daughter can see the players. The family is also about to lose the farm to creditors and they are being pressured to sell. Lastly, Ray goes on a road trip find a reclusive writer and bring him back from Boston.

So what can we learn?

1. Sometimes we have to take a leap of faith and believe things will work out, even when others don’t get it. In the end, things do work out for Ray and his family.

2. When we are driven by purpose (like Ray was) you don’t give up when times get tough or people slam doors in your face—like Terrance Mann did to Ray.

3. In the film Ray asks one time, “What’s in it for me?” But, he really did what he did without knowing (or caring) how he would benefit.

Failure, hard work, persistence, purpose, passion, selflessness, and hope are qualities Ray displays in the film. It is these same traits that can lead us to beat the odds and build our own “field of dreams” (whatever they may be).

Lee Silber is the award winning author of 24 books, a popular presenter, and a baseball fanatic and coach. leesilber@leesilber.com