Dreams have to be more than just dreams -- they have to be wanted more than anything and worked for harder than anything in order to achieve success, broadcast journalist Ed Gordon told a packed auditorium Monday.
And that success can't be lost sight of, he said.
On the anniversary of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., Gordon kept returning to a single formula: "Greatness follows success, success is borne of preparation, and preparation is initiated by a dream."
"I have a little dream," he said. "If you're going to dream, dream big -- dream about your contribution to the world, what you leave along the way, how what you do will affect the world... Because that's what makes you extraordinary."
Nearly all of the 2,000 seats on the floor of Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium were full for the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Celebration -- and as the night wound on, the balcony began filling up, too.
Gordon directed his words at young people, but reminded everyone that children often don't know any better -- that it's adults who sometimes need a talking-to.
He often used his own career to highlight the different planks of his inspirational platform, talking about meeting Nelson Mandela in one breath and then quoting rapper Jay-Z in the next.
He talked about the ups and downs he's had along the way, beginning with a news director who told him soon after college that he would never make it in the field.
He talked about problems plaguing society -- parents and teachers who don't care, failing schools, gun violence, and "trying to buy a $130 pair of gym shoes when you can't even spell 'gym shoes.' "
Success begins with finding something you truly yearn for, he said.
"Find something that you love ... and then go after it with a vengeance -- like it slapped-your-mama, go after it," he said.
Gordon is a Detroit native and heads his own production company.
