Some people dream with their eyes closed. Others dream wide awake—with blistered hands, broken pride, and a will that won’t back down.

Sidney Poitier was the second kind.

Born prematurely in Miami to tomato farmers from the Bahamas, Sidney wasn’t expected to survive his first week. He grew up without electricity, running water, or formal schooling. By the time he moved to the U.S. at 15, he was functionally illiterate and had a thick Bahamian accent.

He arrived in Harlem with nothing but a dream: to act. Laughable, really. He couldn’t read a script or imitate an American accent. And in Jim Crow America, Black actors weren’t lining up to receive Oscars.

But here’s where the story turns.

Rejected by an acting school, he didn’t storm out. He went home and got to work. He taught himself to read using newspapers. He mimicked radio announcers to refine his speech. He swept floors at the American Negro Theatre just to be near the stage.

He failed auditions. He bombed onstage. He kept going.

Eventually, he began landing roles—roles with dignity and depth. In The Defiant Ones (1958), he became the first Black actor nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. In 1964, he became the first to win, for Lilies of the Field. He didn’t walk through a door; he broke it off the hinges so others could follow.

And all because he refused to let a dream die.

Dreams aren’t meant to be coddled. They’re meant to be carried—dragged, if necessary—through doubt, failure, and obscurity. They stretch and humble us, shaping us into people who can handle the weight of them.

Focus keeps you from chasing every shiny distraction.
Persistence keeps you going when no one claps.
Growth makes you ready for the moment when it finally comes.

So when it gets hard, when the path feels slow or silent—remember Sidney.

“I don’t know that I would call myself a dreamer. I think I’m a dream carrier.”
—Sidney Poitier

“Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
—Galatians 6:9 (CSB)