Last night, I found myself watching a film I’ve never heard of – October Sky, based on the life of someone I’ve never heard of – Homer Hickam. Now a best selling author, Homer has a childhood story that illustrates how big dreams can be.
Growing up in Coalwood, West Virginia in the late 1940/ 1950s as a young boy, Homer was inspired by the Russian Sputnik to dream of a life away from Coalwood and the mine that ran through every vein of the small town. With a small group of friends, 
Homer set up the Big Creek Missile Agency (great name, could have come straight from the Spy Kids film trilogy) and set out to build the biggest and best rocket they could.
Learning everything they could about rocket systems, propulsion, mathematics and everything else needed to launch, the three year project became the rallying point for the town.
Many people should be included in the roll of honour but one in particular stands out. Homer’s young, female science teacher believed in the Rocket Boys even when the system didn’t.
At the same time though, Homer’s adventurous streak was not welcome at home or at least not by his father. Whilst his mother encouraged her son to follow his dream and look for a life beyond the mine, for his father the maverick behaviour was almost impossible to reconcile with the traditional mining way of life. The mine was his life but not Homer’s. Homer dreamed of becoming a rocket engineer.
Encouraged by the developments taking place at Cape Canaveral under the leadership of Werhner von Braun, the boys experimented with all manner of resources including fuels with the poetic names of ‘rocket candy’ and ‘zincoshine’.
From Auk I (altitude six feet) to the mind-boggling Auk XXXI (altitude 31,000 feet) the boys belief in themselves culminated in the gold medal at the National Science Fair, 1960 and careers well away from Coalwood and its declining way of life.
Homer grew up to fulfil his ambition as a NASA engineer before establishing himself as a successful author.
Homer may not have been a business entrepreneur but his ability to dream, to think big is probably the most fundamental quality any entrepreneur has. Not to accept the norm, not even to step outside the comfort zone slightly but to dream wild thoughts that provoke a mix of hostility and jealousy in others.
But how big do a budding entrepreneur’s dreams need to be?
