My great-grandmother Babu (Bah-boo) and her sister Mum-mum, as my mother affectionately called them, fled Poland when Nazi soldiers began to have their way with attractive Polish women.
They stowed away on a ship and then sailed to the land of golden bricks, where anyone could be anyone they wanted to be.
Illegal aliens until their last days, they found employment, had children, and practiced polka dancing in the coal-rich small towns of Pennsylvania. It was their American Dream, the same dream your grandparents probably had.
After World War II, Americans went into a mating craze. The idea of starting a family, raising children, having a home with a white picket fence (and maybe a dog) became The American Dream that inspired the real estate boom. Affordable homes were built all across the country, from Levittown in Long Island to the Eichler homes in California that inspired childhood Steve Jobs.
Add on the college degree and the American Dream has relatively stayed the same despite the fact that it was a marketing scheme created by real-estate companies, Cheerio boxes, and the Waltons.
With the housing crash and crippling student debt, millennials around the world are redefining The American Dream.
The new American Dream is where a person finds their calling in life to create the most epic legacy -- one that creates a better tomorrow and has an incredible impact in the world.
Now, you have the ability to share your message with anyone in the world with the same effect of a Super Bowl ad, but without having to spend that kind of money.
We're living in the world of abundance where a kid in the slums of India could learn anything he wants and see the world from a laptop.
The new American Dream has less to do with money or a home and more to do with living a purpose-driven life.
It's a beautiful world we live in -- a new Renaissance where you are in control.