On this episode of BEP Talks, we explored the true power of dreams with Kiran Ryan Young. From moving from Brooklyn to Portugal, Kiran shows us that dreaming isn’t just about wishful thinking—it’s about transformation, action, and giving yourself permission to live boldly. Your dreams stick with you, waiting for you to say yes and do the work. Remember, it’s not about chasing an endpoint—it’s about embracing the journey, overcoming fear, and always believing your dreams are worth living. Let’s keep dreaming, keep growing, and keep turning aspirations into reality.

Are you ready to move from chasing your dream to living it? As Kiran Ryan Young says, “Don’t chase it, live it, make it your reality.” The Dreamers Den is here to help you speak your dream out loud, perhaps for the first time.

Connect with Kiran on LinkedIn or via email at [email protected] to share your vision and take that first step—in company with others on the same journey.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiranryanyoung

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Well, hey there, and welcome to this edition of BEP

Talks, where amazing people from all around the world, all

industries, all professions, and at all ages and stages

of life and career, so generously come to

share their beliefs, their experiences and

their passions. Bep. That's what BEP Talks is

all about, I believe. Everybody has a story. They're all worth

sharing. They're all worth hearing. We have never had an exception

to our rule of the wonderful guests that we welcome.

So I want you to join me in welcoming today's very special

guest, Kiran Ryan Young.

Welcome, Kiran. There you are. Welcome, welcome.

Thank you very much. You are coming to us all the way from

Portugal? Yes, I am. A place

I was in years ago, many, many years ago. Had such a

wonderful time there. A very beautiful, beautiful country. Just to ask

you, wonderful. Where did you move from and

why did you choose Portugal as your destination?

I moved from Brooklyn, New York.

As far as why I chose Portugal as a destination,

Portugal actually chose me.

I've always wanted to live abroad. I, for

some reason, just always thought it was going to be France.

And a little over a year,

and a little over a year before I actually moved,

Portugal popped into my head. And

I was like, okay, yes, I came to visit because I thought I

should at least visit before I decide I could actually move here.

And the first full day I was here,

I was walking with a friend through a park,

and that's when Portugal basically took my heart

and said, you're home. Oh, how beautiful.

Beautiful. And I have not regretted it

since. It's loving it. Beautiful,

Beautiful. So it wasn't about pork. It wasn't about the wine. They do

also have beautiful beaches. I've been there. So I

was not expecting you to say that you moved from Brooklyn, New

York. I am a native New Yorker. I

don't think anybody ever left Brooklyn. It is not

easy. It's not easy. It's

not easy to leave Brooklyn. So welcome to BEV Talks, and I thank you so

much for joining us. I am very excited about this conversation,

which is why I wanted to get right into it. And I see behind you,

as we can all see, you're coming to us from the dreamer's den.

I love the whole concept. I don't

understand your perspective of it yet. So I'm going to ask you

what is, in your context, what

is a dream?

A dream is a blueprint for life.

We talk a lot about chasing dreams, but really

dreams are meant to be lived. And

that's. That's been my experience. It has not let Me down.

Being here in Portugal is a dream.

But what I've discovered is

that dreams also ask of us to

transform, because

there's the person that dreams the dream is not

necessarily the person that is living the dream.

Oh, that I understand. That I understand. I

want to mention also that you are the author of Wake

up and Dream. Wake up. It's time to

dream. It's time to dream, but to wake up.

Obviously, we're all very familiar with wishing people sweet

dreams at night when they retire to take their

rest. And is it just

my belief, or do most people believe

that a dream is something of a fantasy, a

dream is something of a fuzzy vision.

A dream is something that you enjoy in the moment,

and you wake up and smack right back into

reality. There are those kind of dreams,

yes. But one of the things.

I'm a girl, dad. Disney princesses were a big

thing when my daughter was growing up. And Cinderella,

who had a dream, and every day she looked out of her

window, she saw that castle. She knew that's where she

wanted and was supposed to be, but

she did her normal stuff, and at the end of the story,

she got that castle.

Is conscious dreaming a way of manifesting?

Conscious dreaming a way of manifesting, yes.

But like I said initially, it's also a transformation.

So wanting it, seeing it,

keeping it, keeping the vision alive, you also

have to step into it. So, you know,

even using Cinderella, fairy godmother comes along,

gives her a new dress, she changes her

identity, becomes no longer the cleaning girl,

mistreated stepdaughter, she shows into that ball

as a person that she really is.

Because if you remember the full story before the stepmother arrives,

Cinderella is living in that world. Yes, yes.

So she gets to go back into that ball, into that world, and

reclaim her dream that has always been there.

And that's one of the things that I also believe, is that that dream

is probably something you had as a child

that got buried by people saying, oh, no, that's

unrealistic. Oh, it's too big. Oh, you can't do that.

Oh, that's not for us. And

when you reconnect to it and decide to actually

step into it and live it, it just

transforms your life. It transforms you, you know,

back to who you initially were,

and life becomes filled with ease.

Oh, that's beautiful. So have we stopped

dreaming? Have we stopped. Yes. It's

not easy. No. I'm just in my own life. Have we

stopped claiming that power, so to speak,

of visualizing it and bringing it into

reality? Yes. And that's why I

wrote the book. That's why you wrote the book, right. So what are

we missing? What are we. Are we just. Listen. We living.

We're living in a noisy, chaotic world right now. And I guess to some

degree we always are. Sometimes

it feels closer to home, closer to heart than at other times.

We always, it seems, correct me when I'm. When

I'm wrong or help me

to see it from a different tilt of the head as I say

that we're being slapped into reality all the time. That

there are so many dream stealers out there.

What can we do? What should we do? What is

possible to do to get back into the frame

of mind? Kind of like that.

Anything is possible. Dare to dream it. Dare to

dream it. What do we have to do?

First thing is give yourself permission to dream.

Just to be gentle with yourself and say it's okay,

Really. At this point,

the entrance point into reconnecting to that dream

is that there's something that happens.

For me, it was my daughter going off to

college. From the time she was. Because

she was. My first dream manifested.

Beautiful. I was a gay man coming of age during the

AIDS crisis. I wanted to be a parent.

How the heck is that gonna happen? Couldn't adapt. There was just

no way. But eventually that happened.

A way appeared and so I spent.

All of that was my dream. I wanted to be a parent. I lived that

life. Pta. I was at school. I did. Did the

thing when she was off to college. It was like,

okay, now what? What do I do

now? And in those quiet moments,

there was that little knock that came. It's like that little dream

whispering again. It's like, remember, you wanted to move abroad. You

wanted to live somewhere else. You wanted to have that experience, be in different

cultures. And I listened to it this time

and I said, okay, that's. That's the next thing

I believe that our dreams don't go

away. They stay there. And until

we're ready, until we accept it, until we give ourselves permission

to hear them, then we give ourselves

permission to

become it. And that's where the

work happens. That's where the fear starts to. When you

say yes to a dream, that's when the fears, that's when the

challenges come in. Sure.

Because that's the work. That's the transformation.

That's the grief of saying goodbye to

something that no longer serves you for something

that you know is going to completely change

your life. So why do we.

Why do we hold on to the old.

Is it that the

familiarity of it. The comfort of it. At least we know

it. The security. It's. The

comfort. It's. I know what this

is. I'm going to stay here. I know

what this. I know I've been here.

It served me well. I'm content.

You know, I can think about that dream. But this is just so much easier.

You mentioned something. You said it's work. It's not just

seeing it and its reality that it's work. What is that

process, Karan? That process

is what I call the messy middle. That's where nothing

makes sense. You know where you were, but you're not there

anymore because you've taken three, four or five steps, but you're not

quite where you're going to end up yet either.

It is a mess if you think about just rebuilding

your life after something happens. It can

get messy. Things, things, people,

they're moments like, you know, you have to

make a choice that's different than the choice you made before. Yeah,

there are people that you have to say, thank you,

but this isn't working.

And there's the unknowing, you know, there's

the unknowing of what you're moving into, but you know where you move from. Should

I just go back? No. I don't like where I went. I like where I'm

going. And it's messy,

but that's, like the best part.

Well, I guess when it gets messy, isn't that an

indication that something is happening? That there is a path forward?

That there's growth and development actually

happening? Yes.

That doesn't make it easier, though. No. No. But it's an

indication that I've started. I'm in it. You know,

there's a statement, familiarity breeds contempt.

And I think we're all familiar with that statement. And it's

just that it's easier to stay stuck than

to go out on that limb and do that work and

go through that

confusing state of. I'm stepping away from what

I've decided. I'm really not wanting anymore. To something that

I've declared. I do want that

middle ground. As you say, the journey. Not the.

Not the destination, but the journey itself.

That's where the work is. That's where the work is. Want to ask

you something? The law of attraction,

which, you know, I mean, it's still very much out there,

but, oh, I don't know, maybe 10, 15 years

or so ago, that's all you heard. The law of attraction. The law of attraction.

The law of attraction. Did that become

confusing? Do you Think that you just had to,

if you didn't really understand what it was, that you just had to think about

it long enough and hard enough and it would happen

as opposed to there's work that has to be done.

It's a distraction. Yeah, in a good way. So it

distracts you from the work, which

happens anyway if you're thinking that way.

So if you're using the law of attraction as a

means for a manifestation or change or whatever,

and that's what you're focusing on, then you're not focusing on the

hard parts, you're not focusing on the work, you're not focusing on

the things that change. Right. You're just

focusing completely on the end result. Right, right,

right. So I think we just named it the law of distraction. And

I understand what you're saying now because I mentioned, I think it was

misunderstood, that people thought you just had to close your eyes and

envision and you know, poof, there

it could be. But and you also said, you

mentioned earlier, which is always something that I'm keenly

aware of you, you said choice, that it.

Some things happen that distract us from our dreams, that prevent

us from continuing the work

to reach the dreams and maybe we can go back to it. I mean, that's

just part of the four letter word called life, that it happens.

But if you want it badly enough, if it means that

much to you, I imagine you will always

reconnect to it and that you can always continue the

work. Yeah, it doesn't go away,

you know, and you, you don't have to

choose it.

It's there for a reason. If you can't use it, I would highly

recommend it. Yeah, but it doesn't go away.

It's always yours. And you can come back to

it and use it however you want. If you just want

to think about it and that makes you feel great in that moment, great.

If you choose to actually do

something with it and just be

prepared. There's work.

There's work. So do you have a program? Do you have

a template? Do you have a workshop? Is there, pardon me,

Is there a, a path that

people can follow?

Is there a path that people can follow?

Yes. And I think, is there a

path that I provide for people to follow? Is that what the question is

going to be different for everybody, where you are, where you want to go, but

philosophically, theoretically, is there

a program X steps

that you have to do? You have to write it down, you have to visualize

it, you have to commit to it. What is the path for people

to step away from that comfort zone and say, the dream is

big enough to me and important enough to me that I'm

willing to do the work. Like moving from Brooklyn to Portugal.

Right. So the first thing is, is giving

themselves permission, permission to hear the

dream, to let the dream speak to them.

Then choosing, like, yes, saying yes to the

dream.

And at the time of saying yes is the time

to start living. So after yes, it's

then choosing to live the dream, not just chase it.

And living it is a complete

giving over to the dream, whatever the dream

needs. Right,

so is that when we're talking about,

you know, affirmations, say them as if.

As if it's already real, that it's not something down the road.

Say it in a present tense way

as if you are already there. Is that.

Is that what I'm hearing? A little bit of. A little bit. It's not

so much saying, it's doing well. Yeah,

yeah. Being. And it's being. And it's being. Yes.

And you know, like, with me and my move to Portugal,

sitting in my house in Brooklyn, there were

times that I had to choose to just stay in Brooklyn, in.

In my being. And there were times that I would choose

to already being in Portugal.

And that was one of those moments where, you know, when I say it's messy

because being in Portugal, in my being,

being in my dream, there were some

conflicts with where I was physically,

physically being in Brooklyn that it's like, well, this

isn't going to work, so I just need to stay here in

Brooklyn.

But that's. That's where the mess happens.

And that's part of the whole thing. Right? So

choosing, choosing the dream,

saying yes, being in the dream,

living the dream, and not then waiting for something

to happen. Because it's not, as you said earlier, it's not

about the destination. The dream is not about the

destination. The dream is about the path. The

dream is about what you learn along the way that's going to

transform you when you get here into

something new. I imagine that as you

are on that path journey, that highway from where you

are going to where you're going to realize your

dream, that there are exit

ramps, you can make new choices, you can give your

permission, you can give yourself permission to alter

the dream or to edit it, and

new possibilities can present themselves, of course.

Yes, yes. Dreams never fail.

Ah, dreams. If you start to go, if you start to

live in the dream and then something changes and

you go to a different dream, you needed that first one

to get to the second. Right, right, right, right, right. I'm thinking

of, like, in relationships. Okay, let's. Let's talk about it. In marriage, as

an example, you make a commitment, you're marrying your

dream partner. Doesn't always work out.

You can edit, you can adjust, you can

dream anew. And that's

fun. And I guess, you know, in business,

we always talk about goal setting.

Do you ever know? Okay, so you're physically living in Portugal, which

was your dream.

I want to say this the right way, and I'm so happy for you that

you were able to achieve that dream and that you did the work that you

packed up and move to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Oh, but it's not done yet. Oh, it's still not done. It's always a

work in progress. Oh, okay. Yes, I'm here, and

I'm sorry, but I'm here. But once I'm here,

there's work. Now what? I don't speak the language.

I go into a grocery store. I don't know what products are.

I mean, I was on my chatgpt for the full first

weekend that was here, scanning everything in

the store, saying, what is this? Window cleaner?

Is it? I knew, you know,

I'm much better at it now. But then nothing. It was a

whole new experience. So, yes, I got

here, but even getting here now becomes okay. How do I use

the transportation? What do I need to get a card so

I can get it? Just. There's more.

That's true. That's true. So what I'm getting from that, and

I love this life itself, is always

a work in progress.

Yeah. And the dream is the container of the work.

If that is the container of the work on that,

if you will, the dream. So if I sign,

you know, I still apologize. No problem.

But looking at my original dream, which was to move abroad,

and I thought it was going to be France, so I started that process.

But somewhere along the line, it moved to Portugal.

Right. So there's the dream of living abroad, going

in one direction now in a new direction. Great. I

do the make the move

and then get here and realize, yes, I'm here,

but I'm not done. No. Yes, I'm living the dream.

And to live it completely well, I have to learn the language, I have to

know how to get around. I have to have the right

clothes. Because what works in Brooklyn is not the same thing for

marching home.

Right. I have to change my schedule.

So there's all these things. And if I'm still working back in the U.S.

my days start later. You know what,

my 2 o' clock is your 9 o'. Clock. Right.

So it just. In order to live in the dream,

there's still more. There's always still more.

But I like it. No, I like that. That it is always

so in business, we talk about adjusting your goals, you know,

that you want to build a business. So, okay, so you get to, you know,

the first hundred thousand dollars, then you get to multiple six figures, then you get

to a seven figure, and then you can keep going on, but that you have

to or, or liken it to sports, to football. You know, you only

have to do 10 yards at a time and you have four chances

to get 10 yards. And then now you have another goal until you

get to the goal of actually, you know, scoring the

touchdown, so to speak. So you know what? It really, it's.

So why are we not giving ourselves

that permission? What prevents us?

Is it fear of failure? Fear of judgment?

There are a lot of dream stealers out there.

And for me, for my dreams,

I only gave myself permission. I didn't ask

anybody else for permission. That's the

key. I just answered my own question. You don't need

permission from anybody else. Nice to have their blessing, nice to have

their support, but you don't need anybody else's permission.

Correct. What's nice, once you've given yourself

permission is to have somebody else say yes. Sure. I love

that. Yeah. Yeah. But initially, did you move to

Portugal by yourself? I moved by myself.

Wow, you're brave. So. But

your dream, that tells me how strong

your dream was, how vivid it was,

how important it was that

you're now living your dream. Yeah.

And it's, you know, it goes back to how important it was for

me to get back to myself.

Yes, yes. So like all of those layers,

you know, protection and security that had to be added on

just to survive, it's like, no, I don't

want that anymore. I want to be back

to myself. Right, right.

When you were talking about your daughter at the beginning, I was imagining a little

girl, a 5, 6, 78 year old girl in her Disney

princess dresses. And then you said, she's off to college.

So it puts me in a whole different time zone.

What I experience here a lot from people

through my business, not just BEP talks, but through other things that I do,

is that when people, many people,

particularly women, I'm going to say it particularly

women who,

I hope they felt that they lived their dream by raising their

children. And now the children are off

and it's, they're now in a

what's next for me moment.

Where do I go from now? So there's a lot of women who get to

that age and that stage of life where it's been all about what

they've done for other people in a relationship, in

a marriage, in a business perhaps, but in

motherhood, the best job in the world. Now what?

What do I do? It's never too late to dream.

Never. And you said earlier in our conversation,

go back and be

willing, I'm guessing, to explore what you haven't

remembered when you were five, six,

seven, eight, nine years of age.

Get, get back in touch with yourself. Yes.

And say, what was I, what was I thinking then? Who was in

my life? What was I being influenced by?

What was my Cinderella castle all

about? Yep. Wow.

You know what? One of my hopes, one of my

dreams years ago. BEP is a nickname that my

Scottish grandmother gave me. Beppi, my name is Beth, but she gave me

the nickname Beppy. And it kind of stuck and it

disappeared for a little while, but people still call me Bep or Bepi. And I

was like, wow, I know what it means. To me, it means, you know, a

loving nickname that my grandmother gave me. But I said, but I

wanted to stand for something BEP Beliefs,

experiences and passions. And for me to bring to

life somebody else's beliefs, experiences and

passions. So this BEP talks.

Yep. Is it is a product

of, of a dream. It is the product of a dream.

Well, I'm feeling really good right now. So now I have to now dream

bigger, dream more, Keep dreaming, keep.

And you know what? I'm one of those people who,

who, you know, you go through the course, you go to high school, you go

to college, you get a job, you know, you do all that. And then I

became very entrepreneurial. And a lot of my dear, dear friends

I'm still so close with, including my own siblings, you know, stayed the

course. More of the non entrepreneurial thing. And a lot of

people, they didn't judge me. A lot of them gave me

a lot of credit for maybe having more guts than

brains sometimes because I said

I didn't want to live with regret. I was willing to, I don't want to

say chase a dream, but to,

to make the dream real, to live it as you say. And if it didn't

work out, well, then you know what, you just close your eyes, open

them up again and dream anew. Love that.

Yes. And that's okay. And I always gave myself permission to

do it didn't ask for anybody's permission. Would

love their blessing, but also did not require that.

It's a very personal thing. It's a very. So how long are you

in Portugal right now? How long have you been. No,

but how long as of now. How long have you been there? Five weeks.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. So you needed to

speak with a native New Yorker. I get it. You needed

to reconnect with a native New Yorker who

understands Brooklyn. Who

understands. Wow, that's wonderful. So

what are you doing? Is this part of. You wrote the book?

What are you doing? Is this all part of your life's work now is to

help other people find

their permission to dream and then

help them to figure out how to do the work? Yes,

that is it. That's what Dreamers Den is about.

It's a place, you know, for people just to come,

simply to come and speak their dream out loud.

It's my way of helping them find permission.

And it's, you know, for some people, that's the hardest part.

Yeah, yeah. You know, you said something very powerful right there.

And I've said it so often, and I've interviewed a lot of people on BEP

talks who were a little hesitant to do it. I helped them promote a book

or. Or actually hear themselves

hear their own voice, perhaps for the first time,

and realize you could do it. That for people who want to do

public speaking as an example. Yeah,

it's easier. I say, well, the sky didn't fall.

The earth didn't swallow you up. How bad could it have been? We're both still

here. Neither one of us shed blood, and you did it. And

my point being that sometimes you just do have to hear

yourself say it out loud and

realize, wow, I just. I just owned it. I put it

out to the universe. Now I own it. I want to show you something that

sits on my desk. It says, little girls

with big dreams become women with vision.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

And that's. That scares some people.

Yeah. And that's why

there's dreaming that doesn't happen.

That's sad. That's very sad. But as you said, there are

some dream killers out there because they're afraid that

your dream. They're afraid of what you're going to create out

of your dream. And they don't want to be

responsible for encouraging you to do something that might not

work out exactly the way you want it to work out. They don't

want to be responsible for that. And,

you know, years ago, we Used to say people used to set friends up on

blind dates and, you know, there were wonderful matches made

and people could be married for decades and then the relationship

stopped working and suddenly, well, it's all your fault. You introduced me, you

know, 30 years ago. It's all your fault. So now we do it much more

at an arm's length with technology. So there's not

that sense of the responsibility

of encouragement. It's kind of sad. That's kind of sad.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. And you kind of think of parents

with young kids who mean, well, sure.

When it's like, okay, yes, yes, you like doing

this, but that's not going to pay your bills when you're older, so find something

else. They don't mean any harm by it.

No, it's a dose of reality. And

I think generationally, from the

greatest generation, and now their children, their grandchildren, and

now that that next generation is happening, I think that that's

leveling out a little bit. Yes. It's not being

that. That work ethic, that sense of pride in what you did, the

responsibility of. Just heard

yesterday, less men are. They just think, well, why do I have

to. Men never thought that way. It was because it was your

responsibility as the man to provide.

And now they're not. They're like, well, why

do I have to be the only one? And so more women are providing. It's

just, I guess that's the journey for mankind, I guess

the evolution. Everything is changing. I love this conversation

and it encourages me to keep dreaming and,

and I am a dreamer, but I am a realist as well.

How do people get in touch with you? How do people join you in the

dreamers den? I would say the best way

is through LinkedIn.

Or you can email me at Quran at a million

dreamers.com. a million dreamers. Karan

K I R A N at a.

A million, not one. A million

dreamers.com? well, that couldn't be easier. I have

so enjoyed this conversation and because it is a work in progress, I know you

and I could just keep talking and perhaps we will meet

again. But I just want to say congratulations to you

and dreams really do come true. There's

another song about that. Dreams really do come true.

You got to put the work in like anything else. Yes.

Now I'm going to bring some news into. You're

from Brooklyn. Are you a basketball

fan? Not really, no. Okay. Because I

say the New York Nets play in Brooklyn,

but the New York Knicks, who play at Madison Square Garden

are in the NBA championships right now and they won

game one last night. So. So for the Knicks and for Nick

fans, dreams really do come

true. It can happen to you. Dreams really

do come true. Just be willing to do the work and everybody

dream. Dream big. Dream big. And I want to say to all of our

listeners, as always, thank you. And if it has been your dream

to come and share your story because we all have a story.

They are all worth hearing, they're all worth sharing. And it is a

very empowering opportunity for you to to be a guest

on BEP Talks and to share just an off the cuff conversation.

Karan and I literally met this morning. We had no previous

conversation. And to hear your own voice

and for some that alone is a dream. And to realize

that you can be seen, you can be

heard, you can become visible

in what sometimes can easily make you feel

we have all become invisible. And as I said, in this very

noisy and chaotic world. And if each one of us takes one

step forward for ourselves, that builds momentum for

everybody. And the dreamers

through history, I think Corona will dream, are the ones who have made the

biggest progress and who have moved mankind

along. And honor your

dreams, respect your dreams and

live your dream. That is Quran's message to all of

us today. Don't chase it, live it, make it

your reality. And come on to BEP talks and share

your dream, your beliefs, your experiences and your

passions. And as we always say, may

the best always be yet to come. And maybe that is the realization of

your dream. Go make it happen. Karan,

thank you so much for being my guest today. I have so enjoyed this

conversation. I wish you a lifetime of

happiness and joy and dreams fulfilled.

New dreams created as you enjoy life

where you dreamed you would be. You've taken that first huge

step and I hope that it continues to bless you

and your family. Thank you so much for being my guest today on BEP

Talks. Thank you. And until we talk again,

everybody, bye for now.