My wife Laura and I recently saw the movie The Rookie. I know, it's a G-rated flick and we saw it without our kids on a Saturday night. But we were in the mood for a "feel good, easy-going" story.

And that's exactly what we got. The movie is a true story about a 35-year old science teacher from a small Texas town who also coaches his high school's baseball team. Jim Morris' life-long dream had been to play baseball professionally, and he hoped one day to pitch for a major league team. But for one reason or another, he was not able to "pursue his dream", and decided instead to settle down and teach high school kids the fundamentals of baseball.

Through a little motivation from his high school ball players, he agrees to try out for a professional baseball team if his school won district. Guess what? They achieve their goal, and Mr. Morris makes good on his promise and heads to a Tampa Bay Devil Rays try-out.

During his try-out, his 98-mile an hour fastball wins over the scouts, and he is offered a minor league contract. After several months of Double A and Triple A ball, he gets called up to the big leagues and pitches in front of a packed house in Arlington, Texas and his entire home town.

Such a touching story: Jim Morris had spent all of his adult years teaching high school science, but what he really wanted to do was play baseball. He took a chance (and a big personal risk), by making a drastic "career change" and pursuing his dream.

What struck me about Jim Morris' experience is that it happens to so many people in a variety of situations, particularly in the business world. You often hear someone say "boy I know I could do better than that. If I ran that business, it would be totally different." Or, "you know what I should really do? I should just quit my job and start my own firm. I can do it better than those guys."

The pursuit of a dream is oftentimes imagined, visualized, mulled over, but rarely acted upon. It's a shame that more of us don't pursue our ideas, our goals, or our ambitions.

I wish I could find a way to motivate many participants in the private broadband industry to pursue their dreams. I've heard so many people say that they could "do it better", or "if I just had the money, I would…" and then never move forward on that thought.

I know that there must be people in our industry who would like to step away from their current role as a manufacturer's rep, or engineer, or salesperson, or ancillary manager, and be a part of developing an exciting private broadband service provider. They talk about it, or think about it, and possibly use the current economic situation, or some other fear factor, as an excuse for not pursuing it.

I wish that they would take advantage of the opportunity in today's market environment. Think about our current position - many real estate owners will tell you that they want to do business with a private operator, and they swear they just signed their last and final deal with the franchise guy. But there are still no choices in their market. So many times, I hear statements from owners like "it's Charter or nobody."

Well, maybe this is an opportunity for some people in our industry to begin thinking about a "career change" and pursuing the dream of becoming their own operator. Okay, so the rewards may not be the same as pitching in the big leagues, but there certainly are economic and personal incentives.

I would love nothing more than to see a situation where the private broadband universe expands again, and begins to offer our real-estate clients several options for video and data services in every market or region throughout the country.

Just as Jim Morris had a key advantage (a blazing fastball), our industry has members who have different key advantages or skill-sets that can make them successful operators. Sure, I know all the objections, about money, infrastructure, support, business development and the "what if I fail?" syndrome. But most of the current crew of operators have been through all of these feelings and concerns too, and many made it past each of those challenges. And, others can as well.

Just as this movie touched my wife and myself, I hope this month's column touches at least one person in our industry to act on their dreams in this market segment.