Rebel Talk: If You Build It

It's one of the most recognizable lines in movie history. A little cliché? Maybe.

But this weekend, it meant something entirely different.

My boys and I traveled to the Field of Dreams in Iowa for a baseball tournament. We won some games. We lost some games. Years from now, I honestly couldn't tell you what our record was.

Because that wasn't what this weekend was really about.

Before we left, we watched Field of Dreams together. It was the first time I'd seen it since the '90s. I remembered the famous line. I remembered the cornfields. I remembered baseball.

What I had forgotten was what the movie was actually about.

It's about faith.

It's about fathers and sons.

It's about building something that seems irrational because you believe it will matter someday.

After the tournament ended, the crowds disappeared. The sun had slipped below the horizon. The stadium lights lit up the field while the music from the movie quietly played in the background.

The field was almost empty.

One at a time, I looked at each of my boys and asked the same simple question.

"Son... will you have a catch?"

For the next several minutes, nothing else existed.

No phones.

No tournament schedule.

No scoreboards.

Just a dad and his sons throwing a baseball under the lights on one of the most iconic fields in America.

It wasn't about baseball.

It was about a memory.

The movie gave us the phrase, "If you build it..."

But what happened afterward is even more remarkable.

Someone actually built it.

Not just a baseball field.

A place.

A destination where fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, grandparents, teammates, and friends can create memories that never would have existed otherwise.

A fictional field became a real one.

A movie became a tradition.

A line in a script became part of thousands of families' stories.

That's what happens when someone builds something bigger than themselves.

It made me think about life.

We spend so much time chasing bigger houses, better jobs, nicer toys, and more money. There's nothing wrong with any of those things.

But the question isn't simply what are you building?

It's...

What will your building create for someone else?

Maybe it's a business.

Maybe it's a cabin.

Maybe it's a family tradition.

Maybe it's a baseball field in your backyard.

Maybe it's simply being the parent who always says yes to playing catch before dinner.

Because someday, those ordinary moments become extraordinary memories.

Long after the games are forgotten...

Long after the trophies collect dust...

Long after the final score disappears...

The catch remains.

I've spent the last year clearing trees on my property, moving dirt, hauling rock, and preparing to build a home. People see construction.

I see something different.

I see future Christmas mornings.

Fishing with my boys.

Bonfires that last long into the night.

Grandkids running through the yard someday.

Memories that haven't happened yet.

That's what we're really building.

Not structures.

Experiences.

The Field of Dreams reminds us that one person's willingness to build something can impact generations they will never meet.

Maybe that's the challenge for all of us.

Build the business.

Build the home.

Build the tradition.

Build the relationship.

Build the life that gives the people you love a place to come back to.

Because the greatest things we build aren't measured in square feet...

They're measured in memories.

"The greatest legacy you'll ever leave isn't what you owned... it's the memories you intentionally built for the people you love."

Stay Relentless,

Ryan