I think I’ve just about reached the end of my obsession with Dolly Parton. It was so much fun while it lasted.

But there’s one last reference I want to make to her.

In a fairly recent interview, in 2014, she talked about how she’d achieved such big dreams for herself. She started out in a one-room cabin in Tennessee, one of twelve children, she was the first one in her family to graduate from high school.

How did she do it? She said:

I’ve always been a dreamer, and yes, I have always tried. And dreams are special things. But dreams are of no value if they’re not equipped with wings and feet and hands and all that. If you’re going to make a dream come true, you’ve got to work with it. You can’t just sit around. That’s a wish. That’s not a dream.

–Dolly Parton, interview, Bust June/July 2014

When I heard that, I was reminded of one of the mantras of one of my favorite podcasts, Chris Guillebeau’s Side Hustle School. Every day on that podcast, Chris talks about different strategies that people have used to achieve their dream of creating a side hustle. And at the end of every show, he says that same thing that Dolly Parton says, in his own words.

Here’s how Chris expresses it: “Inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better.”

Action, work, that’s the difference between a wish and a dream.

If you’d like to read the entire interview with Dolly Parton, it’s here.

And if you’d like to check out the podcast Side Hustle School, it’s here.

If you’d like to hear my other stories about Dolly Parton, listen here and here.

Now, why am I so fascinated by Dolly Parton? I have to say, I’m not exactly sure.