5 Weeks Out

It's five week from the actual race and the pressure is on.  I think there comes a time in every plan, in every big dream or grand accomplishment, when you look at what you've signed up for and it hit's you: you are insane.  You've totally lost it, gone bonkers, no more marbles, off your rocker, headed to the funny farm, whatever.  This is the point when you actually look at what your shooting for, and for some reason you see it for what feels like the first time, for what it is.  You know it's been there all this time, but it must have been in disguise, because now you see it for what it is: a looming mountain of insurmountable impossibility.  Or at least that's how it suddenly feels.  You have to resist the mental urge to think about possible escape routs, ways out, easy paths that might minimize the effects of you quitting.  I have news for you; this is good!!  This moment is normal and actually means your on the right track to possibly pulling off your probably truly insane goal!

HERE BE DRAGONS.  That's what they used to put on the edges of the maps, the places that people had never gone before.  Complete with little pictures of demon possessed lizards breathing fire and spitting acid!  Humans are interesting really, at one point in the past we actually thought if you kept going in one direction for long enough, far-enough past the point where nobody had been before, you'd eventually come to a cliff and just fall off!  Silly really, but it does indicate one thing.  People are afraid of going where they have never been before.  Which is a smart way to be, really, when your talking about just surviving for as long as possible... but people weren't designed to just survive either, were we... So this brings us to the biggest dilema of our lives.  The truth is, we are not just afraid of going where you've never been before ... if you're honest ... the truth is ... your afraid AND COMPELLED to go there!  The question is, which is stronger?

The vast majority of the time, the fear wins out.  it twists our thoughts, actions, perceptions, logic and decisions to keep us on course to live.  It uses our very senses against us to covertly hid from us the evidence that could lead us to question that decision.  Just look at when people thought the world was flat.  You telling me that for hundreds of years people watched the ocean and Columbus was the FIRST GUY to notice the ships drop below the horizon??????  Nooooooo... lots of people noticed it, but they ignored the logical implications.  Chris on the other hand, decided on a different path.  The path of suicide.  The path of insanity.  The path of total laughable, fly-in-the-face-of-all-current-understanding.  People do this every now and then, Abraham Lincoln, Tesla, Thomas Edison, Aristotle, Newton, and hundreds of others.  If you think this stuff doesn't happen anymore, just google Cliff Young!

Ground breaking might be one option if you're going to go where no man has ever been before, but there is for most of us, another option.  Find someone who's been there before and talk to them.  In my case it's Patty and Brian.  Both have completed and IronMan in the past and both make my mountain of  insurmountable impossibility... well... surmountable.  If you want to build a business, find someone who has done it.  If you want to go to antartica, find someone who's been there.  If you want to go to the moon, start with NASA.  We live in an amazing time where people are doing incredible things all over the planet all the time!  The potential of one person to plug into thousands of incredible ground breakers has never been this big in the history of the world!!  And on top of that we've got the internet! There is nothing stopping you from crushing your mountain of insurmountable impossibility into tiny pieces and selling it on amazon for a million dollars except a decision to go for it.  Remember, you were born to be amazing, you are wonderfully and powerfully made, you have what it takes and the world needs you to go for it!!  There is no growth without risk!

Just think of what the view will look like when you look back from the top!