DREAMS AND FUEL
In life’s big adventure, there are ups and there are downs no doubt. When asked “what keeps you going…or where do you get the energy?” The answer for me has always been simple. Dreams are my fuel, passion my energy.
The reality is I cram a lot into life right now and have for most of my adult life because I have a lot of dreams. I can’t say it has been an easy path and there have definitely been failures along the way, but those dreams I can see and almost touch are what have kept me going in times when I thought low couldn’t get any more low. They have been the spring in my step to get up and try again.
I am approaching my 35th year in a little over a week. How did that happen?!? Is life where I thought it would be?…hell no! The “achiever,” “go-getter,” and “planner” in me has gotten a bit of a smackdown over the past 8 years. Honestly it is probably the best thing that could have happened to me though. There is beauty in mess, there is adventure when plans don’t go the way you thought they would, there is spontaneity and creativity in having to figure out another way, and there is magic in infinite possibilities beyond what our small brains thought was possible. I felt compelled to write this piece since the end of last year. There was a desire to share vulnerability, honesty, resilience, and creativity.
DREAMS AS FUEL: “If you can dream it, you can do it.” — Walt Disney
I have a vision board. Actually I have made a few- some on paper, some on my phone, constant reminders of what my heart truly desires. I would highly recommend them. Our dreams help with visualization, and I do believe that has power to expand your mind to what is possible outside of your current situation. There is power in imagination and when life is tough it is easy to get stuck in unhealthy or limiting mindset patterns. It is hard to think of creative alternative solutions or possibilities if you only base them on your current reality. Dreams then become your beacon. No matter what life throws at you, you have that gravitational pull to work towards getting closer somehow.
The dreams I had as a child have evolved to some degree but have overall shaped my pursuits along the way. Playing with a globe as a child and a dream to visit the 7 continents led me in my late twenties to pursue climbing the 7 summits (highest peak on each continent) and launch Climb Take Action. At the time I could barely run a mile and it was a combination of the desire to see the world from some of the most remarkable vistas and the inspiration that came from an article bringing to light the atrocities that some women around the globe face that finally got me into action mode and to just go for it without knowing how this would all play out. So far I have climbed 6 of the 7 and expanded my goal to also ski the last degree of the north and south pole (adventure grand slam). This journey has grown to a love affair with the outdoors and adventure life and been fuel for new dreams, but more on that later.
There were other childhood dreams along the lines of having a career that helped others, finding love and happiness, and living with adventure that still provide the fuel for a lot of what I do today and serve as inspiration to push through fear and doubt in order to go for what I want.
FUEL FOR YOUR DREAMS-“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
It’s no coincidence that our tag line at Altitude Seven, a digital media company I launched to equip and inspire the adventure life, is “Fuel Your Daydream.” In each of us lies a dreamer and keeping those dreams alive is important. They bring us life and joy. In my days as a management consultant I met far too many people who had given up or were ignoring their dreams. Most of the times the reasoning for abandoning them had to do with life circumstances, yet dreams should never be shoved in a drawer regardless of circumstance. Deep down that desire doesn’t die. Finding ways to work towards those dreams, even if one step at a time, will eventually get you there or help you discover new dreams to strive for.
DREAMS CAN CHANGE: If your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough!– Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
I used to write lists of everything I wanted to accomplish when a new year would start. On my 27th birthday I remember looking around and saying to myself “you got everything you wanted.” It was also almost immediately that a deep gloom crept in, realizing I had never been so far off! By then, I had gotten my MBA, helped start a company and successfully helped raise a substantial round, was married, had bought my first home at 25, and was the breadwinner being a supportive spouse as he pursued his entrepreneurial journey. Everything was going to “my plan”-NOT. At the same time, the market was starting to crash and what was supposed to be the best investment of my life (my home) would soon become my worst, my marriage was beyond dead and I hadn’t had the courage to leave, I had put so many of my own dreams on hold of starting my own company, traveling the world, pursing my new love for climbing at the time for someone that clearly was never capable of being supportive of me. I was living in a city I hated and commuting 1.5–3 hours per day. Parts of me felt dead and it was terrifying.
The good news is that leading up to that birthday there were a bunch of dreams that had been put on hold, some scarier than others, most without a clear guarantee that I could actually accomplish them. 6 months after that birthday my life did a 180. It’s been a wild ride ever since, chasing dreams that in many occasions scare me, but it’s not the dreams that scare me, it’s the chance I might fail miserably.
DREAMS AND FAILURE- A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.-Colin Powell
Failing is hard, it sucks, and no one likes to fail really. So many will say that your biggest learnings come from failure and it’s true. I could write a novel on this topic, as the hardest part of the journey has been the failures. Up to my 27th birthday, I had always viewed myself as successful, as I was accomplishing what I thought I wanted. When I came to the shocking reality it wasn’t, I didn’t know how to cope for a long time.
The new dreams that had developed were what were keeping me going, but I was struggling to let go of the “dream” life I thought I had been building. My divorce hit me with a horrible depression, which only those friends closest to me really saw and I am so grateful for their love and support. Being that I had gotten married right after college graduation, I got a crash course into single life and dating at 27…let’s just say crash and burn sums it up nicely! There was a whole new world I knew nothing about and I thought I had thick skin, but no. Walking away from that relationship and staying away from it took a tremendous amount of courage, but it left me feeling like I had failed in a major way. It probably took me 5 years after that to truly let go and heal and be grateful for the experience and able to look forward and not back. It was less about this person that was no longer part of my life, but more so about the person I was that I had to let go of. It was a time of reinvention and letting go of an identity so to speak. The mountains and friends got me through it though.
The mountains have become my greatest teacher since then and I say made me the person I am today. Getting to the top of a mountain can feel euphoric and scary all at the same time. Quickly you learn it’s not about getting to the top, but getting back safely and enjoying the experience. Although I had hiked to 10,000 feet and a little above that, my first real climb and mountaineering course was Mount Rainier in 2008. I had been training all year to prepare (remember I couldn’t run a mile when I started) and was nervous, anxious, excited, happy all at once. We got hit with a horrible storm and ended up making it 200 feet from the summit! I was bummed out at the moment we were deciding on whether to turn around, yet everything in my core was saying “get the heck outta there!” It was humbling and a reminder that mother nature always wins and that all I could do for the rest of my climbing pursuits was to prepare as best as possible and respect forces out of my control. I had pretty good luck on climbs after that until I set off for Everest in 2011. Needless to say emotions were all over the place. The biggest part of the preparation of that climb was coming to terms of being ok if I didn’t make it back home. I had never had that talk with myself on other mountains, but it was important for me to go into that situation with no regrets and to address as many of my fears as possible before arriving. Everest was one of those dreams that thrilled and scared me because at the time I thought I could do it, but I didn’t know for sure. So many personal sacrifices and years of preparation had gone into it, that the fear was more around the potential of failure. Well as luck would have it, I got hypoxic at the Balcony at 27,500 feet, my body started to shut down, I collapsed, and had to turn myself around-one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. Yet really it was simple, do I want to come back healthy with a chance to try again, or do I want to risk likely never making it off this mountain? Of course I decided to head back down. It would take me 2 years to be able to go back with the help of friends to give it another go. Happy to report try number 2 in 2013 was a success not because I made it to the top, but because I made it home. In my mind I would have completed my 7 summits quest by 2011/2012. Having to go back to Everest for a second time delayed things considerably and then the dream of launching my own company once and for all has delayed it even more. Yet my failure on Everest the first time has been the best teacher as an entrepreneur and human in general. I put everything I had into my first expedition and I failed. I then had to put everything in for a second time over the course of a couple years to go back with no guarantee I would succeed and be ok with that.
This brings me to startup life and the cycle of try, fail, try, fail, try, succeed, reinvent, start again…you are never done. My first startup experience in 2006 was considerably different, mainly around the fact we were able to raise a very healthy round in 3 months and I was a founding team member not a founder. Starting a business is not for the faint of heart and harder than any mountain I have climbed. Entrepreneurship makes you get comfortable with failure whether you like it or not. You may put “it all in” several times with no guarantee of success. When you fail, you have to get real with yourself and ask “how bad do I want this?”, “is this still a good decision to move forward?”, “what am I willing to risk?”, or “what do I need to do differently to have a better shot at succeeding?” It can be a financial and emotional roller coaster requiring you to unlink your self worth to the success or failure of your startup. Last year I hit some ultimate lows that many entrepreneurs have commonly faced like not being able to pay my rent at some points, getting more “no’s” than I care to count, realizing plan A and B were no good and time to try C, and feeling depleted due to lack of sleep and the constant stress. So many times I would look at myself and only see failure. Throughout this journey shutting out fear of failure has been crucial. Fear can be paralyzing and actually lead to poor decision making. If you have a chance in hell to succeed, fear has no seat at your table. Humility is one of the best gifts of this experience, as no doubt, you get worn down to your core.
Perhaps the biggest lesson here that I alluded to earlier is that your failure does not define you or make you more or less worthy. Detaching self worth from failure has been perhaps my biggest hurdle in chasing big scary dreams.
DREAMS LEAD TO NEW DREAMS- So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.-Christopher Reeve
I don’t think you get to a point in your life where you are like “ok, all dreams accomplished, time to shut off dreaming now.” I think our current dreams will only inspire new dreams and open our eyes to what is possible.
I can say that is true from the adventure sense. I started out with the dream of climbing the 7 summits, since then I have climbed many other mountains, run a bunch of half marathons, run a full marathon, learned to ski, took up ski touring recently, plan to do more ski mountaineering, and expanded my adventure dreams to include also skiing the last degree of the north and south pole. All this from the girl that couldn’t run a mile without stopping a bunch of times in 2005. As my body was able to do more, my curiosity also expanded to what more was possible. It’s the wonderful thing about dreaming and imagination, we set our own limits.
The dreams of adventure and the outdoors eventually were my inspiration to launch Altitude Seven. Adventure changed my life and now it’s a dream to share the gift of adventure with others. I can’t wait to see what Altitude Seven will inspire me to do next!
OWN YOUR DREAMS-A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. -Oscar Wilde
Never let someone kill your dreams. This one is simple.
Get used to rejections and hearing “no”, but telling yourself “YES’! Don’t quit your daydream because of anyone else. Only you will know when your dream has changed or evolved or is no longer relevant.
Dreams don’t belong in a draw for safe keeping, please listen to them and follow them. It may not be the easy path, it may lead to some failure, but it also may lead you somewhere better than you could have ever imagined. If you never try, you will never know.
Today I cannot say “I have made it”, rather I am still on a journey. I have had some hard knocks and some wins. It’s been a wild ride, I still feel inspired, and excited to see how my dreams manifest.
I leave you with the wise words of Tupac….Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.-Tupac Shakur
