The M.A.P. Maker [Meaning, Abundance & Passion]

Readjusting dream logistics (292 days at sea - and counting)

Turning a big dream into reality isn't just a matter of deciding where you want to go and setting the controls to autopilot. It takes hard work and persistence. More than that, it takes a willingness to adapt on the fly as you encounter unexpected obstacles.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is running into an obstacle and letting it stop them, rather than saying, "OK, what are my options now?"

My friend Erden Eruc (pronounced air-DEN air-ROOCH) is a master at asking that question. He is currently on a quest to circumnavigate the globe by human power (by bike, foot, and ocean rowing boat), with a summit attempt on the highest peak of each of six continents in the process. He is also the founder of a non-profit called Around-n-Over, focused on using the journey to educate and inspire kids (I'm on the Around-n-Over board).

Since a first meeting about his dream in 2003, I have watched him pursue it with dogged tenacity. Nothing stops him. He has bicycled from Seattle to Alaska in the winter and climbed Mt. McKinley. He biked across the US. And he rowed across the Atlantic from Portugal to the Caribbean islands. Through it all, he has found ways to make the logistics (financial, bureaucratic, health, equipment, etc.) work in the face of what seems to me crazy odds.

One of the things I find most inspiring is the way he deals with obstacles, either finding ways around them, or - if they really are insurmountable obstacles - asking, "What's the spirit of what I'm trying to do," and adjusting his efforts accordingly.

Right now, Erden is 292 days into a row across the Pacific. His goal was to row from San Francisco to Brisbane, Australia. Unfortunately, unusual winds and currents have prevented him from being able to get south of the equator.

Recognizing that there was nothing he could do about where the winds and currents were allowing him to row, he came back to the spirit of his dream - a successful, safe, human-powered circumnavigation of the globe. As it became clear that Australia was not going to happen, he readjusted his sights, now aiming for the Phillipines en route to landfall on the mainland of Asia and ultimately on to Everest and beyond.

As he describes it in his dispatches at sea...

It would have been nice to reach Australia as was the original plan with this long crossing, which is progressing mostly at the whim of the Pacific. Yet a door closed creates other opportunities to be pursued.

If Erden had a rigid attachment to his expectations of exactly how the journey needed to unfold, this leg of it would already be considered a failure. He didn't reach his goal - Australia. But by keeping it in the context of his bigger vision and the spirit of the dream, and adjusting his plans to adapt to reality, he continues to move forward towards ultimately making a dream reality.

Because his dream is so big, how it unfolds may end up looking completely different than the original plan (it has already changed numerous times along the way to adapt to various unforeseen challenges).

But that same bigness creates an enormous canvas for Erden to paint the spirit of the dream. In the end, it's not the logistics that matter, it's what the journey is about.

As I mentioned, Erden's non-profit, Around-n-Over, was founded with a focus on educating and inspiring kids to dream, believe, and achieve. You can see the education portal here.

If Erden's efforts inspire you, find out how you can support his journey and Around-n-Over here.

www.around-n-over.org

Adjust and adapt on the path to your dreams

A venture capitalist once told me, "I can tell you one thing about the business plan of anyone who comes through that door...it's wrong."

His point wasn't that the people who were seeking investment were bad at planning, or stupid, or unreasonable. It was that the business plans inherently represented best guesses. And as the companies move forward in the real world, the reality they encounter gives them more information that either confirms the plan or shows its flaws. And based on that information, they adjust and adapt. 

As this VC saw it, the company is rare that has the dream, executes it, and ends up with exactly what they intended. They have to make course corrections all along the way.

It's the same in our own careers as well. Often success isn't a matter of identifying a goal and rigidly grinding away towards it. It's identifying a goal that inspires you, taking steps towards that goal, and adjusting and adapting based on what you encounter.

Part of that process is taking the time to stop and evaluate. "What do I know now that I didn't know then?  How does that affect what I'm doing? Are there steps I'm taking that aren't working? Are there steps I need to take that I'm not currently taking? Does my goal need to be revised? Are there opportunities I see now I didn't recognize before?"

The more you can pay attention to what's happening and adjust and adapt accordingly, the greater your potential for turning that dream (or something like it) into reality.

--

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

Do you know "how-to?"

When it comes to achieving our goals, identifying the what-to's can be crucial - that is, identifying what smaller steps will lead you there, then taking them to reach your goal.

But what about the how-to's?

In one chapter of How to Change the World (one of my current morning reading books), the author describes how, in the early days of Ashoka (an organization that supports social entrepreneurs with new, paradigm-shifting ideas), they grappled with exactly what constituted a "new idea."

It turns out that the new idea is not one thing; it is a product of "how-tos." A new idea might include these considerations: How to better use local resources to solve a problem? How to overcome cultural obstacles? How to get legislation passed? How to finance an organization? How to train others to do the work? How to motivate clients and staff?

That paragraph got me thinking about how important the how-to concept is to our own individual efforts. Understanding the steps to take to reach our goals is great, but the path isn't always clear or easy. The how-to's give us some tools to help us navigate the landscape along the way.

Our own personal how-to's might give us an understanding of, for example:

• How to overcome obstacles that come up
• How to plant seeds for the future's potential
• How to create an environment that foster serendipity
• How to stay energized

None of those are specific steps along the way to reaching your goals. They're more meta-steps that help you get the most out of your journey.

When you have identified your how-to, you have a template you can apply to many different situations, which can have a simplifying effect on some of life's complexity. There are a bazillion things that could get in your way, for example, but many of them can be overcome by taking the same basic approach. It takes some of the guesswork and uncertainty out of the picture.

How do you create your how-to's? Questions are a great place to start. Take "overcoming obstacles," for example. You might ask yourself:

• How do I typically approach an obstacle?
• What problem-solving techniques work best for me?
• What questions do I need to ask any time I'm confronted with an obstacle?
• How do I identify what I need to know in order to overcome this obstacle?
• What are the resources that help me overcome obstacles?

When you have a conscious picture of how you do something, you can put less energy and time into wondering what to do and more energy and time into moving forward.

Check out The Occupational Adventure Guide

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM