Exhilarating Big Scary Audacious Goals

I enjoy a good story, especially a documentary  film. When I came across this exhilarating video clip,  I felt inspired by the carefree narrative of a group of friends exploring their limits in beautiful locations across France.

My first experience of tight rope walking was in Munich’s, English Garden. I enjoyed watching the balancing act of friends walking back-and-forth between two lonely trees on a rope just a metre above the ground . At the time, my only frame of reference was Man on Wire, an Oscar winning documentary about Philippe Petit, a famous high-wire walker.

Petit is a complicated chap with a big ego. His character didn’t inspire me, but his exploits made me think about the rewards of sound preparation and taking calculated risks to reach big scary audacious goals.

Talking of calculated risks, Lewis Pugh’s book Achieving the Impossible tells the story of an individual pushing the limits to the limit. He became the first person to swim at the North Pole in temperatures that would kill an average person. He achieved this by raising his body’s core temperature, believing in himself and putting in intense hours of grueling training for the epic swim.

Pugh signed a copy of his book for me. He wrote the following message on the title page: Follow your own dreams and never, ever give up! Most battles are won in the 11th hour.

We all need to find our own tight rope or ocean to inspire us to look beyond our comfort zone and tackle a big scary audacious goal. Life is a journey and it’s worth enjoying the relatively short ride.