My Reality Check Bounced! - Jason Ryan Dorsey [89]
Imagine how fantastic it will feel to wake up and know that you are spending your day doing exactly what you believe you were born to do. You can. All you have to do is take what you have learned in this book and apply that know-how starting today; then stick with it until you create the life you want.
Only you can make the decisions and take the actions necessary to get more out of your life. If you’re not thrilled where you are, then it’s time to get a move on! You have the power.
Think about it this way, with each step you take toward your Future Picture:
• You forever change your view of yourself and your world.
• You separate what you like from what you don’t.
• You prove what you can accomplish.
• You learn expensive lessons you can’t buy.
• You unravel clues to why you’re on this planet.
• You find paths to the people you need.
• You move nearer your purpose.
• You show you’re not helpless or a victim.
• You inch closer and closer to finding out what you are truly made of.
• You build your confidence and write your future.
THE SKY IS NO LONGER THE LIMIT
After graduating college, Joby was in a position familiar to anyone whose reality check has bounced. He knew in his mind and in his heart that there had to be a more meaningful path than the one he was on. He had tried grad school, but that only left him with debt, a degree, and little direction. He had a high-paying desk job, but that just filled his wallet while draining his spirit. He needed a challenge, a goal, a purpose—something so outrageous it would test him to the core of his very being.
So he started exercising, working odd jobs to save money, and taking out loans. When he thought he was ready, he took his biggest leap of faith ever. He sold everything he could live without and bought a plane ticket to the Himalayas. This seemed as far as a twenty-four-year-old from Louisiana could travel, but sometimes you have to go to the other side of the world to find what’s missing inside of you.
Joby spent five weeks at Base Camp below Mount Everest while his body adjusted to the harsh climate and high altitude. He knew what he was about to do would test him, because it had killed several of his friends the year before. The obvious danger only fueled his passion.
On the designated day, Joby packed his climbing gear and supplies and started up the mountain. For five days he climbed through snow, ice, and freezing wind. The weather was so rough that halfway up the mountain everyone else in his climbing group turned back. They were all older than him and wise enough to not go any farther. Joby just kept climbing skyward.
On the fifth day he could see the summit. It was still dark but the snow was so white it glowed against the deep blue of the sky. At this altitude, Joby was the highest person on the face of the earth. He reached the summit of Mount Everest almost one year to the day when he made the soul-searching decision to find out what he was really made of. Watching the sun part the horizon and dance across the rigid peaks, Joby felt more alive than ever before in his twenty-four years. It was a moment that he says stays with you.
For an hour, Joby stood 29,028 feet above sea level and watched the world show off. He returned to the United States a changed person. Not only was he the youngest American to ever summit Mount Everest—and an unknown climber at that—but he had climbed onto the path of his calling: He wanted to share the mountains with people who would never be able to physically scale their peaks. His brainstorm idea was to start a film company devoted to bringing the most remote mountains into people’s living rooms.
By recognizing that he wanted more out of his life and then acting to quench that restlessness, Joby went from a confined cubicle in Louisiana to the expansive heights of the Himalayas to running a film company headquartered in Italy. Did it work out exactly the way he planned? No. Was he ever scared, frustrated, and unsure? Yes. Does he credit the experience with making him feel more alive than ever before? Absolutely.