In this life, it’s pretty easy to keep moving ahead, following the crowd and taking advice that makes everyone else comfortable.
– Go to a good school.
– Graduate, then get a good job.
– Take any job that looks great on your resume. You can have fun later.
I listened to all this advice, and I even followed it for a while after I graduated from university. But then, just a couple of months into a “great” job with a Fortune 500 company, I woke up.
I realized that I could go into work every day trying to suppress the urge to bash a keyboard over my head out of frustration and boredom, or I could go out on my own.
I needed to find work that set me on fire – work that I couldn’t not do. And I decided to change the world by making sure everyone could do the same.
I had a lot of well-intentioned friends who tried to talk me out of my “crazy” ideas and told me to be reasonable. To be realistic. To reset my expectations around what was possible.
Screw that.
Like Josh, I decided to grab my life and live big by making the impossible possible.
The blog I started with a near-zero readership is now the Live Your Legend community of 65,000 members, all dedicated to finding their passion and changing the world through connection, education and reaching out to others.
This year, the community has stepped up to the next level, meeting live and in-person every month in Live Your Legend LOCAL locations around the world, so that no matter where people are, they can find connection with others who stand ready to support behind their “crazy” ideas and impossible projects.
It’s exciting to look at these numbers and realize that every week, people are pulling out of soul-sucking situations and finding encouragement from people like Josh – and each other. They’re looking past the critics to find a new version of normal that moves everyone forward.
There’s no better organization that embodies this idea – and teaches it to a new generation – than impossible2Possible, Live Your Legend’s partner charity. Since 2008, Ray Zahab has been taking teenagers out on serious adventure trips – like running 201k across the Bolivian salt flats – so they stretch their idea of what they’re capable of. In addition, Ray taps the expertise of world experts in various fields so these youth also have the support of top-level experiential learning.
Ray, a former chain-smoking, couch-sitting, heavy-drinking guy, created impossible2Possible after his own impossible turnaround. He quit smoking – cold turkey – and decided to start running. Running small races turned into larger races, and in a few years, he was winning ultra-races of 100+ miles each. His most demanding race across the Sahara Desert was featured in the National Geographic documentary Running the Sahara, which was narrated by Matt Damon.
Working with great people who refuse to let me fail has taught me that it’s never too late to start living the impossible. And thanks to the Internet, talented coaching and a ton of free or low-cost resources, it has never been easier to make the choice to live big and live your legend.
It’s time to wake up and make the impossible your new normal. You won’t believe what will come next.
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Scott Dinsmore is an entrepreneur, career change strategist, travel photographer, ultra-runner and founder of Live Your Legend, a business and international community dedicated to helping you build a career around work that genuinely excites you – and surround yourself with the people who make it possible.
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