jumping off cliffs

Come to the edge, He said.
They said: We are afraid.
Come to the edge, He said.
They came. He pushed them,
And they flew …

Guillaume Apollinaire
Avant-garde French poet.

I don’t usually talk much about my work, too busy doing it; and I like to pour my energy into the process rather than explaining what I’m working on. But last month, after telling my friend in no uncertain terms (for the umpteenth time and for seven million reasons), “Not happening! Not going to do it!” … I went and did it!

When I took a break from the radio show at the beginning of this year, I intended to be hosting again toward the end of the year, and planned to take my time looking for a new executive producer (EP) to team up with. I wanted to wait until I found someone with a good match of goals, values, and vision; and was willing to be patient.

So even I was surprised, when early in May, I found myself calling several stations to talk about airtime and studio and production costs.

Information gathered, meetings held, discussions clarified, contracts reviewed … now all I had to do was decide. Did I want to do ‘it’?

Well I did want to do it. And without analyzing it to death, I trusted my instinct and took a huge leap of faith—with the stroke a pen, I became my new EP. Done. Dusted. Sorted.

I spent the next week on a roller coaster: It’s thrilling, scary. Exciting, daunting. Energizing, terrifying. Yeay! Aghh!

But life truly is what we make it.

No matter how you define success, there are many times in life when we have to be willing to leap without knowing what’s in front of us. We have to push through our fears, our doubts, and self-prescribed limitations. We have to close our ears to those who say it can’t be done and who try to drag us into their misery pit. We have to fill our minds with the belief that we can accomplish whatever we set out to do; and our hearts with the courage to do it.

So without further ado, I’m jumping right off that cliff, damn it, and building my wings on the way down. See you safely on the ground!

Others who jumped off a cliff (and kept on jumping!)

• Composer Oscar Hammerstein had 5 bombed shows lasting less than 6 weeks in total before Oklahoma! It grossed $7million and ran for 269 weeks.
• Author Tawni O’Dell had 6 unpublished novels and 300 rejection slips over a 13-year period before her first novel was published. When it became an Oprah book club selection, it made the New York Times bestseller list for 8 weeks.
• Admiral Robert Peary reached the North Pole on his 8th attempt.
• Stephen King got so fed up of receiving rejections on his novel Carrie that he threw it in the trash. His wife, Tabitha, retrieved it and sent it back out … we all know what happened next.
• Model/actress Angie Everhart was told by Eileen Ford that redheads don’t sell. Everhart later became the first redhead in history to appear on Glamour magazine and appeared in more than 27 films and now has her own show.
  

What cliffs have you jumped off? How did you build your wings? Maybe more importantly, what cliffs do you regret not jumping off?

the road less traveled

There are those who are meant to be lifelong employees. You know them. They think in terms of "Company Benefits".

They like the illusion of belonging to a collective, an ensemble—not necessarily a team, but a group of similar beings cocooned in a common environment, working toward a common company goal.

They talk of established procedures and process improvement. They’re hooked into that Monday through Friday thing. Two, three, four-weeks paid vacation. Sick leave. Holiday pay.

They’re often more codependent than interdependent, feeding on bigger- better-brighter corner offices, and the occasional cluster recognition. And unless very ambitious, they are usually quite content to move ‘according to standard performance expectations’, within the constraints of the path already worn.

There are those who are not meant to be lifelong employees. You know them too.

They think in terms of the three P's: Passion, Potential, Possibilities. They might be drawn to more innovative projects and careers, seeking more responsibility, more creativity, more flexibility, more self-expression. They might be motivated by intrinsic values such as being their own boss or building an empire. They might simply choose to live life on their own terms, to gain broader life and career experiences.

Or they might be stoked, deep from within, by the desire to look life in the face. To learn and stretch beyond prior successes; to create and serve a mission in life. They are change-makers, feeding on challenging themselves, on growing, on making a difference. Striving to earn the epitaph they want etched on their tombstone, they relinquish the path well-worn and tread their own.

Which road will you travel?

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (1874~1963)