It takes five months and more than five million steps to walk the Appalachian Trail from end to end.
Along the way, you may encounter bears, wolves and snakes; mosquitoes and ticks – delivery drones for untreatable fatal viruses and whatnot.
Bill Bryson, in A Walk in the Woods, spends four full pages walking you through a menu of things that can kill you – or at least maim you for life.
“The woods were full of peril—rattlesnakes and water moccasins and nests of copperheads; bobcats, bears, coyotes, wolves, and wild boar; loony hillbillies…
“I heard four separate stories (always related with a chuckle) of campers and bears sharing tents for a few confused and lively moments; stories of people abruptly vaporized (’tweren’t nothing left of him but a scorch mark’) by body-sized bolts of lightning when caught in sudden storms on high ridgelines; of tents crushed beneath falling trees, or eased off precipices on ballbearings of beaded rain and sent paragliding on to distant valley floors, or swept away by the watery wall of a flash flood; of hikers beyond counting whose last experience was of trembling earth and the befuddled thought “Now what the——?”
Then he devotes another half dozen pages to stories of people killed and mauled by bears.
So why do people do it?
They love the journey.
They love the chance to experience life in a way that few people do.
You could stay home and stay safe.
But then you arrive at the end of your days with… regrets. Regrets because you lived in fear.
Ever wonder why so many old people are so grumpy and cynical?
It’s that potential they kept safely bottled up – until it soured inside.
If you don’t love the journey, you’re not going to make it.
After years of leading many consultants and coaches along the journey to a consistent flow of ideal clients one thing is clear:
Those who love the journey – or learn to love it – make it triumphantly to the other side.
Those who fret and moan and wish it were easier or faster and whine to themselves that they didn’t get an easy gene those others clearly got… Well these folks sooner or later come stumbling out of the entrepreneurial woods begging for another corporate job.
It’s not like you risk your life in our business. All you risk is some ego.
But you do need a path to follow.
I’ve laid out that path in a recent 3-part training called “The Missing 5%: The Honest Secret to A Consistent Flow of Ideal Clients.”
Dov Gordon
PS – As always, if you have any questions or reactions, send me an email. I’m here at the local coffee shop, getting another coffee while reading your emails.
