Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been speaking at conferences all over Ireland and the UK. Sitting back stage waiting to go on, I have had the chance to listen to all sorts of corporate leaders, entrepreneurs and Olympic medalists sharing their stories. The message that is repeated time and time again is that getting fully engaged is the way to reap rewards…
Listening to their stories I was reminded of the level of commitment required, from so many people, to help me race to the South Pole. It was not difficult to get lots of people excited about the idea, but turning it into a reality was a different story. Trying to raise the sponsorship nearly killed the project before we even left for Antarctica. And there were other hurdles to deal with – unexpected changes to the team , creating content for the media, living in a tent for 43 days, dragging sledges for 14 hours per day, coping with frost bite and losing 2 stone in weight.
The option of commiting anything less than 100% was simply not there. Even by being fully engaged with the project we were not certain of making it to the South Pole. However, it is the brushes with failure and level of commitment required that produced a feeling of contentment that I have rarely experienced.
The result of all of this is that I’ve decided that it is time to get fully engaged with a new challenge and over the last couple of weeks I’ve been working on a plan. It looks like I’ll be taking to the sea for my first off-shore sailing race…all will be finalized in time for next week’s blog!
