Author: jeff noel

Retired Disney Institute Keynote Speaker and Prolific Blogger. Five daily, differently-themed personal blogs (about life's 5 big choices) on five interconnected sites.

Outward Bound Lesson

Nature Is Our Best Teacher
Nature Is Our Best Teacher

Ever expect to learn something in class, but the lesson or insight is so powerful, it stays with you for the rest of your life?

Spring Break 1980, I think. Road trip. West Chester, Pennsylvania to Morgantown, North Carolina, for the North Carolina Outward Bound School.

Camping, hiking, climbing, repelling, orienteering, training, experiential learning, laughing, sweating, campfire cooking, no shower for a week at a time.

The (unexpected) big take away?

The only limitations we have are those we impose upon ourselves.

It’s Easier To Do This, Isn’t It?

Follow The Current?
Follow The Current?

You know what humans are like?

Water.

Water is always looking for the easiest route. Water never chooses the uphill path. Only and always, the downhill path.

Sound familiar?

This is why we need to spend a significant amount of time figuring this out.

We have two choices.

  1. Follow the herd
  2. Lead the herd

If the followers are so smart with their ideas on how the leader should do things, why don’t they simply take charge?

Because their ideas don’t cut it.

Hard work does. And followers don’t have the guts to do the hard work. They sit in the shadows and know neither the agony of defeat, nor the thrill of victory.

The Best Way To Succeed?

He's Chief For A Reason
He's Chief For A Reason

The best way to succeed in life is to act on the advice we give to others. —Anonymous

This is what separates the leader from the follower.

We can follow our shadow of fear, or we can walk in front of it and rarely pay attention to it.

Sorry, you already know this.