You are what you dare to do!

Per tradition, a slightly less business focused post for a hot summer holiday day!

I learned how to dive in this lake at the age of 12.

(Lac Léman seen from Ouchy Switzerland)

I remember standing on my uncle’s boat looking down into the water and being so incredibly scared. I had never entered water head first. What if it hurt, what if I would dive right into a fish, or worse algae? But most of all I was scared of the unknown.

But I did it, I took a leap and into the water I went.

Why?

Because my uncle was on the boat, watching. I wanted him to think I was as capable and brave as my big brother, I wanted him to think as highly of me as I thought of him (the man had climbed Mount-Everest, he was popular, successful, funny). In short, I thought so highly of Francis impressing him was more important to me than the fear of diving.

The water was cold, and I’m not sure I really liked the feeling, but I grew 20 centimetres the day I dived into Lac Léman!

It’s not often in life you meet people that make you want to jump, despite your fears.  These people are as rare in life as they are in business.

And everything rare is a collector’s item to someone. So I don’t collect art, I don’t collect jewellery, I collect people who challenge me, people who make me do things despite my fears, things that allow me to grow, and I especially collect people who allow themselves to be challenged, people who act despite their fear.

In my collection I have a Pastor from The Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem NYC (and his entire congregation), whose Sunday Sermon on the 24th of September a few years ago challenged conventional thinking and behaviour to the point that I found myself saying AMEN for the first time in my life (and not just once!)! Was a lot of what he asked the congregation to do scary to them? Absolutely, yet they were right behind him!

(The Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem NYC)

In my collection there is a young girl who left a life of comfort by not marrying a prominent Asian man, for whom she had moved to London for from a small village in India. A woman who broke a high profile engagement going against her family, religion, culture, tradition to start a new life where she would have no friends and no means of supporting herself. “why?” I asked her one-day “because I know I can feel more” was her answer. Was she scared! Absolutely! But she still did it.

In my collection is Jonathan MacDonald, my business partner, who challenged me to set up my own business despite the fact that I knew that, from having seen my dad and friends go through it, it would be one of the hardest things I would ever do. Scary? Most definitely! But here I am, less than a year later with this fluid world.

So sitting here by my childhood lake, looking at the boats I find myself thinking of, and celebrating those people whose existence remind me of being 12, standing on that boat on Lac Léman, where I despite my fear decide to dive!

I can’t wait for the people I yet have to meet, I can’t wait for the fear, and I can’t wait for the next time I have to dive because what comes after is a whole lot of growth!

Join me, and bring your collection of people, I would love to meet them because to me ‘you are who you meet, you are who you keep in your life, and you are what you dare to do’!

(This post is in celebration of Loretta Castorini Clark – the greatest collector item of them all – thank you!)

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2010
07/18
CATEGORY
Thoughts
this fluid world
2 comments

  1. It’s an honour to be amongst the collection :)

    • pauleau
    • July 19th, 2010

    Intéressant et pas si “vacancier” que ça de passer des savoir, des savoir- faire au savoir être !
    La stratégie, qu’elle soit militaire ou commerciale, sociale ou publicitaire, par définition est un combat dont certains ne sont gagnés que par des héros. Qu’est-ce qu’un héros? Pas forcément celui qui nie le danger, mais bien, comme le décrit si bien Liri, celui qui accepte de s’engager et de se battre en pleine connaissance des dangers.
    Est-ce à dire que nous opposerons un monde douillet de fonctionnaires au monde du privé? Certes non et je citerai à cette égard, les paroles d’un ami, conseiller culturel en Suède qui me disait : l’avantage du fonctionnaire, c’est qu’il peut tout oser. Il se doit donc de prendre tous les risques pour faire avancer ses idées, ses projets, des choix.
    Nos devoirs d’oser sont plus forts encore (et pas toujours sans risques…).
    Mais que signifie, si on y réfléchit, cette démarche qui nous pousse à plonger, à aller de l’avant ? que le consensus, bien souvent, est immobile, égoïste et qu’il faut accepter de prendre le relais de quelques coureurs, même si ce relais vous brûle les mains, parce que que l’appel est fort, parce que notre choix le vaut bien.
    C’est cette adéquation du concept et de l’action qui permet de construire et même d’éprouver de très grandes satisfactions!

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