Far too often the ‘things’ that men define as success do little more than successfully destroy the lives of the very men who achieve those ‘things.’ And while I must admit that there is an authentic element of success in all of that, it’s the kind of success that I would much prefer to successfully avoid.

We would prefer all gain and no loss in life, yet that would gain us nothing more than great loss.

The world screams, ‘Stay down, it’s safer.’ My soul screams, ‘So is being dead.

Many adventurers would say that opportunity is something that you find as part of a relentless search, or that it’s something that an imagination unleashed shapes and creates. And while all of that sounds bold and wonderfully fearless, it’s my sense that opportunity is more that thing to which we’ve been called by something larger than ourselves, and less something that is a product of ourselves.

It might be said of me that I could have done it differently or that there was a better way or that I should have waited when I didn’t. But what cannot be said of me is that I didn’t try. And without question, I would rather have tried and blundered in every attempt than not have tried to make any attempt.

Sometimes I wonder if the cost of my dream is less about the efforts to achieve it and more about disappointment I’ll experience if it doesn’t happen. But then I remember that the nature of a dream is such that it is worth dreaming even if it never comes true.

The true sign of a robust and mature life rests in how many times that life has been knocked down, for to be incessantly knocked down and yet find oneself still standing means that someone had the resolve to get up that many times plus one.

The greatest ‘victory’ in any victory is that I didn’t make it about myself.

It’s not about inviting great things into our lives. Rather, it’s about accepting the invitation of great things to step out of our lives.