How Change Leads to Lifes Greatest Adventures
a few years ago
i found myself deep in the andes
mountains of chile
i was riding my horse up to 16 000 feet
in elevation
on a narrow path at the very edge of a
steep
and harrowing cliff when i looked to my
left
there was a 5000 foot drop below
i calmed my nerves i took my horse’s
reins on a short rope for control
but i knew that with just one wrong step
i would plummet into the abyss below
for anyone who’s ever been on an
adventure you’ll know that ascending a
mountain is never a straight line to the
summit
there are detours and obstacles along
the way
however on this day we would carve our
trail
back and forth into the mountainside
creating our own unique path
and when we finally reached the top of
the mountain i got off my horse
i gave her some water and thanked her
for keeping me safe
but i thought to myself life was like a
mountain trail
at any point in our journey we could be
forced to change directions
and it’s how we embrace these changes
which will determine
how far we go in life change
leads to life’s greatest adventures
i grew up in a small town in northern
new jersey 20 minutes outside new york
city
when i was young i played baseball and
soccer
i loved the new york mets and star wars
but there was one thing that was unique
about me i loved adventure
here’s me at age five crossing a
death-defying suspension bridge
with man eating crocodiles below
and here i am at the north pole
breathing negative
50 degree temperatures and 100 mile an
hour winds
i loved dreaming up these imagined
worlds
i wanted to discover the lost city of
atlantis
i wanted to dive shipwrecks looking for
gold
and i knew that when i grew up i wanted
to be
an explorer however life has a way
of presenting challenges to us that we
could never possibly imagine
and when i was 18 years old i woke up on
a bright sunny morning
to a knock on my door it was my uncle
mike
and i thought it was strange that he was
at my house that day
i opened the door to a solemn look on
his face
and he said to me jeffrey your father
died this morning
i looked back in shock and disbelief i
said how is that possible
and he said he took his own life
the days that followed were a complete
blur
but i had no time to make sense of it
all i felt like i had to grow up
overnight
and i changed myself in order to survive
two months later i was a freshman
student at the college of new jersey
i was excited for the change in my
environment it was a welcome relief for
everything that was going on back home
the minute i stepped on campus i felt
different
i made an incredible group of friends i
became class president and i was on the
varsity tennis team
and even the explorer came out in me i
started visiting the surrounding area of
the college
falling in love with the historical
sites at nearby princeton university
i even created special tours for friends
and family to show them the places
that i loved as the ending of college
neared i had this incredible sense
of hope and excitement for my future
the next 10 years moved pretty quickly i
got a brilliant job
on wall street i married a wonderful
woman
and i had the privilege of becoming a
father
life was good things were calm and
smooth
but something was off inside
i was not happy i thought that if only i
got a higher corporate title
then everything would be okay if only
i got a bigger bonus then everything
would fall into place
but as these things that i desired came
to me
nothing seemed to work nothing seemed to
make me feel joy
and at the age of 32 my entire life
began to fall apart
it became very clear that the unresolved
issues from my past had taken complete
hold of my inner world
i felt like i was spiraling down this
endless pit
and there was nothing to stop me over
the next year my marriage crumbled
i had no place to live and i was
struggling severely at work
it was a devastating time for everyone
involved and i had no one to blame but
myself
sometimes in life things fall apart and
we don’t know why
oftentimes this can be the universe’s
way
of setting us on a new path
a year later i was walking along the
water in hoboken new jersey
feeling without hope but i remember
coming to this realization
that if i were going to move forward i
needed to change instead of following
what i was supposed to do
i would seek out meaning and connection
i would go on this great journey
to figure out what was in my heart
and then an opportunity for adventure
came into my life
at the age of 32 i i went on the first
hike
of my entire life the mountain was
located one hour north of new york city
and everything changed for me that day
the feeling of being immersed into
nature
made me feel connected the camaraderie
of the group of people i climbed with
made me feel as part of a community and
reaching my first summit filled me with
a deep sense of pride
while only 500 feet in elevation that
mountain
on that day was my mount everest
when i got home that night i knew i had
found something
a door to go through i wanted more of
these feelings in my life
so i began climbing mountains all over
the united states
i started with small ones at first and
gradually increased the difficulty
i used the challenges in the mountains
to rebuild my confidence and self-worth
the bigger the mountain the stronger i
grew
the mountains were healing me
at around the same time i was invited to
a leadership workshop at the bank where
i worked
little did i know what would happen that
day
a british polar explorer named robert
swann was going to be speaking
i learned that robert was the first
person in history to walk to both the
north and south poles
and that he had dedicated his life to
the preservation of the antarctica
continent
to maintain it as a natural reserve land
for peace i was blown away by his speech
his life was a series of tales of great
adventure
amazing triumphs and utter devastation
he had overcome extraordinary obstacles
in his life
but he lived with purpose and passion
and i wanted to live like him
i knew i had found something but i knew
i knew it was time for a change in my
life with my work
adventure was having such a
transformative effect on my life
i decided to start an adventure travel
company
i wanted to take people around the world
to the special places that i loved
and i dreamed of one day having the
greatest explorers in the world
lead our trips by day i was a banker
and on nights and weekends i was
building my company
and after two years of juggling both we
launched the explorer’s passage at the
new york times travel show
the largest travel show in north america
i created the booth in my head it was an
old explorer’s den
peering out into the himalayan mountains
and on those three days
we had the busiest booth in the entire
show
and on the third and final day new york
times management came over
and awarded us best small booth out of
450 other exhibitors
it was a massive moment this was it
i thought my company was going to soar
but as everyone knows things in life
don’t always come so easy
on that monday we had no phone calls or
emails
and for the next 18 months i tried every
sales and marketing tactic i could come
up with
but to no avail we had not one single
sale in mid 2015 i was just about to
give up
and i went into the mountains for
reflection
i started up this trail that i had done
dozens of times before
and midway through i noticed that a
large tree had fell
to block my path i stopped
thought about it and it hit me
maybe i was creating the obstacles in my
life
each morning we wake up and we look in
the mirror
but how deeply do we really see
ourselves how honest
are we about ourselves i decided to go
on a personal journey into myself
i wanted to understand what was blocking
me from moving forward
and i dug deep i started to see that the
more that i removed my roadblocks from
my past
the more my future began to open up
and soon my life began to change
and the phone started to ring what
started as a first trip to peru
ended up turning into trips all over the
globe
it was happening i was finally breaking
through
i started to see how change was becoming
a massive catalyst in my life
change was nothing to be feared but
something to be embraced
and then in 2016
through a series of completely random
events i wound up in a coffee shop
with robert swann the explorer
he told me that he’d been running these
sea expeditions to antarctica
for about 20 years and the purpose of
the expedition was to train the next
generation
of environmental leaders he was looking
for a business partner
i had never imagined of myself going to
antarctica
but i jumped at the opportunity
over the next 18 months robert myself
his son barney swann and our teams
worked day and night in filling the ship
and in february 2018 we brought 90
people from 27 nations
on an expedition to antarctica the trip
was an extraordinary success
robert showed me that adventure could be
used to help with major global issues
but climate change was not the only
thing that i cared about
i cared about conservation i cared about
world peace
i cared about people who were struggling
people
like my father so we decided that for
the next adventure
we would head to tanzania i huddled up
with barney swann
and we looked at the environmental
challenges that this great nation was
facing
and the issue of deforestation rose
right to the top
the mass deforestation around the mount
kilimanjaro region was having
devastating effects on the ecosystem in
the area
and no one knew more about this
challenge than dr jane goodall
gained has been fighting for
conservation efforts in tanzania for
nearly 60 years
barney and i wanted to be part of the
solution
so we partnered with jane and brought 20
of the most special people from around
the world
to tanzania to climb mount kilimanjaro
and on the day before the climb we spent
it with jane
and the extraordinary jane goodall got
on the ground
with each of the members of our team
with a broken arm
and planted trees with them she engaged
them in discussions around conservation
in the environment
our team was so inspired by this work
they couldn’t wait to get home to do
more
but first they would climb up africa’s
highest peak
over the next week this mighty mountain
challenged each
member of our team to the core everyone
had our ups and downs
but we stuck together as a team and went
step
by step as we pushed throughout the
night
to the summit in the horizon we saw the
daylight break
over the mountain and the sun come in
and on the final morning all 20 team
members
stood on the rooftop of africa
triumphantly
we had all done it as a team
on the summit of mount kilimanjaro that
day i went for a private walk
by myself
i looked at the joy and emotion that our
group was experiencing
and i thought to myself i reflected
on all the amazing people that i have
met over the past 10 years
i thought about all the amazing
adventures that had gone on
and i realized that after all these
years i’m back to that kid again
that kid who dreamed of being an
explorer
for me it was adventure that brought me
home to myself
for me it was adventure that helped me
heal the wounds of my past
but for you wherever you are in your
journey
i encourage you to have the courage to
change
i challenge you to find what truly
inspires you in life
and if you embark on this extraordinary
adventure
your life will become a masterpiece
thank you very much