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Adventures In Wadi Rum

October 20, 2012 By 3 Comments

Wadi Rum ATVOne of the major goals of this blog is to live a story worth writing about. That involves quite a few different adventures and experiences. A few months ago I spent 8 days in the country of Jordan – here’s one of the adventures I had there.

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Wadi Rum might be one of my favorite places on earth. Over the course of 24 hours, we went on a jeep tour throughout the desert, went skydiving on mars. On our way back to the desert waiting tent where we waited for our skydiving videos to be processed, we passed about 20 atvs parked next to the side of the building.

They piqued my curiousity and considering we had some time to kill, I started poking around trying to find more information about the atvs at the various buildings and tents in the area.

Then I did something really radical: I asked. 

As it turned out, the atvs only cost $35/hour and conveniently, we had just about that much time before our skydiving videos were ready.

Sean and I looked at each other and nodded.

“Lets do it.”

Another good choice. A few minutes later we jumped on the atvs, strapped on our helmets and went after it.

The next hour we spent cruising through rock formations and bombing down sand dunes. It was amazing – I could spend a few thousand words talking about the entire experience, but instead I strapped a GoPro to my chest to give you a first-hand look of what it was like.

 

[click here to watch the video in email] 

The ATV adventure was the biggest surprise of the trip. And yes, it was as awesome as it looked (probably even more so).  Between skydiving on the moon and ATVing across the desert, Wadi Rum might be my favorite adventure destination on earth.

I can’t wait to go back.

Filed Under: Adventures, Good Stories, Travel, Video Posts Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Impossible Ones: A Brand New Impossible Thing (or Two) And How You Can Help

August 8, 2012 By 41 Comments

In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve got a lot of things in the works around Impossible HQ and the blog lately. We’re releasing a fitness program in a few weeks, and over the weekend we  murdered our servers from last week’s post (thanks to Jeff for un-murdering them), but that’s not all. Today we’re announcing 2 new impossible things: you ready? This is going to be fun.

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The BackStory

A key thread throughout everything we do here an HQ is focused on giving and service. There’s a couple reasons for this, but the main one is that at some point through your own journey, you come to the realization that you’ve gotten a free lunch or two throughout life and you haven’t done it all on your own. Whether it’s being born in the right country, or having a family, teacher or boss that backed you up at a key moment- there was something at some point that set you off that wasn’t your doing.

Somewhere along the lines you had help.

And while, doing the impossible is tough – and you have to want it bad sometimes – if you pick your head up for a few seconds and look around every now and then, you start to realize how much you’ve been able to accomplish, how many abilities and opportunities you do have.

When you start to realize the abundance of these things, 2 things usually happen:

  1. You realize how many possibilities you have. You realize how good you have it, and no matter how hard you think things are, you’re aware of how many possibilities you DO Have, how precious they are and foolish it is to waste them.
  2. You want to create possibilities for others. At some point, someone opened a door for you, dropped a key and showed you that somethings was possible. When you realize that, you start looking for your own ways to create possibilities, to effect change and drop some more keys for others.
We spend a lot of time talking about creating more possibilities in our own lives, but over the next few months, we’re going to have a chance to create some possibility in the lives of others through a very unique opportunity.

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The Opportunity

A few months ago, an organization called Pencils of Promise called me up. As the blog has grown, I’ve gotten approached by a ton of businesses trying to do “deals.” A lot of of organizations, businesses, and entrepreneurs that want to do JVs/partnerships/affiliate deals that take advantage of the Impossible brand and I simply won’t do it. I’ve turned down 100% of those opportunities until PoP called.

I talked to Rachele and Erin and they explained to me that 67 million children in the world live without access to education. Something we all take for granted and complain that it’s mandatory for 16 years is something not even available to millions of kids around the globe. They don’t get the option to choose to push their limits, live an adventure, because for them, it’s impossible for them to get something as simple as an education. Pencils of Promise wants to change that.

Pencils of Promise started when their founder Adam was backpacking through India and asked a small child who was begging, ”What do you want most in the world?”

“A Pencil”, the child answered.

So Adam reached into his bag, pulled out a pencil and gave the child one. He traveled and handed out more pencils, but that answer  stuck in the back of his mind. So he decided to do something more about it. Starting with $25 in 2008, and focused on giving my students the possibility of education, PoP has gone on to build over 50 schools in Laos, Nicaragua and Guatemala in conjunction with local communities by hiring local staff and required participation from the communities as they track each student’s success.

Once we checked out their history and read their 9 key founding principles, I thought to myself, ”Wow, these guys “get” it.”

PoP Founding Principles

Pencils of Promise’s FOUNDING PRINCIPLES

  1. If we don’t love what we do, then we are doing something wrong.
  2. We must profoundly understand local cultures before we can hope to improve their educational opportunities.
  3. Our most important partners are the communities themselves.
  4. We build more than just four walls: we foster lasting and sustainable education.
  5. Innovation, collaboration and creativity are at our core.
  6. We are dedicated to the long-term sustainability of each project we support.
  7. A nonprofit should operate with complete transparency and efficiency.
  8. All donors should have the opportunity to choose where their money goes.
  9. Every single contribution and contributor is a valuable part of the movement.
The emphasis in the paragraphs above are mine. There are lots of organizations that simply throw money at problems and hope they go away without actually understanding them, but partnering with a community and developing change inside-out is what drew me to PoP – their focus on sustainability throughout each project.

They “Get” It

The Challenge

There are 67 million children in the world without access to education. For them, going to school is impossible. Literally. PoP has built 50 schools over the past few years and over the next few months, they want to build 50 more – a goal that’s seemingly impossible (in fact, they’re calling it their “impossible ones” campaign – I told them I’d allow them to use the word ;) ).

Since doing the Impossible is kinda our thing, I thought to myself, “So what are we going to do about it?” How can we as a community contribute?

*Take Deep Breath Here*

We’re going to raise $25,000 as a community by the end of 2012 in order to build an IMPOSSIBLE school and provide the possibility of education to 1,000 students.

*Exhale*

First reaction: Woah! $25,000? That’s a ton of money!

Yes it is. So why $25,000?  $25,000 builds a school in Guatemala and provides the possibility of education to approximately 1,000 students.

It’s big, it’s scary and it’s just enough that we might not be able to do it.   But it’s not just about me (it never is). The “we” is where you come in.

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The Community

In the League, we’ve got a group that’s donating to Kiva. Almost lent a little over $8,100 to entrepreneurs all over the globe (and counting), but as we’ve talked, we wanted to do something more. We wanted a community challenge – one that would have an effect that you could feel, touch, see and experience – and that we could all be in together.

Well, you wanted a challenge? We got a challenge. As a community our goal is $25,000 by the end of 2012 in order to build a school in Guatemala and provide access to education for 1,000 students.

If When, we hit that goal, we will celebrate enthusiastically, but the person who helps raise the most amount of money will come with me to Guatemala and actually help build the school that we’re fundraising for.

Yes, We’re going to actually help build the freaking school.
With our hands. 
Raising money is one thing. It’s cool to “know” theoretically that you helped contribute to actually build a school and provide a entire community with education. It’s another thing entirely to actually go there, help out through the process and build the school with your own two hands while looking into the eyes of the people who’s lives you’re able to affect in a positive way. Doing stuff like this is what this blog and Impossible HQ are about - doing. We’ll actually go to Guatemala, help people push their own limits and do the impossible by providing a possibility for education, while living an adventure ourselves and giving back. That’s like a win-win-win situation. Triple boom.

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What I’m Doing

After I ran a marathon: 26.2 miles in my Vibrams, I never thought I’d do it again. One marathon. Checked off. Done. Boom. That was it….at least I thought so… But then I kept thinking….what if?

I kept coming across stuff from people like Dean Karnazes and David Goggins and these crazy, stupid, impossible ultra marathons kept staring me in the face – asking me to do more – all the while daring me to try.

Over the past two years I learned I’m not very good at turning down dares. I couldn’t let that challenge stare at me and dare me like that without knowing if I could actually do it.

So while walking around Portland a few weeks back, I put down my money, signed up and started training. I’m doing something crazy.

 I’m running an ultra marathon in Chicago on October 27th. 

There’s been a few things that have been tough, and then a few that have HURT – and a marathon hurt – but I’m going farther. I’m running the Chicago Ultramarathon – my first ultra marathon ever – and checking it off my list while raising money for our school. It’s going to be really, really hard,  and a little crazy, but it’s absolutely going to be worth it.

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5 Ways You Can Start Today

But this isn’t just about me. This is a community challenge and it starts today. There are a few obvious ways to start with this (see option #1), but we’re also arranging a few specific community events to raise money for this but lets take all this out of the hypotheticals out of this. Here are 5 concrete ways you can help uso lets take this all out of the hypothetical “shoulds” and
 start today.

  1. Donate here. It’s pretty simple. 1,000 people. $25 dollars/person. That’s all it takes. BOOM. Donate here.
  2. The cyclists and triathletes around the league have been bugging me for jerseys forever (you know who you are!) And, I’ve been listening! In fact, starting now, we’re doing a (a one-time only) pre-order for the next two weeks of a special run of impossible cycling jerseys. I’m not sure if we’ll ever do these again (design + production + orders + shipping for jerseys is way tougher than typical apparel!). But for the next few weeks, they’ll be available for pre-order. $10% of the revenue from the sale will go directly to POP. If you’re a triathlete or a cyclist, this is an incredible piece of apparel from Primal Cycling and help the fundraising effort (plus they look a little like superhero outfits (if I do say so myself)). Grab your Limited Edition Cycling Jersey Here. 
    Impossible Cycling Jerseys
  3. In July, I did the GORUCK Challenge – one of the toughest things I’ve ever done in my life. After talking with GORUCK HQ, we’ve tentatively arranged a custom GORUCK IMPOSSIBLE Challenge in Chicago. If 30 people sign up for the class we’ll raise about 2,000 directly for POP, (plus GRC will send about $400 to Green Beret – just because they’re nice like that). We need at least 20 and won’t take more than 30 people for this. If you’re interested, sign up here.
  4. Create your own impossible challenge – not just something, you think you might be able to do. Pick something that scares you, that pushes your limits – that you might fail at. Then go do it, tell people about it and contribute to the Impossible School fund.
  5. Tell a friend about this. Last week’s post racked up 150,000 views in 2 days and melted my server. If a handful of you who read, DO, $25,000 becomes a piece of cake. Here’s a sample tweet
I’m doing something #impossible by making education possible for 1,000 students w/ @JoelRunyon + ImpossibleHQ [click to tweet]
Bonus #1: If you know of (or are) a company, business owner, or organization who’d be interested in getting involved, contributing, matching and doing something impossible, we’d love for you to get involved.  Shoot me an email now at joel [at] impossiblehq [dot] com
Bonus #2: If you’ve got an event or something in your area that you’d like to utilize to help rally people to raise money for our Impossible school – let me know at joel [at] impossiblehq [dot] com.

The math is simple. If 1,000 people donate $25, we’re done. Boom. We hit our goal easily. I know for a fact that we have a community of readers that number much, much more than 1,000 people – there’s no question about that.

The question is

How many doers do we have?

Here’s your chance to put your money where your eyeballs are and literally change people’s lives. With a few minutes of your time and some spare change, you can give someone the opportunity that’s so prevalent in your own life that you probably take it for granted.

 Join the Campaign

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Do things that haven’t been done before – Russell Kirsch.

Here’s your chance: Let’s build an Impossible school.

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The campaign is called the Impossible ones. Check out the launch video featuring footage from our bungee jump, me and Sophia Bush (as well as a few other people).

[click to watch the video in email]

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$25,000 is a massive goal, it’s scary and big enough that we just might not be able to pull it off – still we’re going to try like hell and we’ve already got a head start on it. After our Plummet at the Summit bungee jump in July, the team at Bungee.com pledged $1,000 from the event directly to our Impossible school. Thank you Casey!

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The one reason you should join and be a part of this: You have so many possibilities available to you. You GET to to choose to push your limits, live an adventureand do something impossible. There’s a huge portion of the world that doesn’t get that opportunity. To them, impossible is basic stuff: clean water, an education…a chance. Whether you realize it or not, when you help other people expand their limits, you not only get to experience how capable they are, but how much more capable you are as well. Lets do this.

Join The Campaign

Donate Here

Tell A Friend To Do The Same

(I just put in $100 myself) Lets build an Impossible school.

#boom

Filed Under: Adventures, Kicking A**, Launches, Personal Development, The Impossible, The List, Travel Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Skydiving on Mars (And How To Look Less Stupid)

August 4, 2012 By 14 Comments

Over the next month, I’ll be posting several articles on my recent trip to Jordan. These will be posting on Saturday’s in addition to all of our regularly scheduled content and will be focused on travel, adventure and living a better story. Enjoy.

Tomorrow, NASA’s rocket, the Curiosity rover is landing on Mars. People are quite excited about it, as it’s quite the scientific accomplishment, but I’m a little but I’m a little over it. After all, I landed on Mars a month ago….or at least skydived on to it. Here’s what happened:

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Sean and I were hanging out in Jordan, and we find out that we’re scheduled to jump out of a plane in Wadi Rum (The Valley of the Moon) named because it’s essentially a desert valley that looks like the moon or mars.

As soon as I heard about the opportunity, I was pumped. Sure, I’ve gone skydiving before, but last time I looked like an idiot – this was my chance for redemption!

I’ve consistently said that becoming okay with looking stupid is one of the most important things you can learn to do. The first time you try anything, you’re bound to screw up, do something stupid and look dumb. And that’s why lots of people don’t do cool things – they’re simply scared they’re going to look stupid. I used to let this paralyze me all the time, but over the past two years, I’ve gotten over this fear. Because just like you have to suck a lot in order to suck less, sometimes you have to look really stupid at first in order to look less stupid over time. But that doesn’t mean you want to look stupid all the time either! I was determined to look definitively less stupid this time through.

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A Brief Guide On Looking Less Stupid

Like I said, for my last skydive adventure I looked really stupid. Almost immediately after exiting the plane, I lost my goggles, lost a contact, made a bunch of really dumb faces and generally looked very, very stupid (all photographic and video evidence is available for your enjoyment here). I wasn’t going to let that happen this time. Here’s how I fixed it:

Take Inventory of What Went Wrong.

Last jump, I lost my goggles, a contact and my dignity. I wanted to hold on to at least one of those things this time.

Learn Something

I learned 3 things last time I jumped:

  1. Don’t lose your goggles
  2. Keep your mouth shut or you’re going to look stupid while your cheeks flap in the wind.
  3. Seriously, keep the goggles on.

That was it. If I could master those, I figured I’d be golden.

Upgrade Your Equipment

The operation at Skydive Jordan was top-notch. Skydiving in Oregon was fun, but there’s a reason Skydive Dubai (the organization that organized the Skydive Jordan operation) is ranked one of the best skydive operations in the world.

Everything from registration, to the waiting experience, to the actual jump and the turnaround time for the photos was incredible. I’ve mentioned before how getting great photographers to help you document whatever you want to do is a massive advantage. The results are apparent: you can literally see the difference in the photos below.

Get a Good Background

If nothing else, make sure you’ve got a great background. Real estate people say location, location, location, but for adventures it’s true to. I could have forgotten my pants and the photos would still look awesome thanks to the location.

Have Fun

If you have a good time, looking stupid doesn’t matter. Who cares if you look stupid while skydiving on Mars? YOU STILL SKYDIVED ON MARS! Have fun and nothing else matters.

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I could explain step by step how the jump went, but the video does a much, much better job at capturing it all. Simply put: it was a BLAST.

[click to view in email]

The video turned out great (I didn’t lose my goggles – so I was already ecstatic), but then I got the photos and just about lost it at how great they turned out (did I mention I was skydiving on Mars?).

SUCCESS! I jumped out of a plane in Wadi Rum (one of the coolest places on earth and my new favorite adventure location), I didn’t die AND I didn’t look like completely stupid. Triple boom.

But, if I hadn’t been willing to look really stupid last year, step out of my comfort zone and take a bunch of people I didn’t know adventuring, I probably wouldn’t have been ready for this one. So go adventure and don’t be afraid to look stupid along the way (don’t worry, you’ll get better over time)

While the entire trip was sponsored by the Jordan Tourism Board, but sponsored or not, this experience was freaking awesome (and unlike Reine, I wasn’t nervous at all). Did I mention this was on Mars…er…Wadi Rum? I cannot wait to get back there.

Filed Under: Adventures, Good Stories, Life, Travel, Video Posts Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

The World Is Not As Scary As You Think It Is

July 28, 2012 By 25 Comments

Over the next month, I’ll be posting several articles on my recent trip to Jordan sponsored by the Jordan Tourism Board. These will be posting on Saturday’s in addition to all of our regularly scheduled content and will be focused on travel, adventure and living a better story. Enjoy.

I shot this video on in Aqaba, Jordan on the coast of the Red Sea. You can see Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Egypt all from where I’m standing.

[click to watch the video in email]

The world is not as scary as you think it is.

When I told people I was going to Jordan, the first thing they would ask is: “Where is Jordan?” When they find out it’s in the middle east, the second thing they would say is:

“YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. “

After I stopped laughing at their foregone conclusion, I’d respond: “probably not.”

Of course I could die going to Jordan. I also could die crossing the street, walking the dog, and stuffing my face with pizza on the couch. You could die doing lots of things, but you probably won’t. Unfortunately, it’s an excuse that many people use to stay within their comfort zone and never venture out and do something interesting.

When I last checked, the death rate was hovering right around the 100% mark, so if you think jumping out of a plane, off a bridge, visiting new countries, finding the holy grail or spending 24 hours on mars is dangerous and going to kill you and should therefore be avoided, then you’re going to live a relatively uneventful life.

Sure, there are bad people doing bad things everywhere but thinking that bad people are in the majority anywhere you go, keeps you from enjoying the good people and the good things that actually are there.

Saying the middle east is dangerous because there are a few volatile countries is very much like saying North America is dangerous because parts of Mexico has drug cartels. There are bad parts, but there are great parts too and by lumping everything together as “bad” you miss out on it all.

The odd thing about life is that most people fixate so much on living longer that they never figure out how to live better. They choose to stay in one place, never travel, explore or adventure and believe the lie that other people hate them because they wear Nike’s, have McDonald’s and watch Snookie on TV (well Snookie is actually a valid reason). Plenty of people die after living a life doing interesting things. Plenty of people die after living a life doing boring things. You get to choose which type of person you become.

While there are much more experienced travelers than myself that can attest to this, the truth is, once you start exploring the world, you realize that, contrary to what you might hear on the news, most people are good – no matter where they live, what language they speak or what beliefs they have – and

Adventure is defined by the unknown. It’s going places you haven’t gone before and doing things you haven’t done before. Sometimes that’s scary – but it’s seldom as scary as you think it will be or as other people tell you it will be. And, you probably won’t die. You might, but you probably won’t. But, if you never get out of your comfort zone and adventure, it’s all too easy to stay the same, never change and bore yourself to death.

***

If you’re not doing something that scares you every once in a while, you’re doing it wrong.

The world isn’t as scary as you think it is. And if you are scared of something, do it anyways – you probably won’t die. Do something hard, something that makes you nervous, something that’s scary. Because when you do it,  you’ll realize those scary things aren’t that scary at all and that being scared was the scariest part of all.

The world is not as scary as you think it is. Get out there and adventure. Jordan is a great place to start.

For the record, the most danger I ever found myself while in Jordan was snorkeling in the middle of the Red Sea, surrounded by legions of jellyfish who all were – oddly enough – not be poisonous. As evidence, see exhibit A below.

Red Sea Jellyfish Impossible

While the entire trip to Jordan was sponsored by JTB, all opinions within are completely mine.

Filed Under: Adventures, Good Stories, Life, Travel Tagged With: , , ,

Jordan Seems Like An Adventure

June 19, 2012 By 6 Comments

By the time you’re reading this, I’ll be on a plane to Jordan. Well, technically, depending on when you’re reading this, I’ll be on a plane to NYC and then Jordan, but those are details. The important thing is we’re going to Jordan (the country, not Michael’s house).

If you have to look it up on a map, here it is. It’s home to Petra, one of the seven wonders of the world, the Dead Sea, the Red Sea and a bunch of adventures we’re setting out to experience. The trip has been in the works for the last few weeks (I’ll share soon how it all came together), but it was just recently confirmed everything and somehow throughout it all, I forgot to announce it either here, on the email list, forums, twitter or facebook. (Apparently when you decide last minute to go halfway around the world, you’re supposed to tell people it – oops).

Anyways, I figured I need to do it at some point, so here it is:

I’m going to Jordan for the next 8 days. 

BOOM.

I owe the lovely Jodi Ettenberg of Legal Nomads (and Hipmunk contributor) a big thank you for hooking us up with our Jordan contacts as we’ll be headed there to experience some awesome gut-wrenching adventures. I’ll also, hopefully, be sharing several impossible things I’m crossing off the list throughout the trip so this trip should be one to remember.

Oh, and one more thing - I’ll be going to Jordan with the one and only Shogle (aka Sean Ogle), of Location180 fame (as well as the slightly less famous #Ogling fame). We’ll be collaborating, sharing videos (and possibly ogling) throughout our adventures. Stay tuned. This is going to be fun – a lot of fun :) . Stay tuned…and we’ll be back to our regular schedule on Thursday

Filed Under: Adventures, Good Stories, The Impossible, Travel

The Ugly Step Forward

October 11, 2011 By 11 Comments

StepsIn every race, there’s a few glamorous steps forward you take.

The step across the starting line, the step across the finish line and possibly the steps in front of the water stations where you smile at the volunteers as you try and convince them that you’re not actually tired yet.

Those steps are the easy ones. When you’re starting out, you’re not quite tired yet and the steps are pretty easy. When you’re finishing, you see the end goal and they get easier. The ones at the water stations, you have your ego to protect so somehow you try your best to shrug off the fatigue.

But in between they’re not always easy.

Not all steps are equal.

Some are downright ugly. Sometimes, they don’t even look like steps. Sometimes, your steps forward are really you just doing your best to drag drag your tired legs forward and trying to make it not look too much like a limp.

But if you want to finish something, you have to to that. You have to move forward.

The defining difference between the people that start things and the people that finish them is the ability to take move forward – one ugly step at a time.

You have to be willing to take the ugly step forward.

It’s not always glamorous and it’s not always pretty, but you move forward. And that’s what matters.

***

I’ll be in San Francisco this week to see Nate finish his walk across America. Will you be around? Let me know.

Also, if you ordered an Impossible Shirt in the past few days, they should be shipping today. #BOOM.

[Photo Credit]

Filed Under: Impossible Things, Meetups, Races, The Impossible, Travel Tagged With:

WDS Roadtrip – In Photos

June 18, 2011 By 34 Comments

Something to help you cultivate wonder in your own life and do the impossible.



















 






Now go do something impossible.

[All photos via me & my iPod Touch]

Filed Under: Good Stories, Life, Photo Essays, Road Trip, The Impossible, Travel Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Cultivating Wonder: The Origins of The Impossible

June 16, 2011 By 40 Comments

Two weeks ago, my friend Nate and my brother Justin piled into a car and headed to Portland, Oregon. Over the next fifteen days, we spent countless hours in the car, saw monument after monument, jumped out of a plane and off a bridge and clocked over 7,000 miles on the odometer of my car.

While we knew that driving was the “scenic” route, I don’t think any of us expected to actually see some of the scenes we saw. Glacial lakes, snow-covered mountains threatening to avalanche, live forest fires, and this massive hole in the ground were just the start.

The first few times we drove by some ridiculous scenery, we would just yell “WOW” or “LOOK AT THAT” and stare. After a few times of this, we stopped saying anything and every time we came over a hill or to a great viewpoint, our jaws just dropped as we stared in wonder at the absolute beauty of what we were looking at. After a while, someone would break the silence with, “C’mon Nature!” and we kept staring out the car windows in awe.

As I’m writing this, I’m looking at our reactions and realizing that they’re seemingly childish – something that a five-year-old would say…but I’m totally okay with that. As a child, everything is new and everything is amazing. Somehow as we grow up, things change. You get into routines and what used to be extraordinary becomes mundane. We get used to the wondrous. Instead of walking around the blades of grass in the backyard barefoot with a magnifying glass frying examining an ant with wide-eyed wonder, we walk right past it without even noticing because the yard has to be mowed.

Actively cultivating that sense of wonder is incredibly powerful because you begin to see things that are seemingly impossible, yet they exist. But, because things become mundane over time, you have to step outside your normal routine and consciously choose to consciously stand back in awe of something. You have to notice things before you can stare in wonder at them.

But when you do, it’s awesome.

When you realize how big the world is, you realize how small of a world you’ve made for yourself. When you learn to wonder, you begin to realize how few things in the world really are impossible.

>>A massively beautiful hole in the ground cut by one river over millions of years? Impossible. Yet there’s the Grand Canyon

>>Stunning snow-covered peaks rising up thousands of feet into the air, .5 inch per year at a time for millions of years? Impossible. But we still have the Grand Tetons.

>>One massive ice cube leveling fields, moving boulders and changing terrains moving at a sloths pace. Impossible, it sounds like something out of a bad doomsday movie, but Glacier National Park is still a thing of beauty.

When you realize the magnitude of things that are, the things that aren’t seem bite-sized.

When you see these types of things, losing ten pounds doesn’t seem like such a big deal. Running a marathon doesn’t seem so daunting. Maybe, even running an ironman isn’t?

After all, if some of these impossibly beautiful things exist in nature, why can’t other impossible things exist?

How To Cultivate Wonder

So how do you go about cultivating wonder if you’re stuck in routine?

Go Somewhere

Get out of your normal routine. Go somewhere different. Maybe you can’t go across the country, but you can probably go across your town, city, county or state. Even if you’re in Kansas and amazed at it’s flatness, stand back and be amazed at just how flat one place can be.

Go Slow

Nate is walking across america. When we were driving and he would see a beautiful site, he’d just raise his arms and yell, “AMERICA!”. He says he does this quite often on his walk. I think he’s nuts. But, he might just have a a point. Nate’s goes slow (about 2.5mph) and covers between 15-20 miles a day. It’s going to take him much longer to get across America than it took us (he left Delaware in March, he’ll get to San Francisco in October), but when he’s done he’ll have seen much more of the US than most people and his sense of wonder will be through the roof.

Just Go

It’s really hard to cultivate wonder in front of your TV, computer, or some other similarly pixel-driven technology. Go. Get out of the house. Get out of your normal routine and just take an hour or two to sit in wonder at something. Maybe it’s the rocky mountains. Maybe it’s something in your backyard. But go. Pick something and decide to wonder at the impossibility of it’s existence. Be amazed. Then go do something impossible. Other people need something to wonder at too.


Filed Under: Good Stories, Life, Personal Development, Road Trip, Travel Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

How To Sneak Into Mount Rushmore

May 31, 2011 By 24 Comments


After driving 24 hours in the last 36 hours, I haven’t had much time to do a normal written post. After sleeping in the car in a picnic area conveniently marked “no overnight parking”, I woke up at 5am to the sunrise and watched it come up over the Black Hills. It was pretty cool, so we decided to shoot a video while it was happen.  Please try to excuse the excessive shaking of the camera. It’s a result of the waking up in a 40-50 degree car and trying to warm up.

 

[Click here to watch video]

Mount Rushmore opens at 8am from May 8th – August 13th. We were there at 5am. While we could still see the monument from the road, we wanted to get closer but wanted to get on the road before 8am. We walked up to the gate and saw it was open…This is what happened.

 

[Click here to watch video]

Pro tip: If you want the easy way to sneak into Mount Rushmore at 5am and the gates aren’t open, just drive up the exit ramp. There aren’t any barriers in the way and as long as there isn’t incoming traffic, it’s actually much easier & shorter route than the official entrance route.

This post is maybe a little different than a lot of the normal blog posts you’ll usually see, but a huge part of this blog is about just having fun and having a life full of meaning & adventure. I’m not doing this to make money, I’m doing this to live a good story with my life. This road trip is a lot of fun and something very much worth doing on it’s own, but still there’s something you can learn from almost every experience you have. Today’s takeaway:

If you want to do something. Try it. See who actually stops you. Chances are, it won’t be anyone. Even if you what you want to do sounds ridiculous…like walking right into a National Monument when it’s “closed”.

I’ll be doing more updates about the road trip here, but if you want to keep up with the road trip shenanigans in real time, you can also follow along on twitter by following me (@joelrunyon), Nate (@whereisnate) and Justin (@justinrunyon) and following our hashtag #wdsroadtrip. Also, be sure to check out Nate’s blog over at NateWalksAmerica.com for his take on what we’re doing. If you’re gonna be in Portland in the next few days, don’t be afraid to say hi.

The Black Hills at Sunrise

Filed Under: BIT Updates, Good Stories, Road Trip, Travel Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Longest Route Between Two Cities Is A Road Trip

May 27, 2011 By 31 Comments

Road Trip

There’s a week left until I take 40+ people jumping out of a plane in Portland. I’ve got the deposits in, head counts finalized and all the tiny little details taken care of except for one small thing.

I didn’t know how I was going to get there.

I had organized a trip from 2,000 miles away, convinced 40+ people to face their fears and jump out of a plane and collected over $2,000 in deposit money, but I still didn’t know how I was actually getting to Portland. I figured, if worse came to worse, I could just fly in to Portland thursday night, jump out of a plane on Friday, and fly back on Sunday evening. But, for something called the World Domination Summit that seemed like a pretty weak plan, so I decided to scrap that idea in favor of a better one.

ROAD TRIP

I’m a fan of road trips (you might remember this one and this one). I’ve been to a good number of countries and most of the eastern United States, but when it came to the western half of this country, I’ve done a terrible job of seeing things. I’ve been to LA, Phoenix & San Francisco as well as the Denver airport a dozen times, but as far as getting out and seeing the country, I’ve done a absolutely terrible job of seeing what the west has to offer.

So, to remedy that, I’m driving 5,000+ miles roundtrip out to Portland and back.

I had this idea way back in November, but wasn’t quite sure if I was going to be able to pull it off due to multiple variables. But, in the last week or so thanks to a few things (I quit my job, we needed more cars for skydiving, and this random guy walking through missouri needed a ride), things actually started to fall together. So while, I could just take the easy route and plunk down a few hundred bucks for a plane ticket and fly out to Portland, I realized it’s not often that a get a few weeks of uninterrupted time to do whatever the heck I feel like, so i figured I’d might take the time I have right now between jobs to see the rest of the country.

The Road Trip Minions

Road trips are awesome. I’m a big fan, but driving by yourself is usually boring. And while I pride myself on the fact that I can entertain myself for hours by singing and telling myself jokes that only I think are funny, 5,000 miles solo could be rough. Fortunately, one of my good buddies Nate, is walking across america right now. He started in Delaware 3 months ago and is headed towards San Francisco. He’s currently somewhere in Missouri. He had no clue how he was getting to Portland either, so when I mentioned the trip, he was all for it.

We’ll also be taking my little brother along. When he found out I was taking people skydiving and going on a bungee jumping adventure, he got absolutely giddy. When he found out I was driving out, he about lost it begging me to come along. Being the nice older brother I am and considering he’s actually much bigger than me now, I figured it was best to let him come along.

Cool Desert Photo

The Plan Is There Is No Plan

On trips like these, I like to have as little planning as possible. I firmly believe that spontaneous road trips are the best ones. If you asked me for my itinerary for the trip, I literally couldn’t tell you.

What I do know is that we’re leaving this Monday, May 30th and I need to be in Portland June 2nd by midnight at the latest. On June 3rd (weather permitting) Me + 40 people will all jump to our certain death from 13,000 feet. Pending our survival, I need to be back in the Chicago area by June 12th to drop my brother off. If I’m not back by June 12th, I need to get my brother to an airport by June 12th and Nate and I can continue sightseeing around the country indefinitely :) .

Along the way, there’s a lot of places I want to see. We’ll try to map out a route to see them all in a semi-sensical manner, but there’s no telling what we’ll do once we actually end up in the car. We might like some places more than we thought we would, so we’ll be playing it by ear and doing our best to spend our time in the places we enjoy the most.

A short list of some of the places we want to see

  • Denver & Boulder
  • Las Vegas
  • Lake Tahoe
  • Yellowstone
  • Grand Tetons
  • 13,000 feet
  • Seattle
  • Idaho
  • Portland
  • Mount Rushmore
  • Cool looking desert places [You know the ones I’m talking about, they’re in every single western film you’ve ever seen. I’m pretty sure this is in Utah/Arizona area. We’ll probably just drive around until we find it].

Like I said, the details are still being hammered out. We really don’t have a route other than “head west” and we’ll probably do a fair amount of car-sleeping and/or sleeping out under the stars. If you’re near any of these places and want to say hi, let me know where you’re at and we’ll see if we can’t meet up at some point. That’s the great part about spontaneity, nothing is planned, so if you have any suggestions, let ‘em fly. We might just be dumb enough to do it.

What’s Next?

I’ve been getting a lot of questions, since I quit my job about what’s next. I can assure you of a few things;

But I am moving. To Milwaukee. As in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Yes, Wisconsin. The state who’s pride and joy is cheese.

Why?

I have no clue. I have no affinity for cheese and whether or not they won the Super Bowl last year, the Green Bay Packers might be the worst team ever to play the game of football #GoBears.

In Milwaukee, I’ll be working for a internet advertising agency and business incubator just outside the city. In a way it’s very similar to the work I’ve been doing, but it will also have a lot of new challenges (like learning to deal with Packer fans). More importantly, there’s a ton of really smart people that I’ll be working with who I think will make me a better marketer and entrepreneur. I think there’s a lot of value in working on your own business, but there’s also a lot to be learned from working with others and I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive, and I think there’s a lot of opportunity to do some big things down the road.

But that’s not for a couple weeks yet. In the meantime, there’s a lot of empty road in front of me [literally], and a big fall from the sky that I need to take care of first. If you’re out west and think we might run into you, give me a shout. I’d love to see if we can meet up!

[Photo 1, Photo 2]

Filed Under: Blogging, Good Stories, Life, Meetups, Travel Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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