Recently Ed Stafford completed the unimaginable trek along the Amazon river from source to sea.  He started April 2nd, 2008 and completed a few weeks ago on August 9th, 2010.  The distance?  Oh just a few miles, try 4,000 to be exact (That’s 6,437 KM’s)  To put that into perspective that’s the same distance as walking from Vancouver to Halifax which if you change the directions on Google maps from driving to walking is about 45 days.  Ed’s trip was 859 days through dense forest where he encountered biting insects, snakes, bogs (not blogs), jaguars, pit vipers, deadly electric eels and tribes thinking he was some gringo looking to prospect land for oil.

This is on determined man because his partner who was supposed to do the whole thing with him left after 3 months.  He was later joined by another man from Peru who said he would guide him for 5 days however ended up taking him all the way to the end.  The sheer will to complete something of this task, to be away from friends and family for over two years to complete this ultimate journey is just astonishing.  However it was his determination and whether that determination was fuelled by his egotistical desire to be in the record books or his goal of raising awareness and money for Cancer Research, the ME Association and Rainforest charities, it doesn’t matter.  He had a goal large enough that no matter what stood in the way, anaconda’s, tribe members that wanted to hill him, he did the near impossible and completed his journey.

I guess I can equate in some ways to Lindsay and I building our side business.  Yes the odds are stacked heavily against us and seem somewhat near impossible however we have a goal and a dream that’s larger than any obstacle and that is fuelling our desire for more out of life.  We have one life to live and we plan to live it to the fullest and that does not mean living in debt (house, car, loc, credit card, student loans, etc…) or earning enough to just get by every single week and not being able to bless our parents who have given us so much.  To me that’s not living, maybe to some but not us.

The one biggest thing we have in our corner that Ed did not in his near impossible dream is that we have people backed by people backed by more people in succession without failure that have accomplished the things we want to accomplish and knock down.  It’s not some person somewhere that sorta was successful, it’s people we get coaching and mentoring from each day.  Ed did not have people he could go to and say hey how did you make it through this part or that part.  What did you do here or there?  Yes, Ed made it without guidance or help but he did end up making a lot of mistakes along the way and in some instances it almost cost him his life, ended up getting off track, and almost starving to death.  I take comfort in the fact that we can avoid those kinds of mistakes because the people who’ve gone before us can teach us not to make those same mistakes and help us become more successful and in turn any mistakes that we make we can pass the knowledge on and make sure our team are successful.

I am pretty pumped to read whatever book Ed puts out of his journey’s because the videos I’ve seen so far are pretty flippen amazing.  I’m pretty inspired by Ed and what he’s accomplished.  Why? Because he was determined and he beat the odds and did what people said he couldn’t do or thought he was crazy for trying.  He turned around and proved them all wrong.  We will prove people wrong and beat the odds, statistics and naysayers because our goals are worth every single ounce of energy and time we put into them and helping others do the same is an amazing accomplishment.

What’s the other option?  Say those goals and dreams are not worth it? Quite? Give up?

Check out Ed’s Blog here – http://www.walkingtheamazon.com

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Please check out these other determined bloggers in the 2010 Summer Blogging Challenge. Cliff – Peer Pressure Works, Chad – The Grind, Kelly – ‘Round the Bend, Kim – In Desperate Need of Entertainment, Kyle – Teacher, Tinkerer, Farmer, Geek, Liam – In the Now, Brad – Kick Me Out Soon, Tammy – Tam I am, Erron – From The Inside Looking In, James – Feelings of White, Vlad – Analog Coast, Janine - Because