When A Shining Moment Illuminates A New Path

There are moments where life freezes, and it brings you into a deeper exploration of your journey, one that calls you forward in a new way. Once such moment I experienced was in the days after my daughter was born.

During these immensely quiet moments, everything seemed to stop, and for a few days I held my whole life in my hands. I reflected back before my career began, into the times when my title was traveler, the era of my life when I dedicated three years of my life walking to the edges of the earth, to Australia, to Asia, to Northern Africa, Europe and South America. I had devoted myself to learning languages and meeting the people of this planet, hitch-hiking by car, truck and even by sailboat. I traveled overland, and walked many high peaks, and navigated some of the deepest valleys of my own being.?

In these quiet, moments between feedings and naps, experiences from my journeys came back to me, and surrounded me in my senses as if I was there once more:

• Moments of being welcomed by people I barely knew, and being taken in like family.
• Moment of being wholly lost in my French studies as I worked a ski shop in the lower Alps. And my challenges were both immensely difficult and truly hilarious, sometimes all at once.
• Moments of sitting in cafe somewhere, like the time in the jungle of Colombia when I sat with a Japanese student who spoke no English and I spoke no Japanese, yet we were able to communicate in our basic Spanish about the richness of our adventures.
• Moments where a chance meeting created a new path, like one time I met two new friends on the top of a bus in Nepal and they turned into a life-long friendship.?

But solo travel was far from a joy ride. I was also immersed in the most difficult moments:

Moments of hitchhiking across Argentina, or holding some terrible temporary job like lawn-mowing or bathroom cleaning, and feeling the loneliness, the true loneliness of standing with my thumb out in the middle of nowhere, being no one and with no place to go.?

It was there, in these lonely moments on the road, that I felt the depth of questioning who I was, and what was distinct about my life. These questions would continue to hit me like my butt against the bottom of a well.?They would ask and ask, until I had some reasonable answer.

And there, years later, holding my brand new daughter, whose giant eyes gazed afresh into this new world, I would walk through our springtime garden. And I'd wander these difficult feelings from the past, and surprisingly recognize how many of them I would willingly experience, again and again, just to gain one insight, one reminder of the true connection of being human - a moment of chance, a reminder of possibility, of hope and natural wonder - like the world opening to me.?

Because with these rich moments of connectivity, I’d forget the trials, the tribulations, the struggles. I’d be alive again in the wonder of existence once more, and the other moments would be washed away by the river of time, a bare memory.?

Carrying Sofi, under my arms through our Goldenberry Bushes, I came upon one neglected garden bed, a patch of our garden with too much sun that was untended dirt. And I realized one of my deepest held beliefs:?

The greatest treasures of our lives, like seeds in a garden left fallow, are resting just below the ground awaiting tending.

I thought, wait a second, all of the strategy, all of the content creation, the animation, the digital innovation, my whole career of 12 years...it was all based on this subtle promise that magical connection would appear across this global network as it had on the road.

And under the shade of eucalyptus trees, I had to be honest with myself: I never found it.

And in a moment, as I recognized this, my entire professional life path changed. I saw that this thing I had left by the side of the road was one of life's greatest treasures, and that it had infinite applications in the modern day.

I realized that I could - that I had to - become an adventurer again. But this time it would not be sleeping on a patio or the floor of a train, or throwing myself into the great empty road with a baguette and a hunk of cheese.?

I have to set out to travel while standing still. To practice the art of reconnection, to study the landscape of life once more…and to help others to do the same.?

Even with two young children, an economy in shambles, and a very short cash runway, I knew I had to leave my job, and the pursuit of the edge of the edge of media creation. I had to come back to the center.

This core passion for the richness of lived experience has sustained me for these past fourteen years, and enabled me to rediscover wonder in my creative work in a way I couldn’t have previously imagined.?It would lead me once more around the world (not sleeping on the floor), helping transformative leaders bring their stories to life. It would help me to overcome my own resistance to becoming a coach (filed under Dad Was a Basketball Coach, And It Was Intense) and lead me to a place where my job is to study the landscape of those I serve in order to catalyze transformative acts of story.

To travel while standing still.

I have to be honest, too, that being an entrepreneur, making my own way with growing kids and a changing world - this path is sometimes just as bumpy, as lonely and self-reflective as it was taking death-defying truck rides along the high Andes. But much like I did in my travels, I invest in those long hauls in exchange for the shining moments of connection, of helping to unlock the mysteries of a person’s great journey, of being truly helpful in bringing a needed story into full embodiment.

What's one shining moment that this writing has brought up for you? One transformation, moment of connectivity? One that has informed your life path?