The plane door slammed open. I looked down and saw a lake, a checkerboard of farms and slivers of gray roads stretching across rural southern Michigan. There was a man sitting to my right. I had never met him. I didn't know his name. I had no idea of his credentials other than guessing that because his title was "jumpmaster" he must have been an expert. So when he barked instructions at me, I followed them.
At his behest, I swung my left leg through the open door, out of the plane, and onto a step. Then I rotated my hips so I could straighten my arms. Left hand first, I grabbed the strut that holds the wing to the body of the plane and pulled back.
Now I was standing on the outside of the plane. While clinging to the strut with both hands, I dangled, at his command, first my right foot, then both feet off the step they were on. The plane was 3,500 feet above the ground and moving at 65 miles per hour. I flapped in the wind like a flag on a car antenna. A static line connected the parachute pack on my back to the plane. When I let go of the strut and fell, the static line became taut, which ripped the parachute off.
I hoped so at least.
As my hands strained to squeeze the struts , I was questioning my decision making to say the least.
The jumpmaster gave one final instruction:"Let go!"
I acted like I didn't hear him. I refused to let go.
* * *
It was June 1994, my first month out of college. I've never been so scared as in March 2013, when I was a writer at Sports News . One morning I got up early to go to a mission. My boss called me to tell me that I had to attend a meeting at the office this afternoon. He wouldn't tell me what the meeting was about, and by not telling me, he told me everything. I was going to be fired. I went home to hug my career for a few hours before being kicked off the proverbial plane.
I was (and still am) married with two children, and the fact that my wife staying home to take care of our children was (and remains) our top priority as parents. It was not a problem when I had a job. What if I didn't? How was I going to support them?
Fear rushed at me at 32 feet per second squared. I applied for 18 positions without getting as much as a rejection letter. I don't want to sound doomed, but even if I had gotten a job, the journalism landscape was so bad there was no guarantee I would keep it. I was tired of being enslaved by this fear. I decided to start my own writing business.
There was only one problem. I didn't know what to do.
I wore fear like a second skin. I was afraid of failing, of being told no, that I would never sell a story and that even if I did, it would be my last.
To be alone was to isolate. I thought I could learn to run my writing business just from other writers. I was so wrong about it — so, very wrong — that it's embarrassing to admit I've ever thought about it. And I learned that I was wrong in a way I never expected:by putting myself in dangerous situations. Slowly but surely I began to overcome my fear of the business world by facing the fears of the physical world. The lessons I learned have prepared me for all the adventures to come, and if you're a solopreneur yourself – or are planning to go it alone – I hope they can serve you too
Related: 5 things I learned about being a solopreneur
Lesson #1:Understand Boldness and Consequence.
By the time I arrived in Winter Park, Colorado to mountain bike down a ski hill, I was mentally, physically and mentally exhausted. emotionally. I had traveled to Colorado to write about Knights of Heroes, a camp for boys whose fathers died in the military. During our three-day trek earlier this week, two boys had to be evacuated from the mountain because they couldn't stop throwing up.
The two mentors leading my group were the fighter pilots John “Cosmo” Oglesby and Ryan “Slider” DeKok. They embodied the camp's "be bold" philosophy. In their personal and professional lives, they seek out risk-taking as a way to develop tenacity and resilience and lead a fuller life. I craved comfort and certainty.
I thought there was a fine line between a fuller life and riding a bike on the side of a mountain. I had planned to go mountain biking. I hadn't ridden a bike in years and didn't want to reintroduce myself to this activity on a ski slope. How about a paved, flat greenway first? The tension I felt summed up the first challenge every solopreneur faced:at some point, you just had to leave and I wasn't ready.
But it wasn't easy to say no. Even though I was just a reporter, after spending four days with the boys, I felt compelled to help with the camp's "be bold" philosophy, or at least not contradict it. The boys were ready to descend the mountain. If I chickened out, it would send exactly the wrong message. "Be bold unless you're scared, then never mind" stinks like an inspirational message.
I was 43 and gave in to peer pressure from a group of teenagers.
We rode and stopped, rode and stopped, getting acclimatized to the bikes and the terrain. Halfway through our first descent, I thought I had it figured out – maybe it was true that you will never forget how to ride a bike. The boy in front of me was holding me. He was afraid of his mind. But he continued. I let him roll out of sight so I could go “fast” catching him.
Soon my confidence exceeded my abilities. I hit a root and went up in the air. I applied my brakes – too hard, as I soon discovered. When the front tire hit the ground, the bike stopped, but I kept going. Navigating the handlebars I had enough time to think, I'm wearing a helmet, chest pad and knee pads so it won't hurt much... BAM!
I landed on my hands , my face and my chest. I inventoried the pain and was shocked that I had none. The only thing hurt was my pride.
The boys and I took a lunch break. Everyone crashed at least once, and we tried to come to terms with stories about gravity. If the adventure had ended right there, I would have learned a lot about dealing with fear, risk versus reward, and daring. But there was still more to come.
Related: Afraid of risks? How to be bolder
“If you can live a bold life, more often than not it will reward you rather than punish you. »
Slider arrived pale:Cosmo crashed and broke his hip. The boys and I gathered around his bed at an on-site clinic. His eyes were glassy from the painkillers and wet with disappointment. If there was ever a lesson that boldness can have consequences, this is it. The pain was excruciating, and he spent weeks on crutches and months in physiotherapy.
That was three years ago. I recently called Cosmo to ask him:was it worth it? He said he regretted breaking his hip because of the burden it created for his wife and two boys, and he won't ride mountain bikes again because he doesn't want to risk doing them again. But he's not going to give up his dedication to a bold life. “Being bold doesn't always mean going out and winning,” he says. “Sometimes you come across a brick wall. You temper it with life experience and intelligence. If you can live a bold life, more often than not it will reward you rather than punish you. ”
Even when his bold decisions punish him, Cosmo says he comes out of it stronger and with great stories to tell.
Lesson #2:Find kindred spirits.
This mission became a turning point for me, one of many adrenaline-infused adventures. The first fruit of this was joy. Dude, I had fun. I also had long conversations with the owners and guides and was shocked at how much we had in common. Our activities were very different, but we faced the same challenges.
From my whitewater rafting guide, I learned that rivers are like customers – they follow predictable but not guaranteed patterns. I learned the value of escape from a map and compass instructor who, for his day job, works as a homicide investigator. I learned to be tough and smart in negotiations with my firearms instructor.
And I learned authenticity on an ATV tour of a glacier. The owner was delightfully charming and naughty. But he apologized for his playfulness, as if he thinks he should stop being that way because he's a business owner now and business owners are serious people who make important decisions. . He dropped an f-bomb in his introductory comments before our tour and was embarrassed by it. It's okay, I wanted to tell him, you're you. I would have been disappointed if he hadn't dropped an F-bomb.
The common denominator for all of them – even the paragliding instructor who offered a case study on how not to treat customers – was passion. Most of the owners I spoke to opened their business after a career in a relatively boring field. They wanted more life than the corporate world offered. And they've all learned that running a business presents hurdles for which passion is not an insufficient remedy.
Planning, marketing, people management, social media monitoring, creative web presence, dealing with contracts and so on were mysteries to some or all of them, just as they were to me. Those who thrive tend to focus on the paths to success, not the obstacles in their path, an approach I learned in off-road driving lessons.
Lesson #3:Increase focus in worst case scenario.
I looked down and to the left, out the driver's side window, and saw no curbs or shoulders but a steep ravine that I couldn't see the fund. I turned my eyes to the “road” – a narrow strip of land running through western Oregon. Green and brown streaked through the windows like a forest nightmare. I felt like I was going 100 miles an hour. I glanced at the speedometer...not even 20. But I still locked the brakes because I was scared.
The truck backed up slightly before I resumed Control. Sliding even two feet to the left would have been disastrous — for me, the Tacoma pickup truck I was driving, and my two passengers, including my off-road driving instructor. To paraphrase a mashup by Ferris Bueller and my instructor:Life moves pretty fast. If you don't slow down on turns, you'll careen off a cliff and die.
Related: Think slow and other tips for better problem solving
The key when navigating off-road obstacles is to look where you want to go, not the obstacle. I needed that lesson in 2017. I lost a major client, never replaced him, and couldn't sell a story to anyone. My income has dropped by 40%. I degenerated into anger and frustration. All I could think about was how I lost that client, and all that was accomplished was to guarantee that I wouldn't sell anything.
I wanted to rebuild my business, change everything, because of a reverse. I had a lesson in overreaction last summer on another off-road adventure, this one in Dogwood Canyon in southwest Missouri. I drove the course a few times and tried to memorize the layout so I could go faster. On the third lap, I stopped in front of a section that had given me problems the first two times. Two tire tracks meandered there, and the road was otherwise a minefield of rocks, roots, and potholes big enough to give a baby a bath.
The tire tracks were too close together to the Toyota Sequoia I was driving. I could only keep my tires on one of them. The other two tires would hit rocks, roots and potholes. It would be half easy, half difficult. I visualized where I was going, took my foot off the brake and coasted forward.
There was a Tacoma in front of me. This driver had it easy. The wheelbase of the truck would allow its driver to keep both tires on smooth ground. She could dodge rocks, roots, and potholes, but she didn't even try. She bounced and pushed and sealed off the danger I was so determined to avoid. I watched as she and her passenger jostled in the cabin. 20 feet away, above the noise of the engines, I heard them laughing in pure delight as they drove away.
I had obviously overestimated the problem. I pushed the gas and followed my careful plan anyway. Made it safe.
Didn't laugh like I did.
Lesson #4:Prepare for danger.
Most Memorable Review I received in my early years as a solopreneur was from an editor who said a story I submitted would have been good for Sports News , but he needed something stronger. I had become complacent and needed to push myself. I did this by going on adventure missions. The more adventures I continued, the more the risk-taking – once away from my professional life – seeped in. I identified difficult physical situations I had struggled with to see if I could beat them and what I could learn by doing it.
I covered a dog mushing race in Alaska and I don't couldn't believe what those mushers went through. I grew up in Michigan. I thought I knew cold. I didn't know the squat. My first full day in Alaska was 40 degrees below zero. I had never felt my eyeballs go cold before, but it did. I hurt all over after a few minutes and had to go back inside, and yet the dog bubbling persevered through that cold all day. I wondered how they survived such brutal conditions, and returned to Alaska to attend a mushing school to try to find out.
I had become complacent and needed to push myself. I did this by going on adventure missions.
When I pulled into Just Short of Magic outside of Fairbanks on March 1 last year, I tried to roll down my window to ask an employee where I should park. But my window was frozen. I pulled into what I thought was a parking spot. The sidewalk was under three feet of snow. Putting on my gloves and balaclava, I saw a thermostat on a barn that showed the temperature was 20°C lower. I smiled. It was exactly what I wanted.
I got out of the car and stopped smiling. The cold squeezed me like shrink wrap.
I rushed to the visitor center to get warm. I went out a few minutes later to pet the dogs, and because I didn't drive 3,600 miles to stay indoors when it was cold. Eleanor Wirts, the owner, approached and greeted me warmly. She asked me to follow her inside her cabin, where she would conduct the tutorial portion of the training. Usually she does it outside, but she didn't want us standing outside when it was negative 20. When it's too cold for Alaskans to be outside, it gets really cold.
Indeed, the cold is an ever-present and life-threatening challenge for Eleanor, her employees and her customers. It's not like an off-road obstacle that she can avoid. She has no choice but to put up with it. Years of experience have taught her how.
Eleanor knows that many customers won't have the proper equipment, so she has plenty to let them borrow. Before the lesson started, Jenna, the office manager, once again donated my cold weather gear, as she does for every client. On my lower half, I wore long johns, jeans, snow pants, wool socks and boots which worked well in the St. Louis winters. On top I had more long johns, a few sweatshirts, a St. Louis caliber winter coat, hat, balaclava and gloves.
That was all cold weather gear that I owned. But it wasn't good enough. Jenna outfitted me with a coat and boots, all arctic caliber. If I had insisted on wearing mine, Eleanor wouldn't have let me ride the sled.
COURTESY OF MATT CROSSMAN
The dog mushing trail cuts deep into the Alaskan wilderness . If something goes wrong – the sled breaks, a snow machine crashes into it, whatever – Eleanor and her client will either have to go home or wait for a snowmobile to pick them up. This could prove fatal if they were not properly dressed. The danger is so real.
I put on the boots, which were so huge they made my St. Louis boots look like flats. I zipped up the jacket and felt like I was wearing an oven. Eleanor and I hit the trail, and after less than a minute I understood how dog mushers resist the cold:they are prepared for it. I never would have believed it, but the 20 negative wasn't bad.
I no longer had to fear the cold and instead could exult in the beauty that swallowed me. I only saw four colors:the white of the snow, the blue of the sky, the green of the needles and the brown of the trees. I only heard Eleanor's commands to the dogs - no planes, no cars, no buzzing, nothing.
After an hour, we returned to the kennel. I took off the Just Short of Magic gear, put my own back on, stepped outside, and was once again grateful for Eleanor's preparation as the all-too-familiar cold enveloped me again. I rushed to my car, got in and turned up the heat. I was grateful the door didn't close.
Lesson #5:Don't be afraid to be afraid.
The off-road lessons taught me how to avoid obstacles. Dog mushing taught me to prepare for them. What if we faced them head-on? I'm always afraid of heights. Can I learn to overcome this? What would this teach me about running a business? I signed up for tree climbing lessons to find out.
I showed up at Adventure Tree on a hot summer day in St. Louis, over 100 degrees hotter than when I went mushing. Owner Guy Mott gave me a helmet and gloves, tied me to his rope system and taught me how to climb. I pulled myself up to the first “pitch” (a tree branch wide enough to stand 20 feet off the ground) with no problem.
But I froze when I got there. I loved climbing, but I hated standing on the ground. When I was climbing I could see the ropes working. When I stood in the field, I had to believe they were working. I couldn't do it. I didn't think the ropes would catch me if I fell.
I hugged the tree (even though I was tied to it) and considered my options. Two fears fought for my attention. One of my biggest professional fears is taking on an assignment and not completing it. If I stopped climbing, this fear would come true. But I'm also afraid of heights, and if I continued, that fear would be tested.
The story paid $1,500, so I pulled myself to another pitch, then another.
On the third throw, I was maybe 55 feet higher. My fingers were shaking too much to open the carabiner, a necessary maneuver for me to continue. Then my legs started shaking. I waited 10 seconds, 20, 30, hoping my involuntary movements would stop. They did not do it. I suddenly thought that I couldn't imagine:if my involuntary tremors made me fall and I seriously injured myself or died, how stupid would it be if I fell out of a tree? My children would carry this burden for the rest of their lives.
By now, I had climbed high enough to write a story. I decided that trying to climb higher was no longer a test of courage, it was dangerous. So I gave up, short of the top, disappointed but also convinced that "never give up" is actually terrible advice.
Here's the great irony:to get out of the tree, I had to do exactly what I was afraid:getting off the pitch. I had no choice but to trust the ropes and use them to unwind.
Related: 52+ Ways to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
* * *
I wish I could say that the end result of all of this is that I have embraced a life of permanent boldness. I do not have any. I always watch article submissions to editors for hours, sometimes days, sometimes weeks, before I finally decide to risk a bad response and hit send. But there is no doubt that surviving physical hazards taught me to take professional risks.
I looked back at the times when I had been scared and realized that if I got through it, I would get through it.
Last year, I cooked up assignments for a 16-day trip to Europe, five countries, six planes, six hotels, and six assignments for four different publications. This was by far the most daring project I have ever attempted. At the beginning of my life as a solopreneur, I didn't have the skills to organize a trip like this, and I wouldn't have had the courage to try to do it anyway. Before leaving, anxiety tore me in two. I can not do that! What was I thinking? What kind of crazy stories in France, Belgium and Italy when he's never been there and doesn't speak any of those languages?
I looked back on the times when I was scared and I realized that if I made it, I would make it. Collectively, these experiences prepared me like the Just Short of Magic gear prepared me for the cold. Like off-road, I chose to focus on running my stories instead of what could go wrong. I also knew that even if the whole trip went horribly sideways, I would be stronger because of it.
There is a line between being bold and being stupid. Where is this line? I do not know. Every time I go on an adventure, it moves. If I ever find where it is, I'll write a book, sell millions of copies, and spend the rest of my life on a bucket list so epic it would thrill Cosmo. For now, I will look for ways to live a bold life tempered by wisdom and experience. It helps my business and my life and it's a lot more fun than the alternative.
I actually know where the line between fat and stupid is:at the door of an airplane. Or more specifically, the airplane door I hung from in 1994. I often wondered what the jumpmaster was thinking when I didn't let go. He shouted the instruction to jump again, and I finally let go.
I plummeted to Earth, 32 feet per second squared. During practice, I was taught to count to 10 and then look for my parachute, as it should be open by the static line by then. At no other time in my life have I cared so much about the difference between should and would. I counted to myself…to “two thousand” and YANK – I was floating peacefully. Using the rockers to steer, I zigzagged all the way down, watching the checkerboard of farms and ribbons of gray roads stretching across rural southern Michigan rise up to greet me. I landed dead center on the target, a pit of peat moss the size of a batting box.
I smiled as I landed, grateful to be in one piece. I told everyone it was great and I'm sure I told bigger lies but I can't think of any. I am never, and I mean never never, never, not in a million years, never, never, ever, ever, ever again.
Unless a client offers to pay me to write about it.
Related: Why stepping out of your comfort zone is worth it, even when it's uncomfortable
This article originally appeared in the Winter 2018 issue of LadiesBelle I/O magazine.
