—

Race: Tri Indy

This was my second triathlon ever. At this point, I didn’t have cycling shoes and was wearing my running shoes on the bike section. This saved me tons of time on the second transition (I was like top 10 T2 times, because I didn’t have to change shoes from biking to running), but it led to situations like this one.

I made it out of the swim fine and was about 4 miles into the bike, gunning it as fast as I could on my bike  (I wasn’t going very fast, but I was trying). A bunch of pros zipped by me and I kept pedaling, determined to try and keep up, but I felt a tug on my foot. I looked down and saw that my shoelaces had wrapped around the pedal and my foot was stuck. I couldn’t pedal anymore because my shoelaces were out of room, so I did my best to coast to the side of the road. I tried to stand up, but ended up falling to the ground in slow-motion as my foot was still stuck to my pedal.

I sat on my butt in the gravel on the side of the road as I tried to untangle my shoe my shoe from the whole mess while everyone zipped by me, looking back with a questioning “what-the-heck-are-you-doing” look. It took a minute or so, but I finally was able to free my foot, fix my laces and tuck them away so it wouldn’t happen again. Then I tried to nonchalantly jump back on my bike in the midst of a bunch of riders and act like nothing ever happened.

Lesson Learned: Tie your shoes. Get the laces out of the way or get cycling cleats!

—

Race: Indy Monumental Half-Marathon

I made it through the first half of the race pretty well. Feeling good. This was my first race farther than a 10k, so I knew from here on out, it was mostly uncharted territory. My IT band was hurting, but by the time I hit the 10 mile marker, I knew I could finish. Just a 5k left. Totally doable.

I got to mile 12 or so and started striding it out. I felt good and I wasn’t going to look tired as I finished out my first half marathon! I needed to look good for the finish photos!

I hit mile 13 and I was almost there. I could taste it. There was about 100 yards in front of me before we turned the corner for the finish. As I turned the corner, I could hear the crowd start cheering really loud. Definitely more loud than they had been before. Obviously, I assumed they were cheering for me. I was a little confused, finishing a half marathon in  a blistering 2 hour + half marathon pace was not a feat impressive enough for a collective cheer rousing, but I didn’t argue and smiled at all the nice people who were being so much more excited to see me finish my half-marathon than the people ahead of and behind me. Thanks so much for cheering for me!

They weren’t.

As it turns out, I was able to run my first half marathon in the same amount of time that some people can run a full marathon. The winner of the marathon, Leonard Muchero, was rounding the bend with a police escort right after I had. I just about realized that was what was happening when he kicked right on past me across the finish line..

Shoot.

As it stood, I still beat him by a few minutes according to the timing chips (he started about 3 minutes before me), but that doesn’t do much to soothe my ego or keep from me looking like a wide-eyed and thankful idiot smiling at all the people who I thought were rooting for me.

Lesson Learned: Kenyans are much, much faster than me.

—

Race: Miami Half-Ironman

I jumped out of the Atlantic ocean and was running through Bayfront Park to our transition area. I briefly considered stopping and posing like Michael Westen since I was in the area, but I quickly realized that I’m running a race and there’s no time for that.

I make it to my transition and reach for my new jersey (mistake #1 – don’t try anything new on race day!).

I go to throw my jersey on and start to grab my helmet when I look down.

Uh oh.

I think I put it on inside-out (I didn’t actually, but my heart was racing and my brain wasn’t working).

Not sure, and unconvinced that I wanted to ride 56 miles with an inside-out jersey, I pulled it off, flipped it inside-out again and threw back on.

Nope. 

Now I definitely had it on wrong. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I pulled it back off, flipped it around to the right side this time.

Do I have it on right now?  Still not entirely sure, but pissed that I spent so much time in T1, and ready to move on with rest of my race, I said screw it, and threw my bike helmet on. I grabbed my bike and jogged to the bike-out exit, pretending like I didn’t just forget how to dress myself.

Lesson learned: Know how to dress yourself – it helps.

—-

I know what it’s like to try new things and look stupid. It happens a lot, but it’s a terrible reason to not try something. I’m trying to do something about that.

Later this month, we’re releasing Impossible Tri over at Impossible HQ. It’s a triathlon guide that’s designed to get you to do your first triathlon in 3-6 months, no matter your background. It’s a combination of my on-the-ground perspective and practical lessons learned from my mistakes (to remove all of your excuses from not doing one – if I can do one, you can do one), and expertise from professional triathletes to plot out the training course (so you’ll know exactly what to do and how to do it). If you’re interested, you can sign up for more information about the impossible triathlon guide here.

And, if you have any questions/concerns about triathlons, leave them in the comments. I’ll be including a comprehensive FAQ in the guide that aims to answer literally every single question you have about triathlon. No question is too dumb (I guaranteed you I’ve asked worse), so ask away – do your worst.

3 Short Embarrassing Racing Stories is a post from: Blog Of Impossible Things | Do Something Impossible.

Drink More Water

Get a pitcher of water. Drink it. Fill it back up. Drink it again. Repeat. Do this as much as you can. You’d be surprised at what common problems (headaches, colds, etc) are caused by people simply not drinking enough water. Drink a half-gallon extra of water a day and tell me you don’t feel better.

Move Often

Get up and move every 30-60 minutes. Do something. Anything.

• Stretch.
• Walk.
• Do Jumping Jacks
• Pushups
• Take the stairs
• Stretch some more.

Whatever you have to do to move, do it. Get up and move around. Sitting all the time is dangerous to your health.

Eat Paleo

Try it. Just try it. Give it a week and see how you feel. If you don’t know what paleo is, he-who-shall-not-be-named wrote a good beginner’s guide to paleo that you can use to brush up on the specifics.

The cliff-notes version is this: Meats, eggs, fruits, nuts, vegetables. If you still need help, here’s a quick rundown of paleo-approved foods.

(My favorite part was “It’s probably a rock”)

If you don’t think those food groups give you a lot of options, you’re wrong. Just check Rob Wolff’s food matrix for a bunch of options. Mix and match those and you’ll have a heck of a hard time repeating the same meals twice.

Procrastinate Differently

Every time you go to refresh your email. Do 10 pushups. Checking your Facebook? Do a handstand. Every time you check twitter, do a 30 second plank instead. If you’re procrastinating, you might as well be productive in some way, shape or form! In fact, you’ll start building other, more useful habits while making sure you do #2 on this list (move often) more often.

Confuse Yourself

Routines are good. They help you get in a rhythm and get things done. But you can get stuck in them too and that prevents growth. Every once in a while, confuse yourself. Shake up your routine – workout or otherwise. Do something completely different. Adapt. Your body can’t just coast on autopilot, you’ll push yourself out of your comfort zone and you’ll get stronger.

—

If 5 ways is too many for you (God forbid you get *too* healthy), Jeff has got you covered for getting in shape in just 2 steps :).

If you need some help getting + staying healthy (or doing something else involving endurance, adventure and giving back) in February, join the February 30-day challenge coming up in the League. This month, Josh & Tristan are going to be heading it up and we’ll be adding in a buddy system to make sure you stay on track and accountable. Check it out. BOOM.

photo credit

5 Ways To Be Healthier Today, Tomorrow, and The Day After That is a post from: Blog Of Impossible Things | Do Something Impossible.

A few years ago, I was doing nothing with my life. I was sitting around watching all these really incredible people doing really inspiring things, while I was sitting around on my butt, wishing I could be like them. They seemed in a whole different world than me.

How do you be like them? How do you get to know them? Why don’t I know anyone like them?

Well, I wasn’t doing anything.

I didn’t know it then, but over the past few years, I’ve come to realize that doers like to be around other doers. So, one of the easiest things you can do in order to meet more interesting people is to do something interesting yourself. Do something. Do anything.

Doers, Talkers, and Wishers

In business, startup and hacker communities, there’s a saying about three typers of employees. A, B, C players if you will. A players are the best, B players are pretty good, and C players are passable, if that. It goes:

A players hire A players. B players hire C players.

The idea is that A players hire people as good or better than themselves, because they have a natural curiosity and know that by being around those who are better than them, they’ll get better in the process. B players, on the other hand, hire C players because they’re more interested in feeling superior to others than they are about getting better.

It’s very similar to how doers act. In the world of doing there are three types of people. Doers, talkers, and wishers.

Doers see something they don’t like, and do something to change it. Talkers see something they don’t like and tell everyone how much they don’t like it, but never do anything about it. Wishers see something they don’t like and tell themselves in the head over and over how much they wished things were different.

Doers attract doers. Talkers attract wishers.

Doers like to be around other doers. Being around people who not only want to change things, but actually change things helps the doers keep doing. Meanwhile, talkers tend to hang out with other talkers and surround themselves with wishers who will listen to the talkers talk about how they would change everything if they were in charge. This makes the talkers feel important and makes the wishers feel like someone else might actually change things for them.

Doers have very little patience with talkers – those people who talk, talk, and talk but never actually do. Occasionally, it can be hard to make the distinction. A talker might be able to pass off as a doer, after all, some talking is necessary prior to doing, but any illusions they might have about their true nature, are short lived. Sooner or later, the talkers eventually reveal themselves to be just that, talkers, because when nothing actually comes from their discussions.

Because of this, doers tend to be wary of talkers and move right along without them – mostly because it doesn’t require much effort to talk or wish that things were a certain way. Even if the discussion or pretense is some sort of philosophy or thoughtful discourse, talking is almost always easier than doing because doing requires physical action.

Doin vs. talking.

I try really, really hard not to fall into the trap of the talkers. Endlessly discussing how things should be but never actually doing anything to change them. Pretending like I’m changing things, rather than actually changing them.

I’m in an interesting position because I get a lot of emails from people who say they’re going to do stuff, and then go out and do it (I love it when this happens). I also get a lot of emails from people who say they’re going to do stuff, and then don’t (I don’t love this nearly as much).

One of the most frustrating things in the world, is to hear people talk about things they want to do, then never actually do it.

Not only do they not do anything, but they relegate themselves to the world of the talkers and wishers and end up becoming jaded and apathetic while disillusioned  at the current state of things and dis-empowered at their own ability to change it.

If you want to meet new & interesting people, try doing something new and interesting. If you don’t know what other people consider new and interesting, try doing something you consider to be new and interesting.

Note: One of my favorite things about the Impossible League is that it’s not just a massive collection of people talking about what was on TV last night. It’s people doing some really interesting things. Last month, Kurt got his skydiving certification, doubled his ability to speed read and donated $1,000 to a variety of charities. There’s 350 other people doing some amazing stuff. As a group, we’ve donated almost 3k to Kiva. The League isn’t about amassing a huge quantity of members as it is about recruiting a concentrated group of doers.

You Can Change

Everyone starts out as a wisher – hoping things will change. When two wishers get together, they usually become talkers, and start talking about how everyone else should change things. Sadly, most talkers never get beyond this point. They stall out at talking and never move on to doing anything. The extra sad part to this, is that the only thing preventing them from becoming a doer is doing something. Anything.

The only thing special about doers other than they do things. Most of the time, they’re forced into action. They find themselves ina  situation that’s so bad that there really is no alternative other than to do something. Anything. And change things.

You get to choose: You can be a doer. You can be a talker. You can be a wisher.

Choose carefully.

I’m going to choose do something. It’s way more interesting.

—

If you want to do something, you can join us in the league.

Doing Attracts Doers is a post from: Blog Of Impossible Things | Do Something Impossible.

The Impossible shirts have been online for a few months and we’ve sold a few hundred of them. We’ve got a bunch of pictures of people doing some impossible things, and even had a university class order them for their final presentations. When I made them, I figured I’d sell a few, but it’s gone over much, much better than anticipated.

In fact, they’ve gone over so well, that lately I’ve been getting a ton of email about how I did it. Instead of writing the same email over and over, I thought I’d lay it all out here one time. At first, I was a little apprehensive to do this, mostly because t-shirts are the first thing people think of when they think of easy ways to make money. When organization wants to raise funds, some genius stands up and yells, “I know, let’s sell t-shirts!”

It’s true, a lot of people make t-shirts and a lot of people make t-shirts that suck. They’ll either make them and don’t sell a single one or sell a bunch that end up at the bottom of people’s drawers or thrown in a trash bag laying around for the next trip to GoodWill. So, this is designed to help you make shirts that suck less and ones that people want to wear and share with their friends. So, while I’m still not sure that everyone should make t-shirts, hopefully I can help those that choose to do so, make their t-shirt lines a little better.

Understanding The T-Shirt Concept

How hard can it be? There’s three basic steps, right?

1. Sell T-shirts
2. ???
3. Profit!

• To people who know the brand, it’s clear about what the shirt represents and makes them want to wear it.
• To those who aren’t, be interesting enough to peak their curiosity and make them want to learn more.

That’s it. Don’t try to make it a million different things or you’ll have problems. As long as it does those two things, you’re good. People get all wrapped up in what t-shirts are and aren’t that they miss the two above points. Don’t get this confused.

T-shirts aren’t

• A quick way to monetize your blog.
• A cash cow.
• Very fun to fulfill.

• A community builder
• An extension of your brand
• Pretty Fun

Don’t Create A T-shirt!

A lot of people ask me about creating a t-shirt when they haven’t created anything else first. If that’s you, don’t focus on creating t-shirts! Create something else. A blog. A business. A brand. Something. T-shirts are cool, but unless you’re an apparel company, t-shirts should not be your main focus or your main source of revenue.

They’re an asset to something else you’re building. Not the whole thing.

Ideally, you’ve already created something that people like talking about, that people are interested in and that people want to tell their friends about. If you’ve done that, most likely, people will be asking you for t-shirts, and you can simply go out and create one for them. The main reason I finally came out with t-shirts was because I got message after message from people asking for something to wear and they were starting to become unruly. The need was driven by the community, not the other way around. So I went ahead and decided to go ahead and make a shirt.

This is how I did it.

Creating Your Shirt

First up. You gotta have a shirt. Crazy, I know, but true. This is a pretty simple first step, so don’t screw it up.

PICK AN AMAZING BASE SHIRT

This is what is people are going to be feeling against their skin every time they put it on. Make sure it doesn’t suck. If they’re more expensive, so be it. If you cheap out this early in the process, you probably need to focus on something else. If you get a cheap shirt that feels like sandpaper, you might get people to buy it, but you won’t be able to get them to wear it, and that’s the whole point after all.

So pick a good base shirt – one that you’d wear over and over even if it didn’t have any logo on it  - and use that (For what it’s worth, for the Impossible Tees, we use the American Apparel Tri-Blend Track Tee). I’ve had lots of people tell me it’s the most comfortable shirt in their wardrobe – comfortable enough to wear out anywhere, but light enough to work out in. It’s a great shirt before I do anything to it.

Designing Your Shirt

Have an idea of what you want. I knew that the IMPOSSIBLE logo was going to be the front of mine. Then had a very good Then find a good designer to do their thing and make it happen (Steven did mine).

This was my original sketch (before we eventually made it into the official logo everywhere).

This is how it turned out eventually.

In between we had a bunch of other types of designs, but we settled on one.

• ONE
• UNO
• 1

That’s it. Just make one shirt.

I know you think you’re creative. You probably are, but this is not a practice in exercising your incredible creative skills (you’ll have a chance to do that later). There’s a really bad line of thought that is easy to fall into:

If I have one shirt, and I sell 50, I’ll sell 50 shirts, so if I have 50 shirts, and I sell 50 shirts each, I’ll sell 2500! I’ll have more money than God and start a t-shirt empire! I’ll start heating my house with $100 bills.

WRONG

If you have one shirt, you might sell 50, but if you try and sell 50 shirts, you’ll probably sell 0.

I’ve seen so many people come out with 10 or 20 different versions of t-shirts and not sell a single one. You’re not Colin Wright. If you want to design a shirt a day for year, do it, just don’t expect to sell and fulfill them all in a way that doesn’t end up with you to gouge out your eyes.

The point is to end up with one design that your audience can wear with pride and identify themselves as part of your tribe – not 50 designs that people think are cool but will never actually buy.

Create one shirt. Commit to one design. This your is your branded t-shirt design. You can’t have 50 of these. Pick one.

Keep it simple

Once again, your first time out, t-shirts are not an exercise in your creative skills.

Remember, your shirt should be able to do two things

• To people who know the brand, it’s clear about what the shirt represents and makes them want to wear it.
• To those who aren’t, be interesting enough to peak their curiosity and make them want to learn more.

Mine’s pretty simple

IMPOSSSIBLE

If you want more info on the shirt and site behind it, the url ImpossibleHQ.com is visible on the back of the shirt.

That’s it.

No over the top designs. No crass promotion all over the place. Just the logo. You wouldn’t believe how many people who’ve bought the shirt and emailed me to say that they’ve had to explain to their friends what IMPOSSIBLE means and how it’s been a conversation started even with strangers.

This of course, relies on the fact that hopefully you’ve created a simple & concise message for your brand (if you don’t have this, you shouldn’t be working on t-shirts already – see the top of this post).

But if you get all the way through this, congrats. With the base shirt  picked out and the design, your shirt is created – well virtually, at least. Now to make it come to life.

Finding a Printer

Find somewhere to print your shirts. This is pretty simple. All you need to do is find a t-shirt printer. These guys are everywhere. Chances are you’ve got one or two or twenty in your town or near you and another couple hundred online. There are a lot of people that do it, the challenge is finding people who do it well. I’ve used a few different people.

For Hashtag Boom, we set up shirts via Skreend, which does do a nice job, and has quality shirts and fulfills them for you on a one-off basis with no up-front costs for you. Unfortunately, the individual tee price is pretty expensive which means you’ll probably make less overall sales if you go this route. Since Hashtag Boom is more for-fun than anything, it was a good arrangement to just get something up. However, if I was expecting to sell more than a handful of shirts, I would find another option.

For the Impossible Shirts, we set up an arrangement with Decatur Screenprint through their site MerchVendor. This was an interesting process. They have an initial order of 24 shirts to get things started. I bypassed this by paying an initial set up fee and ate the costs myself while waiting for the shirts to get set up. Because a bunch of people had expressed interest already, I’d knew I’d be able to sell at least that many + a few to give away to friends and family, so I paid the initial set-up fee out-of-pocket, essentially pre-ordering 24 shirts myself. If you’re short on cash or don’t know if the shirts will go over well, you’ll definitely want to hold a pre-order from your audience.

What about the money? I make $6/shirt on a $20 shirt (I told you it’s not about the money), but I’m very happy with it considering the quality of the shirts we make, and the fact that we ship anywhere in the world for FREE. In fact, the regular base shirt costs about $2 more if you buy it in one of American Apparel’s retail stores than it does to get the Impossible Shirt shipped to y our doorstep (I don’t care who you are, that’s pretty cool).

In my experience, I’ve been pretty happy with Decatur overall. At times, we’ve had some shirts slow to ship out, but most of the issues have been on American Apparel’s end (they run out of stock a lot) . On a scale of 1-10, I’d give Decatur an 8. If you’d like to work with them, go over to MerchVendor, tell them Joel sent you and they’ll take care of you.

Setting Up Fulfillment

You are not an apparel merchant. You don’t want to handle this. Trust me. It’s more work than it’s worth. You run a site, a website or a small business. You do not want to be handling orders, inventory, shipping, etc. If you sell a million t-shirts, you can start worrying about dealing with this yourself if you really want to. My printer (Decatur) takes care of my fulfillment for me. Also, I’ve never had anyone ask about returns, so I can’t help you there at all.

Marketing Your T-Shirt

Get your shirt. Wear it. Go out in public.

Then, get photos taken. Put them on your product page and please don’t try to sell your shirt by only using mock ups on torsos of unidentified stock models.

Do you really expect other people to buy and wear your shirt, if you’re not willing to do the same thing?

Exactly, so get photos taken - real photos. Find a friend that’s good with a camera or hire a pro. (hint: the difference professional photography can make is absolutely amazing. People are always impressed by how Impossible HQ looks, but it would look so much different if it wasn’t for the photography work or Jeff & Marla Sarris at Six4Eleven).

For the launch, I went downtown Chicago with Jeff & Marla for 12 hours and we took photos all over the place. It took a while and was freezing cold, but we ended up with some pretty great photos despite the fact I was that Jeff and Marla were shooting photos of this ugly mug the entire time. Just take a look at what they were able to do with the subject they had.

Seriously, how they did that is beyond me, but that’s why they’re pros. Get photos taken. They make a world of difference. (And if you’re in Chicago, Jeff & Marla do really great work).

Be Original. Do Something Different.

One of my big pet peeves is that people take creative ideas, boil it down to a few bullet points (like this list) and through the process, lose a lot of the originality that comes from having an idea. Then everyone always does the same thing and things that were creative and fun become boring.

Remember when I told you to save your creative energy? Now’s the time to use it. Do something different. Be original, not boring.

I can’t tell you what to do here  (if I did, it wouldn’t be original). For our launch, we decided to have a little fun with things. While hanging out downtown with Jeff and Marla, we were laughing about how some commercials are overhyped and promise things they can’t actually deliver on. We thought it was pretty fun so we decided to ad-lib our own parody of them on the spot touting the unreal benefits of the impossible shirt.

Impossible HQ: Impossible T-Shirt Promo Video (1 of 3) from Jeff Sarris on Vimeo.

Somehow that led to talking about the Old Spice guy commercials and me trying to do my best impersonation of him (I couldn’t quite keep it together though).

Impossible HQ: Impossible T-Shirt Promo Video (2 of 3) from Jeff Sarris on Vimeo.

And what would anything I do be complete without calling out the-arch-nemesis Steve Kamb and making fun of him?

Impossible HQ: Impossible T-Shirt Promo Video (3 of 3) from Jeff Sarris on Vimeo.

[click here to watch video in email]

BOOM.
We realized that having fun, was…wait for it…fun. Which brings us to the last point.

Have Fun

T-shirts can make a decent amount of money, but I’m not in the apparel business…yet. More than anything the process was fun. It created a shirt for an already existing community that could embrace it. It allowed us to be creative in a new way, helped promote the blog outside of the normal online community and do something different. If you’re going to make t-shirts for your blog, you’ll have a much better chance if you make it fun. Make it something that people want to be a part of instead of shoving it down their throats complete along with branded miniature action figures, keychains and koozies. By making it fun, we were able to make it into a community project rather than a Joel project. By making it fun, we were able to solicit reader photos doing impossible things, and turn them into different galleries to use around the league, facebook and HQ. Have fun!

TLDR: That’s okay, I still love you. Here’s the quick and dirty.

• Make ONE Shirt
• Keep It Simple
• Find A Printer (MerchVendor will save you a headache)
• Get Good Photos (Jeff & Marla rock)
• Do Something Different (Be Original)
• Have Fun
• BOOM

In case you’re wondering, you can grab your own Impossible Shirt and be a part of the Impossible League community. We’d love to have ya. And, if you’ve got one already, go do something impossible, take a photo in your shirt and send it in! We’ll be putting a full gallery of everyone together soon. In the meantime, here’s a mini-collage of the people who’ve sent photos in.

How To Launch Your Own T-Shirt Line For Your Website is a post from: Blog Of Impossible Things | Do Something Impossible.

[this space intentionally left blank]

—

Now get over yourself and go do something.

[h/t to Lach]

The Complete List of Convincing, Unique, and Legitimate Excuses is a post from: Blog Of Impossible Things | Do Something Impossible.

—

Bullsh*t Qualifications

Qualifications

• Entry Level position. 3 to 5 years experience required.
• Bachelor’s/Master’s Degree Required.
• 30+, has a job & family.

Bullsh*t

Bullsh*t Qualifications.

They’re everywhere. Boldfaced lies. Every last one of ‘em.

• You have to do things this way.
• You have to act this way to succeed.
• You have to fit into our little box of what we want if you ever want to be something.

Bullsh*t. And you know it.

All of ‘em. 

The Purpose Of Qualifications

Qualifications create a framework for busy people to filter through junk. It’s their best guess at what they think might work…maybe.

In the midst of the sea of average, qualifications are used to filter for characteristics. And, because it’s hard to filter for characteristics on their own, people create qualifications that are used as a substitute. It’s hard to figure out if people are honest, trustworthy, respectful, knowledgeable, or even nice, from a glance. It’s much easier to look at their qualifications than their characteristics.

So people use qualifications to make generalizations on average. Think of it this way.

On average, with X qualifications, people have Y characteristic.

• On average, a person with 3-5 years of experience has already been somewhat trained in a certain environment and is self-aware enough not to do anything embarrassing to the company (hopefully).
• On average, a person with a bachelor’s degree means they have the basic intelligence & commitment to spend 4 years in school and graduate without dying from alcohol poisoning.
• On average, a person who’s 30+ has a somewhat stable life under their belt, is heading into the middle of their career and starting to settle into a rhythm for their life.

The Problem with Qualifications

Qualifications are great at widespread generalizations. That’s about it (enjoy the irony of that statement).

Qualifications don’t handle exceptions to the rule. Qualifications don’t do well with outliers. Qualifications can’t even tell you situational effectiveness of a person. They can tell you they passed a certain test, or did a certain activity, but they can’t tell you how a person will react in a situation and they don’t know how to deal with remarkable. Most of all: qualifications are never actually required. They’re also pretty damn boring.

You will never, ever, ever, ever be "qualified" for anything worth doing. Do it anyways.

— Joel Runyon (@joelrunyon) January 11, 2012

You never need to be qualified to do something.

PERIOD

The Rules of Qualifications

Rules matter far less than you think and oftentimes, they don’t matter at all. Qualifications are supposed to level the playing field. They make things “fair”. People with the same qualifications are supposed to be rewarded the same, get the same things and act similarly. Those are the rules. That’s how we know it’s fair. One problem.

Life is not fair.

Read that again. Accept it. Then screw qualifications and break the rules.

Not all rules matter. In fact, most don’t. And if you’re not willing to break some of the rules that don’t matter, you simply don’t care enough. I’m not talking about lying, stealing and cheating. Treat people well and treat them with respect. But don’t be a sheep.

Just because something always has been done a certain way, doesn’t mean it has to stay the same. Just because people say that you have to wait five years to get a promotion doesn’t mean you do. Just because people say that the safest plan is to have one job that can lay you off at a moment’s notice, doesn’t mean it is.

Do something you’re not remotely qualified to do. Figure it out. 

—

A Real Life Parable

Yesterday, a television casting director contacted me. He asked if I knew anyone who was quitting their job, wanted to sell all of their stuff and move to paradise. He was making a TV pilot and was looking to cast people who were looking to do something similar.

Well, I’ve got 350+ people in a community, plus a bunch of people on twitter and facebook who would probably be interested in doing something along those lines, so I told him I’d put out the word and see if we’d peek anyone’s interest. So I did.

Want to quit your job? Hit me up...just might be able to get you a spot on TV somewhere :)

— Joel Runyon (@joelrunyon) January 11, 2012

I got a massive set of replies from people who were interested. They would LOVE to be on TV and do just that, quit their job, sell their stuff and move to paradise. This was their dream.

I was planning on replying to them all, but there were too many, too quick so I followed it up with a link to more information

Tv details are here --> michaelpetrella.com/current // Go nuts

— Joel Runyon (@joelrunyon) January 11, 2012

The tweet linked to the casting director’s site with some of the casting info and “qualifications” (it’s still live if you’d like to apply).

One line in particular read:

The ideal candidate is 30+, has a job and a family that will be impacted by a decision of this magnitude, and has a destination in mind. For the pilot episode, we’re focusing on dream locations in North America and the Caribbean.

Immediately people started dropping like flies. I got a flurry of emails and tweets from people who already opted out,  saying they didn’t qualify because of different “qualifications” on the page.

• I’m not 30.
• I don’t have a family.
• I’m not sure where I want to go.
• Etc, etc, etc

The Sin of Pre-disqualification

I’m not really mad at the people that wrote me saying those things. Really, I probably sound pretty angry, and I am, but not at them. The thing that pisses me off about this is that the fatalistic attitude is everywhere. There’s no chance of success, so why even try? I didn’t know a word for this idea, so I made one up (at least I’m pretty sure it doesn’t exist yet).

Pre-disqualification - Rejecting yourself before you even try.

Rejecting yourself because it hurts less than attempting something, anything and potentially getting rejected from someone else (even if there’s a good chance of success).

No one sent in a video and actually got rejected. No one contacted Michael to ask if those requirements were set in stone. They didn’t dig a little deeper to get more information. They just gave up at the first hurdle they could find and threw in the towel as fast as they could.

When that happens, there’s only one question to ask:

Are You Really Going To Let That Stop You?

The thing that pisses me off is that for the longest time I did the exact same thing. I believed the lies. I believed that I could only do something if I was qualified to do it. I believed you had to follow rules that didn’t matter. I believed that I had to fit into a box of what people expected from me, mind my own business and never try to change anything and everything would just be okay, because eventually I’d have qualifications and someone would want to pick me. Someday…maybe…right?

As a result, I pre-disqualified myself from so many things, without even giving it a shot. After all, if no one will pick me, why even try?

• I’m not a great writer, so why bother writing anything?
• I’m not very fast, so why would I even attempt Track & Field?
• I’m nowhere near smart enough for my dream job, so why not take the safe job?
• I’m not in her league, so why ask her out?
• I’m from the midwest, so why try to move to the coasts?
• I’m too skinny, so why try football?
• I’ve never been a runner, so why start now?
• I didn’t go to a prestigious enough school, so why try for anything better?
• I could never run my own business, so why not just work for 40 years for someone else?

You name the qualification. I didn’t have it. So I passed on doing what I wanted without even trying.

I played by the rules that everyone else did and I ended up where everyone else was.

The only thing qualifications are good for are making general statements about large groups of people without identifying individual use cases that lie outside the norm (go ahead, enjoy the irony in this statement).

• This is why resumes are worthless. They sit in a pile, waiting to get picked. Create an anti-resume instead.
• This is why a bunch of people are occupying parks around the country hoping to be be picked for jobs in this economy. Instead of a park,  occupy yourself instead.
• This is why I finally got all the qualifications they said I should get and then sat around waiting to get picked and nothing ever happened.

If you’re waiting to be picked, you’re doing it wrong. 

PICK YOURSELF

If you do, you begin to find out what Michael told me in one of our email exchanges – that qualifications don’t really matter (emphasis mine):

 The ideal candidate is still at their current job, yes — but I won’t turn anyone away based on any of the criteria. At this stage of pilot development, the “ideal candidate” changes every ten minutes. =)

You Get Exactly One Life

This image by Colin Wright has been kicking my butt for the last 6 weeks.

You have exactly one life in which to do everything you’ll ever do. Act accordingly. - Colin Wright, Exile Lifestyle

YOU HAVE ONE SHOT

You do not get a second chance at this life thing. This isn’t a video game. You do not get to replay for another quarter. You do not get a mulligan. You do not pass GO. You do not collect $200, etc.

Life is too short to let other people make up qualifications based on their life experiences that decide what you can or cannot do with yours.

Qualifications are bullsh*t.

You will never, ever, ever, ever be “qualified” for anything worth doing. Do it anyways.

You will never, ever, ever, ever be "qualified" for anything worth doing. Do it anyways.

— Joel Runyon (@joelrunyon) January 11, 2012

What do you want to do?

[your answer goes here]

Now go do that.

Not qualified? Do it anyways. Seems Impossible? Find a way. Because while it’s easy to blame others and third parties such as standards and qualifications that you might not live up to, the only person who ever truly disqualifies you to do something is yourself.

Never, ever forget that.

–

Chris Guillebeau wrote about the same topic much more elegantly than I ever could. Read his qualifications then please stop pre-disqualifying yourself from things before you even start. They’re bullsh*t and you know it.

Bullsh*t Qualifications is a post from: Blog Of Impossible Things | Do Something Impossible.

50 Impossible Quotes

Part of the deal with writing is that some of what you write resonates with people, while some of it completely misses the mark. I try to combat this by hitting publish, even when I’m not sure whether or not what I’m writing sucks. However, while I’ve written my share of bad posts over the last few years, there are also a few that have captured people’s attention. Some of the most popular posts I’ve ever written have been the following two:

•  25 Quotes To Inspire You To Do The Impossible
• 33 More Impossible Quotes

While those are great posts by themselves and have been viewed 80,000+ times, I realized I could do something a little more with this than just leave them as flat words on a screen. My good friend David Crandall runs Brand Superpower and is a master of visual + textual presentation and helped me put together something that I’m really excited about. We created a visual presentation and inspirational booklet for you based on these quotes that should inspire your imagination to challenge what you think is possible so you can act on those dreams and make them a reality. I’m excited to have this for you today free of charge.

50 Quotes To Inspire You To Do The Impossible

This beautifully designed impossible quote booklet has quotes and wisdom spanning centuries from visionaries and world-changers such as Walt Disney to Nelson Mandela, Arthur C. Clarke, Marcus Aurelius, Napoleon Bonaparte and Superman (Christopher Reeve). The user guide for this booklet is pretty simple.

1. Download your copy of 50 Quotes to Inspire you to do the Impossible. (right click, save as)
2. Read it.
3. Be Inspired.
4. Then go do something.

50 Quotes To Inspire You To Do The Impossible

Again, thanks for reading the blog. I really do appreciate it.

Do The Impossible: 50 Quotes To Inspire You To Do The Impossible is a post from: Blog Of Impossible Things | Do Something Impossible.

Why Should You Do A Triathlon?

Personally, triathlon has been one of the most helpful things I’ve ever done and I’m not exaggerating when I say that. It’s what started me on this impossible journey and the one activity that’s shown me there’s always something beyond what your own personal limitations tell you is possible.

The first time I dipped my toes in the water of my first race, I had no idea what I was doing. But, I did it anyways and it’s the thing that’s changed the way I think about what’s possible and what’s not. I might be a little biased, but I really do think you should do it this year. Here’s 5 good reasons why:

You Probably Haven’t Done A Triathlon Before

Have you? Didn’t think so.

If you’ve done one already, can you go farther?

There’s Someone Worse Looking Than You Doing One

There’s this stereotype that the only people who do triathlons are tall, young, strong, people will hairless chests and shaved legs on $5,000 bikes with more money than God and a body to match. Triathlons are only meant for people who rival Lance Armstrong, Michael Phelps and Zeus.

Not true.

I told you who I saw doing a triathlon, you wouldn’t believe me, but I’m gonna try anyways. Some of the people I distinctly remember seeing at a race.

• A 250 pound 40+ year old woman in a one-piece (for the entire race!).
• An 80 year very hairy man, wheezing throughout his running portion, sounding like he was going to die any second, and embarassing people decades younger than him.
• A 6 year old kid (Dang. What was I doing at 6 years old? Watching bad cartoons?)

That’s just a few of the people I’ve seen (and that’s not even including the 52 year old woman who peed herself in the middle of the race). So if you’re worried about looking bad in your spandex – DON’T – so is EVERYONE else. Everyone else is entirely way too concerned with how they look in spandex or the fact that they’re about to drown that they don’t have the time or energy to notice you in a field of athletes who are all wearing the same type of outfit.

It’s Multifunctional (and entertaining)

This is actually the reason I started doing triathlon. When I finished competing in team sports, I knew I had to do something to stay competitive, challenge myself and keep in shape. Otherwise, I knew I would balloon up and channel all my energy into watching whatever new show was on TV – not a good option.

At first thought I should do a marathon (everyone does marathons, right?), but I brushed that off immediately because I knew I sucked at running and 26.2 miles was way too long of a distance to do something I sucked at (oops). So, being the bright person that I am, I decided to do a triathlon instead. Of course, in triathlon I knew I sucked at running, biking AND swimming, but I figured if I had to suck during the entirety of an activity, the least I could do was switch up the types of activities in which I was sucking at – if for no other reason than it would keep me from getting bored.

And it works. Triathlons are much more interesting than marathons because you’re always doing something different. But triathlons have another side effect to this multi-functional training as well. In addition to keeping you entertained throughout the race, having to do different movements means you have to have your whole body in shape. You can’t just focus on your legs and forget your arms, or you’ll drown during the swim. If all you do is swim, then you’ll end up swearing more than usual when you do brick workouts and have to start running after you get off your bike. Triathlon forces you to get your whole body in shape…which leads us to the next point.

There’s Someone Better Looking Than You Doing One

Eye candy. There I said.

If you were concerned from earlier about being in the midst of a bunch of scary looking people in spandex, don’t worry, there are good looking triathletes. Actually loads of ‘em.

Swim, Bike, Run.

Do all of that, you’re going to look pretty good if you keep it up. I’ll be the first to admit that some endurance athletes tend to look a little emaciated and aren’t necessarily the best reflection of healthy out there, but triathletes are different. When you have to exercise your whole body, your whole body gets in shape.

I’m a huge fan of functional fitness – the idea that purpose of fitness is to be allow you to do things, not just look good. When you’re functionally fit, you’re not only going to be able to do lots of things, but you’re going to look good – even if it’s not the skinny, skinny, skinny pictures that the models in the magazines say you should be (you shouldn’t). So it should go without saying that if you’re going to have to test your limits and do something you’ve never done before, it helps to be surrounded by some functionally fit eye candy to keep you motivated to keep going.

(And no, I’m not contradicting myself by saying there are good looking and normal looking people that run triathlons. Most people are normal, so there’s people that fall on either side of the spectrum. If you actually go to a race, you’ll be surprised at the wide variety of people that compete).

It’s Not Impossible

It really is not. It’s one of the fastest growing sports in the US and there’s a reason why. You can do it – if you want to. Lots of other people: older, fatter, more ignorant, less skilled, hairier people have done it.

When I started, I didn’t know anything about triathlons. I didn’t know anyone who did triathlons. Heck, I didn’t even know what all activities a triathlon consisted of. I thought it was impossible that I’d ever find out any of the answers to those questions and  But I jumped in and I did it.

Why?

Because I wanted to do it and I got tired of assuming it was impossible without every trying it.

One More Reason

Maybe those 5 reasons still aren’t good enough for you. You’re still not convinced. You still have questions. You still have doubts. You’re still not sure you can do it. I still think you can.

So I’m writing a guide for you.

The first ever Impossible HQ guide – Impossible Tri. It’s designed to get you off your butt, decimate any and all excuses you might have for not running a triathlon, get you over your fear of committment to doing one and have you sign up for and complete your first triathlon in the next 6 months. You probably can do in less time, but just in case you need the time, you got six months.

Unlike most products, this is going to be based around action. DOING SOMETHING and making the next few seemingly impossible things you do, a little less impossible starting with a triathlon. In fact, I’m going to try and actively discourage people who won’t take action from even reading it. Vicarious living and inspirational cocaine is one of the most dangerous drugs to get hooked on and I’m doing what I can to prevent you from just getting hooked on reading about other people’s stories and move you to writing your own.

That’s about all I’ll say on it for now, since I need to put my head in the sand and get to work, but if you have any questions on a triathlon, why you should do it, or things you’re confused on, let me know in the comments or in the league. Not only will I incorporate them into the guide, but I’m bringing in real people and stories, just like me and you to show that running a triathlon isn’t impossible along with triathlete experts to shatter any excuses you might have into tiny little pieces. BOOM.

Commit to it. Do a triathlon in 2012. If you want more information, sign up below.

5 Reasons You Should Do A Triathlon This Year is a post from: Blog Of Impossible Things | Do Something Impossible.

2011 was a heckuva year.

Launch My Own Business

BOOM.

This has been on the list for a while and while I did this back in 6th grade with my own lawn mowing business, this is the first time it’s been do or die on the business front. This happened defacto a couple weeks ago when I left my job. With no more income streams, I guess I’ll have to make one. Challenge Accepted .

Aside from my private consulting that I don’t really offer publicly, I’m launching a few more separate revenue projects separate from Impossible HQ. Also, besides the Impossible Tshirts (see a very good-looking gallery of impossible people rocking them here), I’ll be launching my first major guide at HQ. I’ve announced this in the League already, but I’ll make another public announcement shortly as I sort details out.

Overall I think this is a good step forward. The League is moving towards being self-sustaining and HQ will soon be as well. This should not only increase the time I’m able to spend on these projects but also increase our reach and ability to help more and more people do the impossible. That’s a win² (win/win) if I’ve ever heard of one. The blog, of course, will always be free as my little gift to you guys .

Launch Launch Launch

One of the things I’m good at is STARTING. I’ve alluded to a few things. The first is another free gift that should be out early next week. After that, I have 3 major projects that I’ll be launching in the first 3 months of the year. Besides that being incredibly daunting & ambitious, I think launching is addicting. I have a lot of ideas and there’s no speed limit to implementation other than myself. So I’m going to try what I can and do it well. This keeps in line with one of my favorite ideas – throw a few things at the wall…see what sticks. Go with what sticks.

Do Something I’ve Never Done Before

Well…starting my own business. Check. But more than that, I’m going to push my limits in ways I never have before. We’re meant to push our limits. To go beyond where we’ve gone before. To test and see what really is impossible. Otherwise, we might as well be dead. I’ll be doing several things this year that I’ve never done before. Whether it’s running farther than I ever have or trying out new stuff that I’ve never even contemplated before, I’ll be expanding the circumference of impossible in my own life.  That scares the crap out of me – so I guess that means I’m doing it right.

Try Something I’ve Never Seen Anyone Do Before

I have one specific project in mind that I’m looking to develop that I haven’t seen any other blogger take on before. Ever. That only means one thing. I’m either a genius or crazy. Maybe both. Probably neither. . But I’m going to try it, see if it works and I’ll find out one way or another. One, because I’m stupid excited about this (it’s been rolling around in my mind for the last year), and two because if I’d already seen people do it and succeed, then it wouldn’t be impossible.

Speak

After speaking to a University earlier this year (and having them ask me back!), I think speaking is going to have a big role this year.

I don’t have a specific number of talks nailed down yet, but the one talk I had last year is more than zero I did the year before. On that scale, if I do two talks this year, I’m right on track. BOOM. I have a short talk tentatively on the books for February (I’ll let you know where as soon as it’s confirmed) and have a few more opportunities on the dockett. Now to take advantage of them!

Go on an Adventure …

…and take a bunch of people with me. Skydiving at WDS was a blast last year. Not only did 40 people face their fears, but no one died. Now I have the daunting task of figuring out how to do something similar. The fun part isn’t as impressive to me as the “not-dying” part, so if I can somehow figure out a way to get both to work, I’ll have struck gold. This should be fun – I just have to figure out what it will be .

Find a Whole New Level of Impossible

Every time I do something I’ve never done before, I discover a whole new arena of what I think is possible. Each time it’s like I break through a wall and I get a whole new field to play on. This year that happened a lot. When I started this thing, I really didn’t know if I could do a marathon or a half-ironman, much less both of them in six months. I’m stepping up a lot of things, so 2012 better get ready.

Have Fun

I’m always amazed at how little fun people seem to be having with life. It’s almost as if they take some sort of pride in slogging through mundane work and treat it as a battle scar. I love the great impossible quotes about getting stuff done and not letting excuses get in your way – they’re needed and sometimes you need to do the work that seems the hardest to be done – but out of all the quotes about the impossible, one of my favorites is by Walt Disney.

It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.

Shattering the limits of what you thought was impossible is absolutely fun. I’m determined to have more fun. Whether it’s making fun of Steve Kamb’s uncanny ability to be the #worldsleastinterestingman, going on road trips with homeless guys or watching amazing people do extreme sports, I’m going to have fun. Lots of it. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Fail

The most certain thing on this whole list is I’m going to fail. Probably a bunch. Probably spectacularly. And you will all get to laugh at me, see me lick my wounds and foolishly get back up and try again.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

While I haven’t been off to quite a fast start on the failure front as last year (I was dominant last year), it’s going to happen, I’m expecting it and I’ll welcome it when it happens.

Failure happens. It hurts, but it’s not fatal. All it means is that you’re getting close to the edges of impossible – and that’s a great thing.

You got a huge gift a few days ago – a brand new year to do whatever impossible things you want to do. What are you going to do with it?

***

In case you didn’t know, the blog here is just a small part of a bunch of bigger things going on. If you’re new, check out Impossible HQ, the headquarters behind all of this (you might notice the pretty little top-bar on the blog thanks to Spyr). We’ve also got a community, the impossible league, where a whole bunch of people like you and me get together to help each other do impossible things. We’ve only been around a short time, but it’s amazing what’s been accomplished. Major hat tip to Tristan for putting this little round-up together for us. It’s pretty awesome if I do say so myself.

Download your own copy, print it off and post it on your fridge. Big things are happening around here.

***

In the fun news of the week, we were featured on ProBlogger’s 20 Bloggers to Watch in 2012. While neat to think about how far things have come for a few seconds, that only means we got a lot more people watching now in 2012. Better make it epic! Bring it 2012.

[image credit]

9 Impossible Things I’ll Do In 2012 is a post from: Blog Of Impossible Things | Do Something Impossible.

10 Impossible Things I Did In 2011

I Ran A Marathon

I ran a freaking marathon with my buddy James. It still doesn’t seem like I actually did it. 26.2 miles barefoot (well Vibrams). It still seems really surreal. I don’t think I could walk normally for a week afterwards, but it was so cool to decide to do something I literally didn’t think I could do, train for 18 weeks and actually do it and make it happen. One of the most painful things I’ve ever done, but so worth it and I’m very glad it’s over – as you might be able to guess from the photos.

I Quit My Job

I quit my job. BOOM. I was making a good salary, working with good people and showing up at 10pm. It was pretty comfortable. But I’m on an unending quest to be be comfortable with the uncomfortable. So I moved to another state and started a new job. Lots of things have come from that decision, but it’s been an experience that has pushed me and stretched me personally to think completely different about business and life than I did just 6 months ago.

I Went On An Epic Road Trip

I got to hang out with Nate Damm and my brother for 2 weeks driving across the country, sleeping in a car, and sneaking into national parks. It was awesome. Here are a few of the places we made it to in those 14 or so days.

• St. Louis
• Mt. Rushmore
• Yellowstone National Park
• Glacier National Park
• Seattle
• Portland
• Tahoe
• Las Vegas
• The Grand Canyon
• Denver

This road trip took me places I’ve never been before and there are so many stories from this trip that I never got the chance to share. International travel has been a huge part of my life in the last 5 years, but this trip made me realize how much there is to explore in my own backyard. I’ll be doing a lot more of this in the near future.

I Took 41 People Skydiving

We took a break from driving when we got to portland and took 41 people skydiving. This was a heck of an adventure that sort of came out of no where. Last year on a whim I decided I was going to go skydiving at WDS. I asked if anyone wanted to come. I thought that I might convince 5 or so people to come. 63 people wanted more information. 41 actually paid and said they’d show up.

What?

Organizing a skydiving adventure 45 minutes outside a city you’ve never been, from halfway across the country is no small task, but somehow it all went off without a hitch. 41 people did something impossible, faced their fears and most importantly – NO ONE DIED. That’s a win, if I’ve ever heard of one (even if my  jump did make me look completely stupid).

Goggles? Who needs goggles?

I Launched Impossible HQ

This was probably the second most important launch I did this year (#1 is coming up). If you haven’t checked it out – go check it out now. Now. I’ll be here when you come back.

Off of it, we’ve been able to launch 3 initiatives so far (a community, a manifesto, and a shirt). Moving forward, HQ will even more important and I’m really happy to have finalized and live, and having a platform to do even bigger things here in 2012.

I Spoke at a University (Twice!)

University of Wisconsin Superior asked me to talk to their freshman year seminar class on living life differently. This was my first “talk” and I didn’t really know what to expect, especially since I was going to be presenting over skype. They put my big ugly mug up on the projection screen and I thought I spent most of the time doing what I thought was rambling. Apparently, they liked me enough to ask me back. That’s a good thing, right?

Anyways, apparently it had enough of an impact to where they all ended up getting impossible shirts and wore it during their final presentation. I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t pretty freaking awesome.

I Ran a Half Ironman

I ran a half-ironman? 70.3 Miles. 1.2 mile swim. 56 mile bike ride. 13.1 mile run.  It’s starting to sound cliche when I say this, but I really didn’t know if I could actually do this when I set out to do it. I learned a lot flying down to Miami, shipping my bike, and narrowly avoiding a hurricane in order to finish out the 70.3 miles and do this. I’m finally starting to process that I actually did this this year and that it wasn’t just some dream I had. Crazy.

I Launched a Manifesto

I finally launched it. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can download IMPOSSIBLE for free. This might not sound like a big deal, but it took me entirely way too long to knock this out (just ask Nate Damm). I finally finished it and it was so worth it. It’s not perfect, but even so, it’s been able to reach several thousand people. I’ve gotten countless emails and comments about it and it’s really been fun to create something that can be passed around from friend to friend and impact people on a continual basis.

In the next few weeks, we’ll be making the audience even wider and will be releasing a kindle and an ePub version, so if you have an e-reader device of some sort, be on the lookout for it.

I Left My Job Again (This is new!)

I actually haven’t announced it around here but as of the a few weeks ago, I left my last job. First realization: I HAVE SO MUCH TIME. Somewhere between working a 40 hour/week job, running an impossible blog, and a few other fun projects while training for marathons and Half-Ironmans, it gets hard to find time for everything. Now with an extra 40 hours/week, it will be interesting to see what I can make happen (stay tuned).

I 10Xed the Size of Blog

Every once in a while, I’ll look back at my numbers and sort of get a MEH face. If you look at the numbers on a day to day basis, you never get anything done and it’s hard to stay motivated because it’s hard to spot small changes over a short period of time. However, if I step back and look at those small changes over time – they add up – A LOT. The benchmarks have changed completely since last year.

Numbers that I would have been ecstatic about last year are simply normal. Whether it’s seeing a post reach 60,000 people in a few days or seeing 100,000 people stumble on the Impossible List,  it’s crazy to think how things have changed in the last 365 days (and that’s no even counting any of the other Impossible properties). Seeing the blog turn into something bigger than a “just a blog” has been very, very cool to see.

Honorable Mentions

Some other things that happened that were pretty awesome, but just couldn’t fit themselves into such a short list.

• Launching the Impossible League.
• Launching Nerve Rush with my buddy Alan Perlman.
• Launching my Impossible Apparel line
• Meeting Nate Damm in San Francisco to finish his walk across America.
• Bungee jumping with 20+ people.

Looking back it seems like I did a lot of things this year (I really did!), but none of them just happened. There were a lot of little steps. A lot of 3 miles runs. A lot of workouts when I didn’t want to do or when it wasn’t convenient. They didn’t happen just ’cause I sat around and waited for them to happen. They happened because I focused on doing something consistently over time. Do. Launch. Learn. Repeat.

2011 was a hell of a year. 2012 has a lot to live up to…but I love a good challenge and have a lot of things slated here for the new year to get us off on the right foot.

I know from the League, and from all the messages I’ve gotten that I’m not the only one who’s done some impossible things this year. I want to know: What impossible things did you do in 2011? Let me know in the comments.

***

Today, 12/29, my friends Josh & Ryan from The Minimalists will be in Milwaukee tonight for the MKE leg of their U.S. Tour. 7pm at Brewing Grounds for Change 2008 North Farwell Ave. Milwaukee, WI. Be there in your Impossible shirts. Represent.

Tomorrow, 12/30, we’ll be in Chicago at  7pm at Rockit Grill (River North) 22 W. Hubbard Chicago, IL. See you there.

***

If you haven’t yet, check out my guest post “The $100 Sandbox” at my good friend Sean Ogle’s site – Location180. Sean was one of the first people I read that made me realize that everything wasn’t so impossible and it’s pretty cool to be able to write something for him these days. Have a great New Years!

10 Impossible Things I Did In 2011 is a post from: Blog Of Impossible Things | Do Something Impossible.