Have the courage to ask for the impossible and you might get it

Hey, everyone. Mark Reynolds High Performance coach. Hey. This morning I wanted to talk to you about having the courage to follow your dreams. I had a number of interesting conversations over the last week that just really re emphasized this theme time and time again. And I was fascinated because one group was a bunch of young high school students as they're evaluating college choices and Division 1 sports. But the other group was a group of highly successful business owners and entrepreneurs that just ran the gamut of levels of success. And time and time again, they kept coming up with clarity of mission and having the courage to move forward with it. And I don't remember who said it exactly, but the expression goes something like, they said it was impossible until you did it. And then it seemed as if it was inevitable. And I just kept coming back to that resonated so much with my story over my career. Just A little over 25 years ago, I think some of you know I served in the army, but I was just a young cadet, recently arrived to college, joined the rotc, received a scholarship. Young, naive. But the summer before, I had seen a beautiful image of a helicopter with wings that scoped through it. And I learned that that was the Air Assault badge worn by the 101st Airborne Division. Long storied history. And all I knew was I wanted that. I wanted to be Air Assault qualified. So I immediately reported, talked to my first instructor and said, how do I do that? How do I get to Air Assault School? How do I get Air Assault disqualified? Because I want that badge on my uniform. And he promptly told me that that's a no go, right? Cadets do not go to Air Assault School. You might get a chance to go to Airborne School, highly competitive number of slots, but cadets do not go to Air Assault School. Fast forward a year. I've continued to train, hard work, serve, lead in the battalion. We get a new instructor. His area of specialty just happens to be administrative actions. He's an adjunct general officer. I tell him the same dream. Hey, I'm trying to go to Air Assault School. Everyone says it can't be done. He says, that's right. It's never been done. He said, but we'll see. Well, just turns out that I leave for school at the end of the break for Christmas. And on December 20, 1994, I get a call, says, mark, you still want to be Air Assault? And I said, yes. He says, all right, pack your bags, you're going. You need to be at Camp gruber, Oklahoma on the 4th of January for air assault School. So I said, yes, sir. I'm ready. No time to prep. No bags, no equipment, just a ticket and a plane and a desire, right? The courage to step forth in what's really an unknown area. Right. I didn't know what was going to happen, what was going to go. If I probably actually knew what was waiting for me, I probably wouldn't have gone because it turns out that I, I wasn't supposed to be there. There wasn't really an authorization for a cadet. There was just a slot for one more individual that my cadre had taken for me. Just basically stole the slot and sent me off to the school. And when I arrived, it was not with warm greetings and well wishes. I spent the first 24 hours essentially being told, nope, it's impossible. We're not prepared to train for you. We don't have equipment for you, we don't have a bunk for you. We don't know what to do with a cadet. We've never had a cadet. This is turns out that the 101st Airborne Division, one of their units was actually there training, which is why this Christmas slot was open because they were getting ready to deploy. But I just sat there and I said, well, I'm here. I can't catch a flight out because, you know, army already bought me a ticket. So I'm here for the next 14 days. So I stayed and I just tried to start serving the supply sergeant because that was the first next logical step for me because I knew I needed the equipment and he had equipment. So I started polishing brass and asking if I could buff his floor in exchange for a canteen and could I do another task and maybe he would give me a rucksack and a canteen cover. And so the process continued for my first 24 hours. So while everybody else was finishing processing and relaxing, I was working. I was working towards the dream of getting air assault qualified. The impossible task of getting into the school. I'll fast forward. I did finally make it into the school. I did get all the equipment I needed and I graduated and I went back to campus that spring with that aerosol badge on my chest. And that started many, many stories along similar where kids on campus would see and we would talk about the story. Who couldn't believe that maybe they could be in the army, right? They were out of shape. They never run a mile or done more than five push ups in their life. And we went on to have one of the largest scholarship recruiting classes ever. We really built that program up and a large number of those folks went on to have some Very, very nice careers. Some of them are still serving. A number of them have gone on to have some pretty amazing professional and political careers as well. Some real heroes. But a lot of it just started with being told it's impossible. And some people would say I had the stupidity, I had the naivety. I just had the determination that I was going to do this. But where it was different, and I think where a lot of you are stopping is that I started preparing before the path, right? It was never clear how I was gonna get there. The only thing I knew was to work on the parts that were immediately before the parts that I could control, right? If I hadn't started running before I got the call, I would have never made the first day. The first day was 12 miles. I think it may have been longer. I mean, I never even ran that far. But I had a baseline of running a little bit every day of training because I knew fitness was important. I was already doing pull ups, I was already preparing on rappelling, which key component of the course, talking leadership. All of those things that I could control that I thought would enhance the day the ability came, right? So today is Sunday. You're sitting at your house, you may be watching this or you may be tomorrow, and you're sitting at work. What are you doing today that you control that helps leave your passion? I know some of you don't know what you want, but there's a lot of you that do know what you want, right? And for whatever reason, you're not taking a step forward. And one of the things that we deal with a lot when I, when I coach with my clients is this courage. Control what you can control, right? You don't have to know the whole path up the mountain. You just have to know what's a good next step and take it right. That's the only way. Was it Zig Ziglar and said, you don't have to be great at the start, but you have to start to be great. So that's my message for you today. It's a little long, but I hope you'll really give some thought to where do you need to be more courageous in your life? Where is the logical next step for you to just take an action and hey, it may be as simple as just telling some other people, this is my dream. I don't know how it's going to happen, but this is my dream because it would have never happened for me if I hadn't started telling people this is what I want to do. This is the goal. And I know it's impossible, but this is what I'm thinking about. Because that's when the opportunity came, right? It didn't exist. And then once I did it, well, then lots of other people did it. It's no big feat now, but 25 years ago, I didn't know anybody that had done it, and neither had the people that were involved in helping me do it the first time. So that's the great. That's the opportunity before you go out, be the first and inspire others behind you. It's make your impossible dream seem so common that people will laugh that we even thought that that would be an issue. So my best wishes. Go make this day meaningful and take a step towards your dream. All right. See you. Bye.