200 Days

200 days. That's all I have. 200 days left until life changes for good and I have to check a new box on the demographic section of surveys. And, only 200 days left to get to Africa and complete my goal to be to all 6 inhabited continents before I turn 30. As I've recently shared and my lifestyle has shown, I love to travel. I love the experiences that happen on the road, the people that you meet, and the bigger view of humanity that is only possible when you go and see it for yourself.  This year has been especially full of travel (100,000+ miles flown this year so far) and I'm thankful for each journey and the continued awesomeness that has continued to develop from each of them.

About five years ago, I decided that I wanted to get to all 6 inhabited continents by the time that I turned 30. At that time I'd only been to North and South America and Europe. I shared that with a few folks and they gave me some positive feedback for having a good dream. I like having dreams that other people think are cool. But, over the past few years, I have really committed to a statement that changed the way that I think about dreams.

"A goal without a deadline is just a dream."

If there isn't a deadline to our dreams, they'll never happen. For some really big dreams that I've had, the only time they've ever happened was when I assigned them a deadline. If there is an open ended timeline for when it can happen, there wasn't any urgency or pressure to make sure it happened. I love that pressure and love the feeling of making it happen. When I turned 29 this February, I had still only been to North America, South America, and Europe and didn't have any trips planned to any other continents. Since then I've been able to check off Asia and Australia.

But, according to my handy "Days Until" app on my phone, as of today, I have 200 days until my 30th birthday. Which means I have 200 days to figure out how to get over to Africa and make sure that this goal isn't just a dream.

If you have any ideas for speaking gigs, philanthropreneurial opportunities, or just plain fun times, I'd love to hear them!