Sometimes, You’ve Just Gotta’ Do It.

When I was younger, my family and I frequently swam at a place called Lava Hot Springs in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. On the deep end of the pool, they have an olympic sized diving platform built with three different levels, the highest being 33 feet above the water. My family and I would always taunt each other with dares to climb to the top and jump. For me, it was mostly all talk. “Someday,” I would respond. Truth was, I was terrified of heights and had very little desire to leap off such a height to my almost certain death. Having seen more than one person carried out on a stretcher after jumping reinforced that thought.

One day, however, I could not resist the taunts any longer. My two brothers had already taken up the challenge and leaped from the top platform. I would forever be thought of as a big sissy if I didn’t do it too. When you’re in Jr. High, things like that matter a lot, and the last thing I wanted was to have a reputation of being a panty-wearing sissy wuss boy.

I approached the tower with trepidation, each step bringing me closer to my doom. At the bottom of the tower steps, I clasped a hand around each side of the stair rails, took a deep breath, and looked up. Three whole floors to the top. My knees began to shake in anticipation of what I was about to do. I climbed. Up. Up. Up. Past the first platform, to which I was already accustomed. Higher. To the second platform where I’d jumped a few times already, and had already made me stretch way past my comfort zone. My knees were weak and my legs felt like jello, but I forced myself to climb the last flight of stairs to the third platform.

As I walked onto the third platform, the wind–which was much stronger up high–caught my shorts, producing just enough lift to pick me up and toss me head over heels off the side of the platform and down 33 feet down to my demise. Or, at least that’s what I was thinking at the time. It’s funny the scenarios your mind will concoct when you’re facing a fear. There I stood three stories above the water wearing bright neon-yellow swimming trunks, shaking like a baby, scared of the unknown.

Fast forward 20 minutes…

“Kid in the yellow shorts, jump!” I heard as I clung to the third platform’s side rail. The rail was my only security. At this point, the wind was no longer cold to me and my shorts were nearly dry. I had motioned for dozens of people to jump before me. At times, I had even inched on my belly and peered my saucer-like eyes over the edge.

“So far down. Too far down,” I would think to myself and then inch back slowly and grab onto the railing again. Hearing an unfamiliar taunt coming from the pool snapped me back into reality. I looked over the edge to see who shouted it. I was the only one on the platform, and to my surprise dozens of people were watching me.

I quickly snapped back from the ledge. I couldn’t believe the spectacle I was causing. I heard a few more calls, “Jump, kid! You can do it! Don’t be a wuss!” A complete stranger thought I was a wuss. I couldn’t believe it. I stepped to the edge.

My toes curled around the thick cement platform as I stood there. My mind began racing, thinking of all the terrible things that were about to happen to me. I forced myself to think, “Point your toes and don’t belly flop.” Then my mind shut off, and I jumped.

My breath left me for a moment as I fell… and fell… and fell…

The water stung as it slapped against my feet. I kept going down, deeper than I had imagined. Already out of breath, I kicked ferociously to reach the water’s surface, afraid that if I didn’t make it in time it would be the end of me.

I broke the water’s surface, exhausted and thrilled that I had survived.

That day, I knew fear, I faced it (eventually… ha ha), and overcame it. I still have a fear of heights, but that one experience has helped me tremendously to deal with that fear and others. I’ve been able to reflect back on that experience when I’m faced with the unknown and say to myself, “I did it then, and I can do it now.”

Sometimes, you just have to take the leap. When I was on that platform, although I could see where I wanted to be, I wasn’t sure what the journey would be like, or even the landing. It’s the same in business. We know where we want to go, but we don’t always know how to get there, or if we’re going to arrive in one piece.

But that’s the risk you take. You can’t calculate everything, you can’t read everything, you can’t be 100% prepared. At some point, you just have to jump.

“Hey you, in the yellow shorts, jump!”