The Young Sailor Returns with a Cargo of Inspiration

[See in original format at The Real Estate Lounge Chicago]

Buried somewhere in the innards of yesterday's New York Times was a story that elated me.

17-year-old Zac Sunderland completed a one-year odyssey in which he sailed around the world alone aboard his sailboat "Intrepid."

Doing the math backward this means that Zac left his mom and dad and brothers and sisters when he was 16. And while some kids don't like to spend the night away from the nest and here we have Zac enduring some 28,000 miles sailing solo.

Wow!

I'm sure he's happy to be the youngest-ever person to complete a feat such as this. But more important, perhaps, than the accolade is the knowledge that he did it. And as did this beautiful shaggy haired teen tip his lance deftly toward the windmill, so too can the rest of us gain a truer measure of ourselves and also do it.

Hah! It rekindles in my mind the time-worn saw from Nike - "Just do it."

Seems like Zac Sunderland heard the call of this muse and did just that. Now it's our turn.

Sometimes the adventures are smaller, like the excursion that my family and I took through our Edgewater neighborhood in the northside of Chicago to participate in the community's "Third Saturday." And sometimes the scope is a bit grander like when Nicole and I hightailed it up the Machu Picchu trail in Peru or down the Amazon River (or even when we traveled to Europe the Christmas before last with nine-m0nth-old Lucas and two-year-old Jackson).

What struck me about Zac, aside from his courage and grace to have accomplished this feat was that his parents not only raised him to do it, but they encouraged him to do it.

Wow and wow!

What a lesson to bear in mind as I intermingle trying to be the best dad that I can be to Jackson and Lucas while simultaneously servicing the needs of my clients buying and selling homes and condos in the Chicago real estate market. At the end of the day it's not that tough a task. Well, sometimes it is tough, but those times typically are related to friction and friction often is the result of ego or pride trying to dictate an end result. And when you have ego and pride squaring off between two parties as oft is the case when folks act like folks...

So the call to action is manifold, but primarily what I gleaned from Zac's story is to be inspired and moved to do things fully and with greatness.

Sounds like I'm orbiting my old Zen haunts again.