Enough About Me. What About...Heather Redderson?

Do not watch this video.

Do not watch this video if you love the outdoors. Do not watch this video if you are this close to quitting your day job. Do not watch this video if you have the Sunday blues, and you're dreading another Monday morning at your desk.

Do not watch this - because this story could really be about any of us. Any of us living in a town we love, enjoying the perks of a well-paying job; and whose social circle makes up the difference when money and location stop cutting the mustard. In short, this is the story about someone who really left it all behind and stuffed her life into a backpack - to climb a total of 50,000 feet, hike 125 miles, and spend several months living in a tent.

But if you're as intrigued with this woman's story as I was and still am, then please allow me to introduce...Heather Redderson.

Special thanks to Karen Knapstein for introducing me to Heather!

Oh, and pardon the sound quality - we did our best, despite an ocean between us and a squeaky little old Mac on my end.

Enough About Me. What about...Danny Sexton?

At 17, when most kids are thinking about how to cook up their next tweet, Danny Sexton was watching a documentary about Darfur. Somewhere in the middle of actual footage of villages being burned down and orphans searching hopelessly for recently killed parents, Danny said to himself, "I can't let this happen. I can't just sit here and watch this movie and walk away from this."

So, he didn't.

Danny and his friends Peter Beaucage and Ryan Finke came up with an idea that would eventually lead the three teens to founding an organization that helps save Darfuri women from rape and murder. And it all started...with leftover donuts.

Watch my interview with Danny by clicking the "play" button on the TV screen below...

Welcome to my new blog-TV series! If you're like me, you're sick of hearing about me (although you're definitely very excited to read my coming book about what can happen when you follow your wildest dream in life). Anyway - since I'm sort of sick of talking about myself, perhaps we could talk about you? You, who used to sit at a corporate desk job and are now training to become a mountaineer. YOU, a teenager who heard about Darfur and started up an organization to help save 600 refugee families from rape and murder. YOU, who, well, tell me! Tell me your story about how you've followed a dream. I'd love to hear from you. Frankly, I bet a lot of people would. -Patricia

Enough About Me!

May I be straight with you? Yes? Thank you.

Here it is - I'm getting a little bit sick of the sound of my own voice here on this blog. For four years, I've been telling you about my adventure leaving a job for a new career, and the moments in between: writing for a London magazine, roadtripping in Africa, meeting my husband-to-be in an oversized Snow White costume in Hong Kong, and eating uber-delicacies like whale sperm in Japan. But as someone recently pointed out to me (someone important, someone in 'the industry'), four years on I have nothing to show for what I've done. I don't have a career. I don't have any direction. I just have my book.

More than anything, "just" was the word that stung.

After all, I've spent years believing that approximately almost-nobody has ever stopped achieving their dreams. That a dream is not necessarily a goal, but a process. That most people are like me, midway through their adventure. Some are closer than others, and some are still sitting at their corporate desk jobs thinking "What if?" But all of us, I still think, all of us are hanging onto the thread of belief in possibility.

So, on that note, I will bid you goodbye for a time. In the interim, I'd like to introduce to you, right here on this blog, a series of people who've followed their dreams. Like you and me, they're regular people with or without a bit of savings in the bank, with or without the wisdom of age, with or without the certainty of direction, and with or without concrete success. But they all have stories about how they shut their eyes and took that leap of faith.

So, coming soon: "Enough About Me, What About You?" Featured in this series will be a teenage president of a corporation working to help save women from rape in Darfur, a gorgeous New York woman who quit her corporate job to become a mountaineer, and hopefully, many more.

If you know anyone like us, like me and you, who's somewhere on The Path, write to me on this blog or at patricia.sexton(at)gmail.com and let's hear their story. Like I said, enough about me.

And finally, one last goodbye from Mongolia TV...