A few years ago I read a life changing book. It was called “The Art of Non-Conformity” by Chris Guillebeau. At the time I started reading his writings he was in the midst of a quest to visit every country in the world before he turned 35. I was intrigued by his perspective and adopted it into my own philosophy on living life. I accepted the challenge to not accept living life the way everybody does it. After that time, things came much easier for me. I was no longer spending my days living up to other’s expectations, but I could set my own path, make my own choices, and achieve goals that have a value scale to me personally.

A handful of years have passed since then and Guillebeau has reached his goal of visiting all 193 countries in the world, and he has written a couple more books. Most recent is “The Happiness of Pursuit” which includes the stories several people who have been on some sort of “quest” in their lives. Something that drove them to live their life to the beat of their own drum. Making what we would call goals into something bigger. More of a life achievement. Not something that is within easy reach, but something they really had to stretch for.

Guillebeau explains the difference in a goal and a quest. Most notably that a quest could take your whole life to complete. I am a very goal oriented person. I like personal challenges that really help me to excel and not become stagnant in my life. It’s kind of ironic because I am not a competitive person at all, just with myself. I guess it’s just a personal thing.

Over the past couple weeks I have been reading his book. (It’s not a hard or long read, I’ve just been so busy with business and life that I have only been reading it 10-15 minutes a day.) During this time, I was presented with an invitation… Which doubles as the most physically challenging opportunity I’ve ever been asked to participate in… a 16 day trek to and from Mt Everest base camp.

I expressed my interest to gather the information as the team was counting the costs, both physically and financially. I spent the past seven nights reading and researching what is to be expected. After some debate about which company to trek with, what time of year to go, as well as what YEAR to go. The team has decided that we will trek to Mt Everest base camp in spring 2017. Part of the training for Mt Everest, Nepal, will include a 3.5 day hike to Mt Rainier, Washington in September 2016. Which will require being in the most physically fit state I’ve ever been in.

One year ago this month, I got more serious about my personal fitness. I have lost 20 pounds in the past 12 months through proper nutrition, strength and cardio training. Up until last year. I always enjoyed strength training, but never cardio, I really couldn’t stand it and hated to sweat. But now I can actually say I  enjoy it. Somewhere, I turned a corner or flipped a switch. Over the past year I have had weeks with great success and some weeks when fitness did not take top priority. With this new goal, a goal that is bigger than just fitting into a smaller size jeans, I am excited to have something to work towards that is an extremely challenging yet one that I believe is achievable and measurable.

I will be keeping a training journal and probably post it weekly somewhere on this blog. Many times I keep my goals privately to myself and share them once I know I can reach them. But this one…I feel the need to post public and keep the prize in sight daily.

I will be starting a few side projects to fund my trips, so keep your eyes open in a couple of weeks for new line of  Wen McNally Art products to be released in time for Christmas 2015.