Here's to the risk-takers
Life is full of adventures and opportunities. Sadly, we put many of them on the backburner until they shrivel up and disappear.
Taking back opportunity - running towards it, rather - seems to be a theme rippling through Fort Wayne right now. As many of you already know, my good friend and mentor Steve Franks recently announced that he will soon be leaving his position at the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center to pursue some exciting opportunities on the horizon (one of which I'm involved in, and very excited about). Another close friend of mine, Ray Angel, recently took the leap as well to invest his time in a startup he's launching and the continuation of his work with Vertical Leap. The list goes on to include another 4 or 5 local entrepreneurs who are taking big risks in hopes of helping our city make big progress.
But it wasn't until yesterday that inspiration finally met me full-on. I met up with an ambitious young person by the name of Ryan Schnurr. A recent graduate of Huntington University, your first assumption would be that Ryan is like many of his peers - talented, bright, and ready to start down the stable career path he's prepared himself for over the past four years. Your assumption would be wrong. He's a risk-taker, much like the others I mentioned above. He has an entrepreneurial spirit, big dreams, and game-changing spirit. He's the type of person who realizes dreams are never meant to be put on hold and that progress without risk isn't really progress at all.
A few months ago, Ryan was offered a "dream job" opportunity in his field. He turned it down. Instead, he chose to pursue a few promising ideas he has for radically changing the way we talk about our city, communicate with others, and share stories. He's charging fearlessly into the unknown and working hard to make ends meet. He realized that in order to make big things happen, you have to take big, outrageous leaps of faith. You have to dream and you have to dive. You have to take risks. Ray Bradbury, a favorite author of mine, describes it perfectly:
"Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down."
What would it be like if we all had the kind of tenacity that Ryan has? What if we all shared a mentality of making big risks to achieve big rewards? Too many times have I watched friends put their aspirations on hold for stability, only to dread and regret it years down the road when they're sucked into a routine without ever knowing "what could have been."
Today, I took that leap. I'm diving off the cliff and building my wings. This afternoon, I resigned from my position with the Regional Partnership to pursue the promising opportunities that I've been placing on the backburner for far too long. I still fully support the work of Vision 2020 and the Regional Partnership in their quest to develop, attract, and retain talent - but I also came to the difficult conclusion that, if I have dreams that I'm putting on hold for stability and a paycheck, I'm doing a diservice to myself, my colleagues, and this community. I preach all day and night about the great things happening here, but talking and doing are two different things. The people I praise from day to day for the gamechanging ideas they bring to the table are people that are risking it all for a region they love and believe in. It's time for me to do the same. If there were ever a time life provided for us to purposely take risks and big leaps of faith, it's while we're still young.
In the coming weeks, I'll be spending lots of time ramping up the Twelve Cities Project as we prepare to take it to the next level, as well as investing more time into two startups I'm involved in: CitySeven and Paradigm Literary Magazine. Keep your eyes and ears open though - I've got some exciting things up my sleeves that I can't wait to roll out. Fort Wayne is nearing a critical mass of game-changing people with big, bold, outrageous ideas to execute, and cities everywhere are on the edge of an entrepreneurial revolution. As I dive into a world of instability, constant pivoting, big dreams and steadfast loyalty to my personal mission of helping this city become all it can (and will) become, my comfort comes from knowing that - at the end of the day - I tried, and I gave it 110%.
I'll leave you with a visual display of why I love what I do - a beauty I'm so committed to. As you watch this video, turn up your volume, play it in fullscreen, and when you think of those old dreams that you've put on the backburner for too many years.. remember Eleanor Roosevelt's words:
"Do one thing everyday that scares you."
Onward, Nick