Audacity (a viral story)
Oliver and his cat Phoenix went viral last month on their journey in a sailboat across the Pacific Ocean. Oliver quit his job, bought a sailboat, and started sailing around the world without even so much as having ever been on the ocean.
Zero. Ocean. Experience.
"Life's insane. Chase your dreams and just trust yourself." - Oliver
By now you might have stumbled across his story and his daily updates and discovered that his trek across the sea from Oregon to Hawaii was equal parts frightening and exciting.
And that he MADE IT.
Literally and figuratively.
He reached Hawaii, but not without rudder failure, seasickness, almost losing his mast, and getting locked in the cockpit hatch. But the delights were aplenty: epic sunsets, impromptu whale sightings, the opportunity to take an ocean dip in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, attracting the attention of millions (not to mention big-name corporate sponsors), and ultimately receiving a hero’s welcome once he reached land in Hawaii. It was like something movie scripts are made of, with everyone rallying around this everyday dreamer doing the thing.
To know his story is to love his story and want to root for him. He was diagnosed with a spinal condition that could render him paralyzed from the neck down, which became his permission slip to chase his dreams. He ditched the corporate job that he despised, liquidated his 401k to buy a sailboat, spent a year learning how to sail, and pushed off from the shoreline hoping for the best and prepared for the worst.
All I could think about when I followed his story was: this is some sort of audacity. The bodacious kind that is a marker of living life to the hilt.
And it got me thinking: how did Oliver, how have I, how does anyone get to the point of pushing off from the shoreline of safety to do the big bodacious thing? Where do we get the audacity?
Alignment (the ultimate litmus test)
Before Oliver cashed out his 401k to pursue his dream of sailing around the world he confessed, “I work a corporate job at a tire shop and I absolutely hate this life.”
Hating your life in the position, job, career, lifestyle, relationship, or city you are in is a sign that you are not aligned.
Alignment is the litmus test for your life: it feels amazing when you are in it; you are the hero of your own journey; even when the unexpected arises it can still be thrilling because it’s aligned.
When you are not aligned (misalignment), life doesn’t get better until you find alignment again. In my experience, misalignment actually gets more uncomfortable until you do something about it.
And that's where audacity comes in.
The audacity to do something about it. To pause and take inventory. To explore what alignment could look like next. To go confidently in the direction of your dreams, even if (especially if) your dreams aren’t fully fleshed out yet. The audacity to live as if alignment is non-negotiable.
It’s the courage to say “this isn’t it” before you even know what is.
You might be out of alignment if:
You feel like you have outgrown the container: the position, the relationship, the city, the identity.
The thought of continuing in your current state of affairs in perpetuity is NOT OK.
You got everything you wanted and are asking the question “now what?”
You got everything you dreamed of and feel the nudge to start dreaming new dreams.
If it feels like a low-grade hum of dissatisfaction, it might be misalignment. And the only cure is getting back into alignment.
And getting back into alignment may require the audacity to push off from the traditional path and chart your own course.
Like Oliver. Who posted: “Dear Corporate America, I won” upon reaching Hawaii.
Bodacious Audacity (a practical guide)
There are two definitions of audacity in the dictionary.
au·dac·i·ty
/ôˈdasədē,äˈdasədē/
noun
a willingness to take bold risks
rude or disrespectful behavior
To distinguish between the two, I refer to the former as bodacious audacity and have taken liberty to make it my own.
Bodacious Audacity: a willingness to take bold risks in pursuit of living life to the hilt
If you are navigating a season of misalignment, here’s a practical framework to move from misalignment to having the bodacious audacity to do something about it.
1. The Defining Moment
This is the moment you know in your bones: something’s got to give. There’s a discomfort that comes from not being aligned anymore with your current state of affairs and this is the moment it becomes too loud to ignore. The job. The relationship. The identity. The belief. The routine. Whatever it is, you’ve outgrown it.
For Oliver, it was his diagnosis paired with misery at work.
For me, it has always been a feeling that I have squeezed every last ounce of goodness out of my current situation. It is both a quiet knowing and a grounded urgency to move to next.
It might feel also feel like Groundhog Day (new day, same frustrations, same dreadful loop) meets a breaking point event (something that happens that gives you a signal loud and clear that you are not aligned in the current situation).
This is where audacity starts—not with certainty, but with the clarity that you can’t stay where you are.
2. Know What Lights You Up
Shakespeare said it best: to thine own self be true.
But first you have to know yourself. Because the more you know, the better you can be true.
What lights you up?
What are your patterns?
What are your strengths?
What have you experienced that you want more of?
Reflect and explore through journaling, personal assessments, and conversations with people who know you best. Reflect on patterns. Discover your strengths. Get chatty with ChatGPT. Get woo-woo with your human design. Talk to your higher self if you’re into that kind of thing.
Oliver dreamed of the adventure of a lifetime: sailing around the world with his cat.
What is it for you? Get clear about what makes you feel wildly alive on the inside. Nurture the things that make you more you. Embody being in your lit-up-ness as a signal to the universe: more of this please!
3. Tune to Alignment
There’s something really wild that happens when you have your defining moment of **no more this** and are so clear on your **more of this please**. You start to tune into a new frequency for attracting aligned opportunities.
What job, relationship, dynamic, lifestyle do you dream of?
What job, relationship, lifestyle, career are you curious about?
Who has the thing that you dream of or are curious about? How can you connect with them and let them expand your sense of what is possible?
What actions can you take to align yourself with that dream?
For Oliver, it was cashing out his 401(k) and buying a sailboat!
For me, it typically begins with one small step in the direction of the dream, and then another (I’m a baby-step-aligner).
For you it could be as simple as getting in the habit of asking yourself: does this behavior-activity-relationship-project-task align with my dream life? The more you ask the more you can tune the frequency of your thoughts, actions, and beliefs to alignment. [Fine print: you will likely also have to shed what is not aligned.]
When you tune into what is aligned for you, you attract more alignment.
4. Start Before You Are Ready
You are never going to feel fully ready to do the big bodacious thing. But once you’ve gotten this far (had your defining moment, know what lights you up, and you are attracting alignment), when the aligned opportunity presents itself you are ready enough.
Oliver dove into sailing lessons and started building the skills to back his dream. He just started becoming the person that could sail from Oregon to Hawaii.
I threw myself into a life I knew nothing about. No sailing experience. No roadmap. Just blind faith in a better future. - Oliver
If there is an aligned opportunity, have the bodacious audacity to start before you are ready!
5. Trust Your Ingenuity
This is the part of the formula where you go all-in on YOU and your ability to adjust, adapt, and refine as needed. You are creative, clever, and filled with ingenuity.
The unknown? It’s inevitable. The worst-case-scenario? You can handle it. The hack: don’t let fear of the unknown hold you back from going all-out and all-in on your dream.
Oliver encountered rough seas and equipment failure. He figured it out along the way, but if he didn’t he would have been okay with that too. He trusted his decision to begin and his ingenuity to figure it out as he went.
"I've worked really, really hard to get here. Even if worst case scenario happens, I feel like I've already lived a life I'll forever be proud of." - Oliver
This kind of bodacious audacity doesn’t require certainty of outcome. It is bodacious precisely because of the uncertainty. You become the person who does the thing, and the success is you (not the final destination)!
Now It’s Your Turn
When have you had the audacity to do the bodacious t? It might have felt like jumping off a cliff, seeing two paths diverge in a wood and taking the one less traveled (in the words of Robert Frost), or just taking any leap of faith toward alignment.
What is your pattern? Does it match up with this formula? What would you add?
And what’s your next bodaciously audacious move?
In case it helps to hear it: you deserve a bodacious life, whatever that looks like for you.
✨PS- I put the bodacious adacity framework in a pretty little graphic in case your brain works better this way:
