Never Mind Those Details
Step Through The Doorway On Your Next Adventure
I never intended to start a nonprofit business. I intended to run across America for my mother, who was living with MS, and raise $500,000 for charity while finding sponsors to fund the motorhome, gas, food and lodging for the entire venture. I was twenty-four years old and hadn’t run a marathon yet, nor had I done any fundraising. Never mind those details. Upon completion, after having successfully met my goals, I would frolic off into the sunset like a leprechaun skipping down a rainbow.
I learned quickly that what I imagined would happen was too simple and that there was more to discover. My initial conversations with established nonprofits were supportive, meaning they would gladly accept my fundraising, but leveraging their tax-exempt position for my forthcoming sponsors proved to be a rather steep and unproductive pitch. Weeks and months later, I would create my own nonprofit.
I taught myself how to build a website. I created a budget for the event so far off that my skin prickled the first time I filled the motorhome tank with gas. Routes across America that were roads when viewed on Google maps were actually highways unsafe for pedestrians, and I naively believed that every person I came across was there serendipitously to help me, which led to thousands of dollars being stolen from my charity (I got it back!) as well as other incredible and distressing stories. I finished my own coast-to-coast crossing, then was so short on my fundraising goal that I felt disappointed in the effort, something of which I didn’t have words for within the bustle of celebrations, interviews and congratulations for my athletic achievement. Others seemed elated for me, while I wondered ‘Why run all the way across America for only $56,000?’.
This, all in year one.
The simpleness of my idea had gotten me through the doorway, and that was about it. Once I was in it, the concept was vast and I had to choose to stay and unpack. Staying looked like learning and building and being okay with making mistakes. Staying brought me to questions I hadn’t considered, like how to actually raise half a million dollars versus what I did in the first place, which was just throw a number out into the ether and believe that positive intention would make it appear by the time I arrived at my finish. What has come since - creating America’s Longest Relay Run, raising millions of dollars for the cause and rallying thousands of supporters each year in the effort - is so remarkable that I almost can’t believe it. Execpt that I’ve been here all along, laboring to piece it together.
In 2017, I began writing my memoir about running across America and founding the charity. I always knew I wanted to write about it, but my first attempt was in 2011, the year after I finished my solo coast-to-coast run, and the chapters read more like a middle school journal than a compelling story. I was still processing the fullness of what had happened – the sunrises and unique places and abundance of generosity from strangers that supported me, contrasted with the demanding complexities of a huge endeavor and a social sector business, and how those things created tension in my personal life. It was a lot to carry.
A tweet in 2017 got me on the path of writing my book again. The author promised to teach me how to write a nonfiction book proposal in 30-days by attending a free webinar that evening. After putting my little ones to bed later that night, I watched the author pitch their program, wherein I declared that I’d take the material and produce a proposal with three supporting chapters within three months' time. Then I’d pitch it to agents, land one (quickly, obviously), sell it to a publisher, and be on my way to being a published author by 2019. Upon completion, after having successfully met my goals, I would frolic off into the sunset like a leprechaun skipping down a rainbow.
Hum.
I completed my book’s manuscript in the Spring of 2022 and the book proposal in Fall of 2023. I’m still looking for a literary agent and publisher.
Maybe I don’t forecast well.
Or, maybe I’ve learned that what gets me started isn’t what will keep me going. That whatever it is, will get bigger. But so will I. That I’ll have to adapt, measuring what I am doing against the many things that pull at me - like tasks, and emails, and money, and comfort - and still decide to continue every day, which is particularly difficult on the bad days when I see little product from all the labor. The crop is still cultivating beneath the soil - a process I trust is happening but cannot see - and so I stare across a tilled field with the knowledge of what I’ve planted and anxiously wait. I have to be patient, doing the next right thing even if it doesn't match my initial timeline. Quality outweighs quickness, while also being cautious not to get stuck in perfection.
But staying idle now because of what will come later is too simple, just like the doorways I walk through. It’s comparing the totality of the endeavor to who you are in this moment, not who you will become along the path. There’s more to uncover - not only within it, but also within you.
The simplicity brings you in and staying makes it all grow, but none of it ever happens if you choose not to start. So I wonder, what doorways are there for you to walk through, and what’s keeping you from crossing the threshold? Aren’t you just a little bit curious about what waits for you on the other side?
