Reid Hoffman’s (founder of LinkedIn) perspective offers one of the best examples of discovering our bearing: “You must feed your unbreakable desire to see and touch a future that you feel you’re uniquely created to invent.”

You see, it's our responsibility to take risks because we honestly have few real risks in our lives. To live boldly, we must dare greatly. And that means taking the chances that push us to the greatest extremes of our abilities. It comes down to how we value our critical assets and begs the question: 'Does our mission cause us to quit every other activity that does not directly contribute to its accomplishment — those distractions that steal our focus, our effort, and our time?' Ultimately, if we re-purpose all our resources to a legendary end, dramatic changes result. We must be completely and irrationally committed to a mission of inspiring others to improve themselves in order that our collective effort betters our world.

Since Julius Caesar Crossed the Rubicon River in northern Italy, the word “Rubicon” has exemplified:

Crossing A Point Of No Return

Pathfinders abandon the luxury of returning to our familiar mediocrity once we discover the grit that has laid dormant inside. This grit takes us past a point of no return - ready to navigate meaningful and unknown challenges beyond the horizon. And in this most sacred of choices, we elect to live a life that is nothing less than legendary.

MY OBJECTIVE: To deliberately cause affirmative outcomes that would not have occured otherwise.

This mission began nearly three decades ago during my research expedition into the philosophical, psychological, and behavioral distinctions that yield positive performance despite adversities. I discovered something crystal. Something almost inexplicable. What lies beyond "success" - the stuff, style, and status - is meaningfulness. Life then becomes about maintaining a bearing on what the ancient Greeks called Logos. Logos permits us the courage to face man’s greatest fear. Uncertainty.

To navigate the odyssey of life, Pathfinders train to use a tool appropriately called a COMPASS – symbolized by our 4-pointed logo. To this end, we follow clues left behind by the Best. Like Aristotle noted, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” To state it more plainly, when we start acting as if we are the Best, we will start believing that we are the Best. And when we start believing that we are the Best, we will become our Best!

Aristotle seeded this concept into a 13-year old Alexander in the form of an enigma, “Be what you wish to seem.” And legend ensued: King of Greece by age 20, Pharaoh of Egypt by 24, Emperor of Persia by 26, unrivaled battlefield commander by 32, and 2,300 years later, his great daring still provokes immortal reverence.

"Privations and danger are the toll of deeds of glory... What is sweeter than to live bravely and to die leaving immortal renown?

When you seek my colors tomorrow, you need look only to the fore!"
Alexander The Great
(356-323BC)

There is a distinction shared by all the Best: the capacity to improvise, adapt, and overcome – regardless of the challenges Fate has chosen us to endure. This ability to rise stronger emanates from their internal codes that encompass their passions, thoughts, attitudes, and values. In essence, it’s in their code – their very way of perceiving!

And it is more. Becoming our Best is not doing any one magical thing. Instead, it is an accumulation of advantages that, when viewed individually, appear insignificant. But when acted on simultaneously, they become symbiotic. And when organized correctly and practiced relentlessly, they function synergistically.