“The secret to happiness is freedom … And the secret to freedom is courage.”   Thucydides

Breakthroughs – we all long for them: those moments when we push past our fears or comfort zone and find new ways of thinking and doing, both in life and in our creative endeavors. How do we encourage them? “According to author and talk show host Barry Farber, “Breakthroughs happen when we find the courage to so something new or against the grain to push your idea or skill to the edge. It also helps to not be afraid of falling.

“Falling isn’t failing as long as you don’t fail to get back up and use that knowledge and experience for more intelligent action the next time around.”

Who knows more about falling and rebounding than athletes? In a recent feature story called, “On the Edge,” Barry interviewed the 10 time World Champion Skateboarder Andy MacDonald, about how to “fall forward in life:”

“Skateboarding taught me lots of lessons in self-discipline, self-motivation, and creativity, but perhaps the best lesson was simply being comfortable with pushing things to the edge. Not just in skateboarding but in life in general, if you learn to push everything you do to the limits of what’s possible, you tend to get comfortable at the edge and it ceases to be ‘scary’ or ‘risky.’ It just becomes part of who you are. How you roll. Next thing you know there are people asking how it is possible that you’ve been so successful in life.”

OK, I know, I know — we’re scriveners, not skateboarders. We ride the page, not a wedge of wood. And yet, to get where we want to go, like Andy, we need “self-discipline, self-motivation, and creativity.” And sometimes, when things aren’t working (memo to myself!), we need to “push things to the edge,” to push past our self-imposed limitations and make something big happen. Bravo, Andy. Inspiring advice as we all write on!

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