Sliding doors

Show Notes

Sliding doors

An innocuous decision can set off a ripple effect that changes your life, like the butterfly effect or a sliding doors moment. One choice, two directions for your life. 

Scene: The kitchen table, rain falling

1. It would be wonderful to take good photographs. I’d love to capture the memories of my daughter growing up and our lovely holidays together. 
2. I can’t afford a big camera. I’m not artistic. My photos are always rubbish. 
3. The End.

Scene: The kitchen table, windows open and birds singing

1. It would be wonderful to take good photographs. I’d love to capture the memories of my daughter growing up and our lovely holidays together. 
2. I can’t afford a big camera. I’m not artistic. My photos are always rubbish. But I do love looking at beautiful photography. I am going to start following more photographers on Instagram.
3. Look! This photographer takes all her photos with the same phone as mine. She doesn’t use an expensive camera. 
4. Hmmm… these portraits are fabulous. It’s interesting how she fills the frame much more than I do. I need to get closer and make each photo count.
5. The golden hour? Let me Google that. Aha! So that is the secret of glowing landscape photography. I need to get up in the hills for sunrise, rather than snoozing through it.
6. ‘What’s that you say? I’m lucky to have such nice photographs of my daughter? That I must be so artistic and have an expensive camera?’ 

Over to You: 

• When have you shied away from doing something because it wouldn’t be perfect? 
• Would ‘good’ have been a preferable outcome to not done at all?

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What is The Doorstep Mile?

Would you like a more adventurous life?
Are you being held back by a lack of time or money? By fear, indecision, or a feeling of being selfish or an imposter?
Living adventurously is not about cycling around the world or rowing across an ocean.
Living adventurously is about the attitude you choose each day. It instils an enthusiasm to resurrect the boldness and curiosity that many of us lose as adults.
Whether at work or home, taking the first step to begin a new venture is daunting. If you dream of a big adventure, begin with a microadventure.
This is the Doorstep Mile, the hardest part of every journey.
The Doorstep Mile will reveal why you want to change direction, what’s stopping you, and how to build an adventurous spirit into your busy daily life.
Dream big, but start small.

Don’t yearn for the adventure of a lifetime. Begin a lifetime of living adventurously.
What would your future self advise you to do?
What would you do if you could not fail?
Is your to-do list urgent or important?
You will never simultaneously have enough time, money and mojo.
There are opportunities for adventure in your daily 5-to-9.
The hardest challenge is getting out the front door and beginning: the Doorstep Mile.

Alastair Humphreys, a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year, cycled around the world for four years but also schedules a monthly tree climb. He has crossed the Empty Quarter desert, rowed the Atlantic, walked a lap of the M25 and busked through Spain, despite being unable to play the violin.

‘The gospel of short, perspective-shifting bursts of travel closer to home.’ New York Times
‘A life-long adventurer.’ Financial Times
‘Upend your boring routine… it doesn't take much.’ Outside Magazine

Visit www.alastairhumphreys.com to listen to Alastair's podcast, sign up to his newsletter or read his other books.
@al_humphreys