At 49, a good friend and colleague said, “You need to meet my Dad, you share the same approach to life.”  She was persistent about meeting her Dad, like I needed to meet him.  She’s smart, talented, a good human – she’s one of my favorite people – so we set up a dinner.  Six of us, including spouses / significant others.

I’ve always lived my life in a hurry.  I was born 60 days premature, and it wasn’t a given I’d make it.  I made it.  Since then, I’m constantly trying to cram 10 pounds of life in a 5-pound sack.

I’m fueled by a healthy dose of ‘imposter syndrome’.  My crazy head is constantly running a monologue of ‘you need to work harder and dig deeper because everyone around you is better than you’.  That was a huge weight to carry when I was younger, but now I embrace it as a  comfortable partner that drives me to be better.

Dinner with my friend’s Dad.  There were at least six of us at that table that night.  It was a lively and loud Friday night with lots happening around us.  But you know how you can just lock into a single person and have a singular conversation sometime?  That was my experience with her Dad.

We shared adventure stories and chatted.  He’s smart, successful and he’s lived life.  I immediately liked him.  He asked good questions and listened.  I tried to do the same.  He asked me what was on my ‘list’, explaining that he was at a point where his list was starting to be limited by health and age.  I casually threw out ‘trek to Everest Base Camp to see the Himalayas’.  His immediate response was ‘do it now, you have the financial means to do it and the career flexibility, don’t wait’.  I will admit that his sense of urgency was a bit unsettling.  I brushed it off with the typical ‘work is really tight right now, it’s such huge commitment of time’.  The typical nonsense that leaves things undone and hanging.

He doubled down, adding ‘you need to do it now, while you also have the health to do it, you won’t always have that luxury’.  I think I mumbled something in the affirmative and we went on to other topics, but that left me unsettled.  The next day, that feeling was still there, but in a good way.  Urging me to get on with it.

Dinner and that conversation were a turning point in my life.  I reached over, grabbed the throttle control of the airplane that is my life and fire walled it.  Since that night, I’ve been full on, trying to make the most out of every minute I have, every opportunity that comes along, and not looking back.  (I’m always worried that there might be something back there about to overtake me.)

Restless Urban is where we’ll connect.  I’ll share my story, and you promise to come along and say ‘yes’ to adventure, obsessing and creating memories.  It will be a little bit of everything – my lifelong love of music, adventuring in all its forms, collecting things that bring me joy and feed my need for creativity – watches, sneakers, cars, etc.  I’ll introduce you to my friends and family.  We’ll stay focused on not taking any of it too seriously, finding space and time to connect, have some fun, and get into some chaos along the way.

You will regret not saying ‘yes’ more often when you are truly old.  There is no trophy for ‘safe and sensible’.  Tighten the laces, snug up the gloves, check your mirrors and hit it.  Come with me, we’ll find the way.

Oh, and by the way, thank you Mr. Capozza for the most important dinner of my adult life, I hope I had the good sense to pick up the tab.