I’m really proud of the work my clients do. It takes grit to muscle through the shitty first draft, the revisions, and the doubt. These people, they don’t quit. As part of an upcoming series of posts showcasing the different subjects, styles, and voices of these authors, I’d like to introduce you to Mozella Perry Ademiluyi and an excerpt from her upcoming book, The Peak: How To Move From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be

 

My late father’s name was Moses Lewis Perry; and his story is where my inspiration began:

He was born in Miami, Florida to parents of very moderate means. His teenage years during the 1940s were filled with unusual thoughts of living and working on the African continent. He was driven by some unknown purpose to hold onto what must have felt like an ‘impossible dream.’ And hold on he did, right through university and for the first ten years of the YMCA Executive Director job he held after he finished some post graduate work.

What may have seemed a miraculous change of direction to some, my 33-year-old father left Miami with his wife and young family in tow, and embarked on the journey of a lifetime. Leaving on October 9^th, 1962, he set out for Jinja, Uganda, East Africa to live and work and fulfill his dreams. Our family lived between East and West Africa for the next 18 years.

People who mattered in his life were afraid. They questioned his judgment, or lack thereof. Well-meaning friends, family, and colleagues wondered at his decision to embark into the darkness of this unknown continent. The Tarzan inspired images of Africa fueled visions of man-eating lions and tribesmen too.

If he had started by asking how his dreams were to unfold, or even what would happen as he set out on this new life path, he may never have left Florida.

Thanks to my mom’s travel journal, and an 8 mm movie camera, our entire journey was documented: She kept one from the moment we left Miami until she stopped writing in it two years later. In it, she shared events I would have never recalled. The first time we saw and felt the African continent having touched down in Dakar, Senegal. The beautiful, exotic sights that greeted us, the rubber trees, the surprisingly modern buildings, and of course, the heat. After going to Monrovia, Liberia, Accra, Ghana, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Nairobi, Kenya, we finally touched down in Entebbe, Uganda on October 29^th, twenty days later. It had been an epic continental crossing.

The date of her very last entry formed the basis for our summit day on Kilimanjaro  50 years later. My sisters and I chose the same date as the day we would honor the vision and courage of our parents from the rooftop of Africa. We held our handmade sign at 19,342 feet and it simply said: Thank you Mother and Daddy. January 10, 1964. My other sign, made the night before our final ascent, proclaimed “It’s Possible”.

I once read that Abraham Lincoln said, “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” That’s exactly what my parents did. It’s what my life experience and the work that I embrace is all about – exploring possibility and creating one’s self. This is the message carried throughout this book. It’s up to us, even when we don’t fully acknowledge it. Who wouldn’t like to blame someone else for why we didn’t make it to where we were headed? We’ve all got excuses, and perhaps reasons that may have contributed in some significant ways to slowing us down, or even stopping us in our tracks. Had my father buckled to the prevailing restrictions of the time, he may have never forged his own path in direct opposition to what was expected of him.

I actually climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro twice: once when I was 50 in 2003, and then again at 60. Ten years is a huge gap to revisit a goal isn’t it?

One of the biggest differences between my first Kili climb (we made it to the 15,000 ft mark) and my second one (we reached Uhuru Peak at 19,342 ft) was a difference in how I approached that first step: Imagine First. Both times I envisioned our results in my imagination.

The first time, I could not, did not see my sisters and I making it to the top. And why not you might ask? Because each day my primary focus and questions were fear-based concerns about whether I/we had what it took to reach our intended destination. The impact of the negative picture I imagined was reflected in our final results.

It’s said that you can’t serve two masters at the same time. Which one will it be, fear or courage? We’ll spend some time talking about facing down fear as we move on.

We live in choice each and every moment. If we take time out to get over some failure or disappointment, coming back to where we belong is a choice we make, or not.

Who among us hasn’t ‘failed’? We’ve all hit a wall, missed our mark, or had to take the qualifying exam, again. What excites me, and drives me, is the power within each and every one of us to BE more – to discover and uncover more of who we already are.

If you don’t have ‘it’ in your hands yet, you can vividly and dynamically place it in your thoughts. Then you can practice feeling the success of it, like it’s right before you; taste it, touch it and be grateful for the excitement of having it just like you imagine. From imagination, our vision is born.

This is the formula that triggers success in whatever area of our lives we choose.

A vivid imagination, determination, and a deep self- belief system opened doors for a smart, black, teenage boy in Miami. My dad knew he was Africa-bound. He just didn’t know how or when he was going to get there. However, he kept putting one foot in front of the other until he made it to his peak. And, he stayed there exploring more of life in Africa for almost two decades, perhaps over and beyond where his dreams had initially taken him.