Are you ready to Swashbuckle?

One question I get asked almost more than any other, is what heck is a ‘Swashbuckler’? Well, the traditional definition says it’s “a swaggering swordsman, solider, or adventurer; daredevil.” As you can imagine, we’re less about swords, and more about adventure here. So let’s go with that. And we’re not just talking about the go climb a mountain, jump out of plane kind of adventure either. You can be daring and brave and adventurous in all sorts of ways. We have our own ‘The Relentless Pursuit of Wow’ ethos here, and that’s really what we’re about. So if there’s something that stirs your soul, or makes you go “Wow!”, that’s what we wish more of for you in the year ahead.

Maybe it’s to read more, dream more, do more, travel more, love more, or just be more of who you really are. Whatever makes you happy. 🙂

And as I’ve said before, it’s not awesome people who somehow have the monopoly on doing awesome things, it’s doing awesome things that make you one of those awesome people. Many of us, myself very much included, often suffer from ‘Imposter Syndrome’ thinking we have to be something more than we already are to do what we really want. Well, fuck that.

Let’s make 2017 the year of doing what we’re most passionate about, regardless of whether or not we’re actually ‘ready’. Let’s be honest here, you could spend your life trying to get ready, and never get anything done. So how about we just start and work it out as we go along?

Please know, if the thing you’re most passionate about is doing open heart surgery on someone, you’re probably not included in that particular strategy. Best you practice a bit first. For the rest of us, who just want to try new things, write, paint, draw, sing, dance, travel, take photos… whatever it is, let’s go with the strategy that I was given when first started writing many moons ago: “pursuit of the craft”. Learning by doing.

Because I don’t know about you guys, but these years don’t seem to be going by any slower. For me personally, when I think about how fast this last one went by, and then I think of that amount of time multiplied by about 20, it suddenly doesn’t seem like all that much time left. For example, if I keep on my current trajectory of productivity, I’m unlikely to write more than about 4 or 5 more books, and I have plans for many more than that. A lot more. So something better give. Either I’d better hope I get more than 20 more good years, or I find a way to get more done in those years. Pulling my finger out and making shit happen probably isn’t a bad place to start.

You can, of course, set goals and intent on any day of the year, but we all know doing it at the start of a calendar year makes things neat and tidy, (if that sort of thing is important to you.) Whenever you do it, whether it’s today, tomorrow, or you’ve already done it, here’s to some serious Swashbuckling in the days, weeks, months and years ahead.

Sputnik.

Chief Swashbuckler.

PS Here’s a picture of my first book, signed by George Betsis, the person who originally inspired the whole idea of The Swashbucklers Club way back in the mid 1990s! But that’s a story for another day.