Have you ever had a dream? A dream of doing something extraordinary? Of becoming something else, someone else, really achieving something, giving meaning to your life, having a purpose, instead of just ‘being’? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Isn’t that what we all dream of? But more often than not we see these dreams as impossible, as things only other people do, not us. Only other people have successful businesses, only other people become millionaires, only other people can get out of the rut they’ve been in for years and turn their life around, only other people sail across the Atlantic Ocean or climb Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world…Well guys, if that’s what you really believe, then I’m afraid you’ll just have to think again. I’m just like you, but I’m also one of those ‘other people’. I have not only sailed across the Atlantic ocean, but I have climbed up Mount Everest and stood on the summit of the highest mountain on earth. I have seen a view of the world, of the universe, that very few have seen. I have looked down on the earth from 29,000 feet, a height where you feel you can reach up and touch the stars, and I have looked in wonder at the beautiful cobalt blue of a sky that curves away into infinity. I have lived the dream.

But in reality, I really am just like you. Life for me has not been plain sailing by any means. It’s been something of a roller coaster ride, just like it is for most people. I got married at 25, for all the wrong reasons. It only lasted a year and at 26 I was a divorcee. I married again, happily, and this time managed 12 years before my husband suddenly died, and I found myself a widow at the age of 39. This was a shock. It was not something which was in my life plan. But that difficult and emotional experience taught me several lessons. One of which was that you can’t plan your life! You think it’s settled, you’re happily married, you make all sorts of plans for the future together, and then all of a sudden, bang! your life collapses around you. It really brought home to me the fact that you can never be sure where life is going to take you. There are many times in our lives when we come to a crossroads, a junction, and whichever way we decide to turn, it is going to change the direction of our lives forever. If I hadn’t married my first husband, got divorced and turned right (or was it left?) at that first major road junction, I wouldn’t have married my second husband and found myself a widow at the age of 39. But then if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have found myself yet again at another major crossroads, and chosen the direction which would eventually lead me to the summit of Mount Everest – although I did not, of course, know yet where I was going at the time I chose to take the second exit off the roundabout.…

The other major lesson I learnt from this experience was that you can’t be complacent, you have to get on with life, take opportunities when they present themselves, don’t let life pass you by, because you don’t know how long you’ve got. My husband dying was like a kick up the behind for me. It took me a little while to get up and dust myself off, but when I did I jumped at the first opportunity that came my way. The opportunity to do something for myself. I realised how much I had been living in my husband’s shadow. I had been a ‘wife’, living his life. And now it was my turn. I came to the realization that it is my life to do what I want with and no one else‘s. And it just so happened that the path of my life was going to take me to the summit of Mount Everest.

Climbing a mountain is a bit like life. It is a journey, a challenge. From it’s base to the summit, and down again. And the bigger the mountain, the greater the challenge, the longer and harder the journey is. There are many difficulties and dangers along the way, and sometimes it seems too much, almost impossible to overcome them alone. At times like that we feel we have perhaps taken on too great a challenge and must give up. Which is why so many of our dreams don’t come true. It’s not that we don’t have the capability of fulfilling them, because we do, it’s just that our goal often seems too big a challenge to take on alone, or perhaps we can’t see a way of achieving it. Or perhaps we don’t even know, or can’t see, what our goal, our life purpose is. This is where a Life Coach is invaluable. Having someone along on your journey to light the way ahead, to guide you, to believe in you, to encourage you, just knowing that you are not facing this challenge alone, can be the one thing that you need to get you to the summit of your own Everest – whatever that may be.

I didn’t climb to the summit of Mount Everest alone. I had a Life Coach with me. But my Life Coach came in the guise of a Sherpa. Someone who lives in the shadow of Mount Everest, who understands and respects the mountain, who knows the mountain, who lives and breathes it. He possessed all the qualities of a perfect Life coach. He not only showed me the way, but, more importantly, he gave me the belief and encouragement that I did have the necessary qualities to do what I really wanted to do, to be able to fulfil my dream.

Even though my Sherpa was there climbing up the mountain with me, coaching me, I was still climbing it myself. I was still doing all the hard work, putting one foot in front of the other, climbing up the rock and the ice. Yes, he would occasionally unclip my harness from one rope and attach it on to another, but it was his very presence that was reassuring. It was invaluable having another person’s eyes and ears up there. He was encouraging, supportive. He was giving me permission to realize my dream without taking my power away. He knew I could do it, he saw the qualities in me, he understood the mountain, the task I had set myself and he knew there was no doubt I would reach the summit.

When at last I was on the wavy corniced crest of the summit ridge, I was very emotional, it was a profound indescribable feeling, not only of elation, but also of awe. Awe at the unbelievable beauty all around me, not just the pristine white snows of Mount Everest, the Mother Goddess of the Earth, but the beauty of our world, our universe, which I could see all around me, below and above me. It had been the most incredible journey, and I knew that any minute I would see my goal, the place I had been striving for all these weeks to reach. The summit of Mount Everest. And then there it was, and I was climbing up the final slopes to the top of the highest mountain in the world. But the last steps my Sherpa and I took together. We had climbed up this mountain, both of us, together, and it seemed only right that it was together that we stepped onto the summit of Mount Everest. He had helped me to realize my true potential, and it felt amazing.

Now remember, I really am no different to, or more special than any of you, but what I am is living proof that dreams don’t just happen to other people. And they can happen for you too. You just need a little help and encouragement on the way, like I had. Someone who believes in you, who believes in your dream when you doubt yourself, someone who looks you in the eye and says, “I know you can do it”. Like I had.

No man is an island and everyone of us needs a Sherpa, a Life coach. Someone to climb your own Everest with you, someone to help you achieve your potential in this life. And believe me, that could be huge. We are deep wells of untapped potential. We really can do more than we could ever imagine. When I was 39 and newly widowed, it never ever occurred to me that I could possibly even contemplate climbing the highest mountain in the world. But five years later I did just that. And in climbing my own, very real, Everest, I discovered the true value of having another person’s eyes and ears, having another person there on your journey with you, someone who can see qualities in you that you have missed or even dismissed. Someone who will give you permission to do what it is you have always wanted to do, without taking your power away, someone who will be your guide on that journey.

The role of a Life Coach is to help you realize your potential, and when two people work together in that way, it can catapult you to levels of achievement that you would never have believed possible. Why settle for mediocrity when you could have the best, the biggest or the highest? After all, the danger is not in aiming too high, but in aiming too low and achieving it. You don’t know what you can do until you try. That’s what I did. I tried. And together with my Sherpa, my Life Coach, I achieved. You can too. Try it!