I have a rocking chair list. It’s like a bucket list, but essentially, it’s a list of things that I can say “I did this…” when I am old and grey and contemplating the world from my rocking chair. Skydiving is on that list. It has been for about five years now and I haven’t done anything about it. Why skydiving? I guess because I’m afraid of it. I am terrified of heights, and there truly doesn’t seem like much sanity in jumping out of a plane for fun, not from my terrified-of-heights perspective. There’s something about having skydived though that I thought would be a sort of feather in my cap. Or maybe I just imagined that once I had skydived, it would put other fears in perspective: “this deadline is really aggressive, but I’ve jumped out of a plane, how bad could it really be?” Or “I’ve never done anything like this before in my job, but I’ve jumped out of a plane, how bad could it really be?” Apparently the ability to qualify everything with “how bad could it really be?” is pretty significant to me.

One of the best pieces of advice I received when I came to Goizueta was from one of our orientation captains my first year. She encouraged every one of us to throw ourselves into our experiences and to not hold back because we have a short time here, we are ready for change if we came to business school, and Goizueta is rich with experiences, so if you hesitate you’ll miss them. Skydiving is also a kind of tradition at Goizueta. About once a semester a group of students go and temporarily put their sanity on hold or have one of the best adrenaline rides in their lives, or both (depending on your temperament of course.)

The community at Goizueta encourages this too. Courage is one of our Core Values. I doubt the Core Value of Courage was written with the idea of jumping out of planes, but intense physical challenges do tend to put other things, like standing up for what you believe in, in perspective (i.e. – the excuse to tag “how bad could it really be?” onto just about everything.)

Last year the chance came to skydive and I bailed. I had signed up and just chickened out. I wasn’t ready and I was too terrified. This year, after a year of intense growth at Goizueta I found myself no less terrified, but a lot more willing to just go for it. So I did. I jumped out of a plane last Saturday. The support and cheers from my classmates (both those who went and those who greeted me in class on Monday) made my courage that much sweeter. I understand why it’s a tradition at Goizueta now. Not just because I can tack on “how bad could it really be?” to nearly every challenge, but because throwing myself at every opportunity has yielded me some incredible results. Including crossing off an item on my rocking chair list that could have easily become dusty with age and opening the way to many more challenges I might have otherwise hesitated on too long.

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