I’m taking a brief break from Mount Crushmore to talk about something that I hope you all find inspirational / motivational. I’ve been listening to Rob Dial’s Mindset and Motivation Podcast for a few weeks now and have been enjoying it big time. Sometimes if something from it hits me just right, I share it with my own commentary on my Instagram Story and that’s how this was intended to go but then I got a little long winded.

You know how I can be when I’m passionate about something.

Anyway, let’s talk about The Impossible. WARNING: it’s about to get geeky!

The moon is 238,900 miles from Earth.

Perth, Australia, is 18,148 miles from Knoxville, Tennessee.

This means I could fly to Perth — the furthest possible point IN THE WORLD from Knoxville — 6-1/2 times in the same amount of time it would take me to fly one-way to the moon (assuming you used the same mode of transportation, of course).

Our starting and stopping points from Knoxville to Perth aren’t moving.*

*Well, Continental Drift moves continents around somewhere close to about an inch per year. There are 63,360 inches in a mile and 8,760 hours in a year … therefore we can calculate that our launching point and target are moving at approximately 0.000000002 mph.**

**You could also just say they aren’t moving.

If we’re going to the moon, one must consider that the Earth, itself, is not only rotating around its own axis at about 1,000 miles per hour … it’s also rotating around the sun at 66,000 miles per hour.

Then you have our target — the Moon — orbiting Earth at 2,288 miles per hour. With an equator diameter of 1,079 miles and making a full rotation around its own axis every 27.321 days, we can also calculate that the moon is rotating at roughly 10 miles per hour around its own axis.***

***I’ll go ahead and say that I had to look this up. I was in the Astronomy Club in college so I at least have had a genuine interest in this stuff but I’m not a MF nerd for christ’s sake.

At one point in history, the idea of taking a person …

… and moving them from a launching pad that’s not only rotating around itself but also around a giant ball of fire at an alarming speed …

… then landing them on a rock that’s not only rotating around itself but is also rotating around the launching pad at an also-alarming (though less extreme) speed …

… was considered impossible.

But in July 1969, Buzz Aldrin, Michel Collins and Neil Armstrong said “that’s bullshit” and they did it. Some of NASA’s greatest minds came together to dream, organize, plan, test, train, build, fund, document and execute the Apollo program intended to put a living, breathing human on the moon. The program was conceived under an optimistic Eisenhower administration and carried out under an extremely enthusiastic Kennedy.

With great minds and a lot of positivity, impossible was no longer a thing.

Similar things have happened quite often in history and even in our own lives. To continue with the space travel example, landing a man on the moon was ambitious enough on its own but the very thought of it was a laughable folly before a human ever even went to space to begin with.

Space is a terrifying place full of unknowns. Regardless, Soviet Air Force pilot Yuri Gagarin braved the uncertainty and the darkness as he boarded the Vostok 1 in 1961. He became the first human in space and a hero of his homeland.

Another “impossible” feat achieved.

Since the Russians proved the once-impossible idea that man can, indeed, go to space, 533 other people have also done it.

After the Apollo 11 landing on the moon, another “impossible” feat, 11 more people followed suit and have walked on the moon, themselves.

The impossible is only impossible until it’s not.

The four-minute mile was “impossible” until Roger Bannister did it in 1954. Since then, over 1,400 other people have done it as well.

Human flight was once thought impossible until the Wright brothers achieved their first engine-driven flight test in 1903. Since then, (according to statistics from 2017) 36.8 million engine-powered, commercial flights take to the air each year — and this isn’t counting private flights, business flights and military aviation.

Again, the impossible is only impossible until it’s not.

Impossible said people couldn’t go to space. Impossible said people can’t run a mile in less than 4 minutes. Impossible said humans couldn’t be flown around.

And each time, impossible was wrong.

I’m encouraging everyone who reads this to consider what goals you have that you feel are impossible. Weight loss? Finances? Personal healing? Promotions? Relationships?

You can choose to accept impossible, settle for status quo and go to bed every night with unrealized potential.

Or you can keep in mind that the impossible is only impossible until it’s not. With the right mindset, attitude and focus, impossible is in and of itself, impossible.

In other words, ain’t no impossible.

Not in my Freak Show, at least.

I’d love to help you focus on your impossible goals. Say hey if you want — I’d be all about talking about it with you!

Ever onward, fellow Heathens.

-JTF