Today I thought about someone who impacted my life more than 30 years ago. I was reminded of him as I sat in the Boy Scout Sunday service this morning.  When I saw my son sitting in the front row, I started thinking about the positive impact the scouting program had on my life. My mind drifted back to when I was a scout. I am sure I attended a Boy Scout Sunday event but I don’t remember it. What I do remember is the impact that one of the adult leaders had on my life. His name is Bob Burgess. He’s a writer and adventurer and he’s one of the most interesting people I have ever met AND I had the pleasure of living across the street from him from age 8 through age 14.   When I first met Bob, he had a VW van that had a pop up camper on top. He also had a sailboat and a monkey. His coolest factor was OFF the chart! Bob would travel around in that camper writing magazines articles and camping in places where he was researching.  He had a small office outside his home with a Royal typewriter where he wrote. The office couldn’t have been more than 200 square feet but it was like a museum to me. Artifacts and pictures from his adventures adorned the walls. Right over his desk was the jaw of a large shark he had caught. I loved going over to see him because he always had a story. I lost touch with him for several years after we moved away from the small North Florida town where we both lived but reconnected when I moved back to nearby Tallahassee, Florida when I graduated from college. About twenty years ago, Bob invited me on a weekend trip to write a Huck Finn like story on living on a deserted island while eating only what we caught from the bay that surrounded the island. We stayed up until 4:00 am and I sat mesmerized by a star filled sky, the intoxicating sight of an open fire and Bob’s stories and adventures.

Bob has lived a life many can only imagine. He’s traveled all over the world, diving in some of the most beautiful places in the world. He spends two weeks each year living on his sail boat in the Keys while hunting lobster.  He and his wife Julia traveled in Europe for two years after they were married. Between his writing and traveling he made time to volunteer with our local Boy Scout troop where he brought his enthusiasm and zest for life to our outings. He taught me a lot about loving the outdoors, about being excited about life and what it meant to be a leader in scouting. His teachings came full circle when I interviewed him recently for the book I am writing. He told me he was impacted by a speaker he had heard at a high school rally more than 60 years ago. He told me the speaker said you can do anything you want to do provided you believe you can do it. He told me he still remembered that after so many years. He told me keep the following quote from Press on scotch taped it to my Royal typewriter:

Nothing in the World can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common and unsuccessful than unsuccessful man with talent. Genius will not - unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Bob told me that Press On was his guiding creed for his life. Thank you, Bob for being a guiding force in my life.

Tim Richardson is an inspirational speaker who speaks about how giving increases employee morale, lowers employee turnover, increases customer loyalty and creates higher profits for Fortune 500 companies, associations, healthcare, and financial services. He is founder of the Bill Walter Melanoma Research Fund. For more information on Tim, go to www.TimRichardson.com