Koa: Hawaiian for “Bold“

When I sat down a couple of years ago with the intent of developing a keynote speech, I did some pondering about what it is that has allowed success in my life. It occurred to me that the personality traits that worked for me weren’t the typical ones you would expect. I’m not especially smart – I almost failed the 4th grade, my marks were below average in High School and I didn’t go to University. I didn’t have any money – shortly after I struck out on my own and launched my first business when I was 21, the banks took all of my credit cards away from me. I remember having to buy gas for my car at the Hudson Bay parkade downtown because they had a small car rental business and I discovered I could use the Bay credit card that my mom had given me to buy clothes with, to purchase gas from their rental operation. They eventually took that card away from me too. Coincidentally, that’s about the time I started to really get into riding my bike a lot! And, I wasn’t especially physically gifted in any way either. When I decided it was time to lose 50 pounds and get into shape I entered my first triathlon. Of course, it just had to be the long distance Ironman triathlon and I didn’t even know how to swim!

The simple fact that I signed up to complete one of the toughest sporting events in the world without even knowing how to swim said it all. And it is typical of the kind of attitude that I have had most of my adult life. That is, I just think of something that I want to do, make sure that it is just a bit beyond my comfort level and ability, and I simply do it. And I don’t quit. I don’t think about how to accomplish my goal or what the obstacles are or anything like that. I just start my journey by taking my first step. Jumping into the deep end so to speak. Then I learn a little – enough to plan my next step, and so forth, and so forth.

I believe that any of us can accomplish some pretty amazing things in life when we just have a little faith in ourselves and we commit to doing something a bit bolder than we think we are capable of. And that is the secret right there. When you are bold about what you have set out to do, you will have the passion, excitement and motivation that you will require on your impossible journey. Anything less, and I think many of us just don’t care enough. I have lived my life by the wisdom of the great German poet Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: “What you can do or dream you can do begin it. For BOLDNESS has genius, power and magic in it”.

So therefore, I hereby name my boat “Koa” which means “Bold” in Hawaiian.

Following are some logo ideas. I would love to hear your vote and comments (the tiki dude have chain ring teeth):

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