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Bob Goff is one of those people you can’t believe actually exists. He’s a lawyer who serves as the honorary consul to the Republic of Uganda, who donates the proceeds of his books to bettering others’ lives—and is so willing to lend a hand he prints his actual cell phone number in those books. (Which sometimes leads to extraordinary connections—like speaking to a woman just before she has major brain surgery that will prohibit her from talking again—and occasionally, pitfalls, like the college student who left his number after a car accident instead of her own. But it always results in a story.)
His latest book, Dream Big, is less about Goff’s own adventures and more about helping people recover the lives they once dreamed about—and take the steps to make them happen. But there’s one story in chapter 23, “10:34-10:35,” that will stick with you weeks after you finish reading. At least it did for me. In it, Goff describes how he loved surfing when he was in college, and how, one day, while surfing at Sunset Cliffs in California, he found himself pinned against a cliff, waves pummeling him, his board getting shattered to pieces.
“I was sure I would die, and weirdly, I resigned myself to this truth and made my peace with God,” he recalls.
But in that moment, a man spotted him and scaled down the cliff to reach him, climbing into the water and saving Goff’s life. He was forever grateful, and years later, fate put him right at those cliffs when someone else was in need. A man had fallen off the cliff, landing on rocks 70 feet below. Goff and his friends, who had been riding motorcycles in the area, rushed to the man.
“He was in bad shape. Really bad. He needed CPR and a lot more than that,” he writes. They managed to resuscitate him, spending the next hour trying to comfort him and keep him alive as they waited for help. By the time the medics rappelled down the cliff to them, the man had died.
“One of my ambitions had been to save a life someday, and I failed when I had the chance,” he says. “But here’s the thing. I’d rather fail trying than fail watching.”
Sometimes, everything we have isn’t enough. We give it our all, and we fall short. But that doesn’t mean we stop trying. Or that we sit back and hope someone else handles things. When you feel called to take action, push through the fear and give it a shot. You may not be able to save a life, but if you don’t try, you certainly won’t.
Often, when it comes to what we want, the stakes are much lower than life or death. But still, we hesitate. Let’s acknowledge the stakes, push through our fears of falling short and try.
That’s Goff’s main point of the chapter, but to me, it’s more than that. So often, we get caught up in the “everything happens for a reason” mindset; it’d be easy to feel that way in Goff’s situation. You’re at the exact place where your life was saved, and you’re in a similar situation; aren’t you destined to save that life?
The man’s death could’ve crushed Goff; he could’ve let that moment define him, becoming imprisoned by a sense of guilt or failure or a murky combination of the two. But his reaction is powerful: The alternative, in that moment, was to wait from afar for the medics, or leave and let them handle it. By trying, he didn’t fail at all–he gave that man comfort in his final moments. He made him feel less alone in an incredibly painful, terrifying time.
Goff doesn’t touch on this, but that’s what resonates for me. Sometimes failure isn’t what we think it is.
You can find Dream Big in most major bookstores, as well as on Amazon.
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