The majority of my life has been about water -- once living aboard a sailing yacht with my family for a yearlong cruise, later serving as a professional yacht captain, and now working as an international yacht broker. I'm also involved with various organizations that work to preserve our precious planet, including the oceans that sustain us. So the sea is truly part of my heart. 

 

A few years ago, I visited an eco-resort in Ecuador at the end of a trip with the Pachamama Alliance, a global organization committed to protecting the earth and supporting its indigenous people. We had just spent a week in a jungle community with our partners there, who revere all of nature as a sacred Helper. From their woven palm frond shelters to the fish they eat from the Amazon, they view everything in nature as helping them on their life’s journey. 

 

One day, some of us were hiking along a path on a nearby mountain, and we stopped to look toward the top. Between us and the bright blue sky was the steep face of the ascent -- slightly rugged, clumps of long grass, intimidating terrain... and no path. Still, it called me like a siren’s song, and so I took a deep breath and said to the others, “I think I'll take the face.”  

 

As I headed up the hill alone, I found myself thinking in Spanish along the way. I'm fluent in Spanish (I love languages in general) and after hearing it so much during that trip, I was unconsciously encouraging myself in Spanish as I slowly worked my way up the sharp incline. 

 

And it was a challenge -- seeming almost vertical at one point. As I was leaning in, looking for a way to keep going, I intuitively reached out and grabbed some of the grasses growing along the rocks to help maintain my footing and pull myself forward, using the grass as a handhold, a tool. And in that moment I thought to myself (in Spanish), “Wow. It’s as they say. Nature IS here to help me.” 

 

So I kept climbing, making my way bit by bit until I was really huffing and puffing. And my inner voice remarked, “Ay de mí… lo que oigo más que nada es el compás de mi corazón.” (What I hear more than anything is the beat of my heart.) Then I stopped and said aloud, “Compás de mi corazón.”

 

And it struck me -- compás, a Spanish word for beat, is the same as compass, an English word for a tool that helps us find our way. And again I said, “Compás de me corazón. Beat of my heart. Compass.” 

 

It was a Eureka moment, with a message that’s helped me often since then: Navigate with your heart.