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LAUREL – Dean Jacobs may have a Nebraska address but the world is his home.
When he is back in the “Good Life” state, he shares what he’s learned with others.
Jacobs brought his energizing and inspirational program “Dream Big. Live Tall. Do Our Part to Make the World Better” to Laurel-Concord- Coleridge School Sept. 27.
Jacobs started exploring when he was 9 years old, riding his bike on gravel roads from Fremont to Arlington.
“Every adventure has something that makes you nervous about it, otherwise it wouldn’t be an adventure,” he said, his largest fear at that time being dogs along the road. “At 9 years old, I remember one of the most important lesson of my whole life, it was this, outside that wall of fear there’s a whole world waiting to be explored. If I let that wall of fear stop me, I get trapped in a small box.”
Jacobs went on to study marine biology at Wayne State College and worked for the international drug company Pfizer Pharmaceuticals for a decade.
But it was an extreme car accident that changed his perspective on life.
He was traveling on the Idaho interstate amongst the scenic Cascade Mountains when a nearby car slid on a patch of ice, the resulting collision took off the top and back sections of Jacobs’ vehicle.
“In a fraction of a second, I was almost dead and I went to leave without a scratch on my body,” he said.
That’s when he started thinking seriously about changing his course in life. He sold his home and set off to travel the world in 2001.
He’s now traveled to more than 50 countries and prides himself on being a low-budget adventurer, traveling by bus, canoe, ferryboat and even camel to his destinations at times.
“Dreams are not for special people. They are for everybody who gives themselves permission to dream again. I’m here today to turn on your dreams a little bit,” Jacobs told the audience. “We’ve forgotten there’s this amazing world that’s waiting for us to be engaged in and we can’t wait for it to come to us. We’ve got to go to it.”
Jacobs shared photos, videos and stories from his travels and related it to a lessons learned in dignity, respect, humility, curiosity, generosity, gratitude and kindness.
“I’m not saying you’ve got to go to Egypt,” he said. “I’m not saying you have to go to the Amazon. If you want to have some magic, peace and joy in your heart, to enjoy your journey, you have to step out of what’s familiar. We got comfortable because we coast. Our coping mechanism is to play it safe, play it small.
You know what happened? We stopped growing. And when we stop growing, we lost our giddy-up. When we lost our giddy-up, we sit around and whine and complain.”
Jacobs said he’s not immune to bad days but he makes a choice not to let them hold him down.
He said when he was staying in a rented room in Ethiopia, a rat ran across the top of his head when he was sleeping.
“Now, did I like that? Not really. Do I let that stop me from following my dreams? No. That’s the pile of poo, the stuff we run into along the way that can derail us. I could use that as an argument and stay safe in my box. Or I can say, What did I learn from this? How can I grow from this? How can I use this to make me better? That’s a choice we all get to make with every struggle we have along the way.”
Diane Hanel, LCC’s high school principal, was the catalyst behind getting Jacobs on both the Laurel and Coleridge school campuses the he gave multiple presentations to different age groups, conducted a writing workshop for juniors and seniors, and met with faculty and staff.
Hanel met Jacobs at Wayne State College freshman orientation and the two have been friends and colleagues ever since.
Hanel said bringing Jacobs’ message to students builds up school culture with positivity.
Jacobs’ next trip is scheduled in December when he will take 14 students from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to Africa. One of the 14 students going on the trip first heard Jacobs’ presentation in the fourth grade.
