"This is what I was born to do!"

Strong words from a young man mopping the floors and cleaning the toilets of a Museum.

But Roy Andrews only ambition in life was to work at the American Museum of Natural History. And he had made it!

 Using money he saved from his job as a taxidermist, he arrived in New York City in 1906 after graduating from Beloit College. When Andrews applied for a job at the museum the director told him there were no openings. Andrews persisted saying, "You have to have somebody to scrub floors, don't you?" The director admitted that he did. Andrews took the job explaining that he wasn't interested in scrubbing just any floors "but museum floors were different." A humble beginning for a man destined to become one of the museum's most famous explorers and later the director of the museum himself. During the next few years, he worked as the museum's janitor and studied simultaneously, earning a Master of Arts degree in mammalogy from Columbia University.

While mopping floors and doing special projects in the taxidermy department for $40 a month Roy soon dreamed up a dream so big that it would seem near impossible.

 His dream was to go on an expedition to Mongolia a desert located in Asia that so many had written off as a waste land. But Roy’s dream would require him to raise $250,000, an amount equivalent to $210 million today.

  Roy along with the museum raised the money and soon set out on the expedition.
Now Roy was a man of great en depth planing but more than once, Andrews’ narrowly escaped death.
Temperatures would soar in the desert as high as 145°F, alternating with frigid nights, howling blizzards and smothering sandstorms. Andrew's party once killed 47 venomous snakes in a single night when the vipers took refuge from the cold in their tents.
  Despite the hardships and endurance the team faced the exploration did prove to be a success and very profitable as they discovered many new dinosaur bones and fossils which had never been found, but their biggest find was dinosaur eggs.

If you’re thinking this sound a little familiar and that Andrews story sounds a bit like the action hero movie we all know and love you would be right!

Douglas Preston of the American Museum of Natural History wrote:

“Andrews is allegedly the real person that the movie character of Indiana Jones was patterned after.”

Andrews had written several books detailing the events that took place and those were soon found reenacted in the popular series of “Indian Jones”.

Andrew's legacies continue to live on as scientists still study and rediscover fossils he found in the Gobi.
He would later go on to say of all his accomplishments,  " I was born to be an explorer...There was never any decision to make. I couldn't do anything else and be happy."

Andrews parting words as he finally went into retirement ,I found to be very  inspiring  both to the dreamer of discoveries and dreamers in general.

“Today there remain but a few small areas on the world's map unmarked by explorers' trails. Human courage and endurance have conquered the Poles; the secrets of the tropical jungles have been revealed. The highest mountains of the earth have heard the voice of man. But this does not mean that the youth of the future has no new worlds to vanquish. It means only that the explorer must change his methods.”

In other words my friends we were all born to do something great.

A dream is born in each of us, some from the time we are born, and others later in life when they are born out of the need. But no matter what the dream, it is important that the person it is entrusted with is the one that brings it fourth. Because each dream is a voice that was brought forth to change the life of someone who would receive it in only the way you would deliver it.

Never try to be someone else. Every hero starts off as an ordinary person but it is when we dare to go beyond the norm, ordinary becomes extraordinary!

 You have within you all that you need to make your dreams come true.

So say it with me today as you continue to embark on your own Quest.

“I can and I will be all that I dream to be."