I've said it before and I'll keep saying it: the power of positive thinking is hugely over-rated. Positive thinking adds up to little if you don't follow it with positive action. The world doesn't need any more positive "thinkers", it needs people who are willing to take actual steps to improving their lives. These are the people who subscribe to the idea of positive action as opposed to navel gazing.

Sure, the power of positive thinking has its place. I personally know and respect many people who use positive thinking techniques to great effect BUT they already have an an established pattern of putting their ideas into action. If you are having trouble getting off the couch and turning the TV off, you don't need 280 pages of a book called something like The Power of Positive Thinking that cost you $24.95 to tell you to do it, you just need to do it. The writers of these self help books know that too. Have you ever noticed how they rarely give you everything you need to know in the one volume. They encourage you to spend just another $24.95 and the secrets will be yours. There are no secrets, just a slow slog of one foot in front of the other. The positive thinking industry thrives on your fear of failure - and mine - and keeps offering you yet another book with a catchy title. Nine times out of ten that just keeps you on the couch thinking about thinking positively instead of acting positively.

I'll tell you a story that might help you get off the couch; it helps me stay off the couch. It's a story about a little tree that became a giant in the biological world.

Sixteen years ago the world didn’t even know this tree existed until a National Parks Ranger named Dave Noble was Wandering around the remotest Canyons of Wollemi National Park, about 200kms NW of Sydney in Australia. He came across a stand of trees that were completely out of place. In his own words, "They stood out like a dinosaur at a dog show."

He took a sample back to National Parks HQ. No luck there in identifying it. He then took a sample to the State Botanic Gardens. No luck there either. It was a mystery until some bright spark decided to look in the fossil record and bingo! There it was, a tree that had not been seen for 23 million years. If this tree had been an animal it would have been like finding a dinosaur that has secretly survived just two hours away from one of the world's large cities.

But there's more than meets the eye with this tree called the Wollemi Pine. If you have ever watched CSI Miami or CSI New York you will know that they always get the killer because of the DNA from the one hair the killer left at the crime scene. And just like fingerprints nobody has the same DNA; everybody’s DNA is uniquely theirs. That’s because if we all had the same DNA we’d be exact copies of each other and this is bad. Why? Because if a disease could kill one of us then it would kill the entire species ie. Everybody on the entire planet. Nature has cleverly arranged it so We have different DNA so we can survive.

Even the pot plants in your garden do this. Every animal and plant has different DNA except the Wollemi Pine.

Which is why this tree is so amazing - remember one disease can wipe out the whole population so how this tree has survived for more than 23 million years is a mystery. What has this got to do with the power of positive thinking? Hang in there.

So this little fella is special. Just how special can be measured by the extraordinary lengths the government has gone to keep it’s location a secret. Talk about hard to get to; logistically shrouded in secret government beauracracy and physically not for the feint hearted.

So just who can get to see the Wollemi Pines?

The Director of National Parks isn't allowed. The Premier of the State isn't allowed. The Prime Minister of Australia isn't allowed. Two of the world's foremost naturalists Sir David Attenbrough and David Suzuki asked and guess what, they wern't allowed.

Up until early 2005 only 19 people in the world had ever seen the Wollemi Pines, that is until I came along and became number 20.

Why me? Right place at the right time is the short answer. The National Parks Service had spent eight years seeding and growing half a million of these little fellas in pots to be released on to the world market in October 2006. (By providing ample tree stock they reasoned this would reduce the threat of plant poachers taking the wild trees.) New footage of the trees was required as there was going to be great interest and as this is the media age, supplying fresh, high quality footage was of paramount importance.

The ABC network was well respected for it's science unit - if you don't know I was a documentary cameraman - and as the trees are in a very hard to get to place at the bottom of a large gorge, I was asked to film them as I have lots of mountaineering and climbing experience.

Now the the New South Wales government are very secretive about the gorge's location. All I can tell you is it’s in the remotest part of Wollemi National Park northwest of Sydney. Before I was even considered as a possible candidate to visit the site I had to sign a three page disclaimer document saying I wouldn’t reveal the location to anyone. The authorities then checked my gear for any hidden GPS devices.

Access was by helicopter and that too came with a proviso: I had to agree to be blindfolded for the flight in. They issued me with a cheap pillowcase for the purpose. The terrain was very steep so the chopper couldn’t land. The only option was to fly in and put the front of the helicopter's skids on the edge of a small rock ledge then hover as we exited the chopper and unloaded the camera and climbing gear. Two abseils down vertical rock walls followed. Then a kilometre walk along the valley floor. Still one last security obstacle: a quarantine footbath to remove any diseases we may have inadvertantly brought in.

Wow, what a place. Only ten percent of the light made it to the valley floor so it was dim and moody. The mossy floor was spongy underfoot. It was a bit like Jurassic park except their was no brooding music playing in the background. And there in front of me were trees that were last seen by dinosaurs. They were much greener- almost lime green - than the rest of the foliage. The leaves had arranged themselves attractively in fishbone patterns. The biggest, named King Billy, was 38 metres tall. Strangest of all was the bark. In Australia we have a breakfast cereal called Coco Pops. (Chocolate flavoured balls of popped rice). The trunk looked like it had been covered in these. For a few hours I was in a very special place on this planet.

People say you are so lucky to have seen this place, to have had these experiences. Yes I am, but you know what? Never once did the power of positive thinking get me there. Years of getting up early to tiresomely master my craft, getting out of the habit of watching TV everynight and forcing myself to regularly save money were key in my being there. I believe you make your own luck. There are experiences around every day but you have to position yourself to grab them. You have to chase them, they don’t come to you. And I’ll be honest with you, if you think that you can spend most of your time in front of the telly, or the computer and think that interesting things are going to happen to you, then good luck because I've found experiences don’t happen in these places, they happen out there, in the real world.

Now I’ve got a couple of good friends and these guys are really out there people. They hold the world record for BASEjumping from the highest cliffs in the world. They taught me something really valuable and I’ll share it with you. They say: If you want more of the same, do more of the same. That is if you want your life to go on the same, just keep doing the same things you are doing now. Nothing will change until you make it change.

And I think the little Wollemi Pine you have is a great metaphor for this. In the bottom of the gorge the seedlings only grow two to five centimetres tall - that's 1 to 2 inches. There’s so little light on the forest floor they stay stunted for 25 to 50 years ,doing nothing much but sitting very still until one day something changes. A big tree falls and carves a hole in the forest canopy and the light streams in. Then it grows and reaches it’s potential.

And it’s the same for all of us. If we stay inside, in the dark of our rooms, the only illumination coming from the flicker of the TV or the computer screen, we’ll never really grow.

So I challenge you. Get off the couch, put down your copy of The Power of Positive Thinking, get out of the house and start chasing those opportunities. There are no magic formulas. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and you'll get there. It’s a really interesting world out there and it’s got your name on it.