Mountains of Arizona
Clouds 64 Degrees
3:53 p.m.
So last weekend I went on another (my second) mountain bike ride into the wild west out here in the desert.
I should have known something was up when I came in contact with two Africanized bees (known more commonly as KILLER BEES!), one of which flew right into my helmet where it got stuck.
To say it sounded angry would be an understatement. I guess I’d be angry too if a big head draped in black plastic came right for me!
I only got stung twice, right through my shirt.
The ride continued. And about 20 minutes later, while riding up a rocky hill, I heard this thud type of sound and my wheel locked up.
The tire had rolled out of the rim and I was looking down at what resembled a giant balloon animal poking out of my bike tire.
At that point, I got my first crash course in bike maintenance as we (and by we I mean NOT me) started working on the tire.
A few minutes later it was back together again. I hopped back on the saddle and kept pedaling.
Two minutes later….THUD.
We tried a time or two after that to get the tire to stay together, but it just wasn’t meant to be.
Luckily I was riding with a veteran fishing guide and rock climber from Jackson Hole who also apparently has the survival skills of MacGyver. He pulled out some zip ties and crafted what you see there in the picture in an effort to coast it down the mountain.
It looked promising for like a minute, but eventually we realized the only way out was to start jogging. So my son and I traded off jogging the dead bike down the mountain about 2 miles back to the truck.
I rode all the way up the mountain for the first half of the ride expecting to have a nice ride DOWN the mountain for the second half.
What did I learn?
I learned expectations are overrated.
Expectations store up energy in a bizarre way that couples that energy with a STORY (more energy) that may or may not come to pass.
When the story DOESN’T happen, then even more energy gets directed towards attempting to realize that story.
It is far more fulfilling to just pedal the darn bike and enjoy the scenery.
Sometimes you hit bees, sometimes you lose a tire… FIVE times.
Same thing in business (and life!).
Get your process. Stick to your process. Find meaning in your process.
The process to “nowhere” is how I’ve discovered you GET somewhere!
When there is no story about where you’re SUPPOSED to go, then “obstacles” are no longer obstacles. They are just things that happen. You adjust, you keep pedaling.
One day you look up and realize how far you’ve come, and you wonder how you made so much progress so quickly.