How riding a new mountain bike made me better at business
July 27th, 2010
This past weekend, I woke up early and drove about an hour outside of town to go check out some new mountain bike trails. A couple of years ago the city bought a new open space property up north, and we had heard that the trails were pretty good.
They weren’t just good. They were incredible.
For starters, we only saw four other people the entire day.
The trails weren’t too technical, or hard to ride on. On the other hand, they weren’t super easy. They were the perfect match between climbing, descending, and just going fast and having a good time.
The views were good too.
The best part was a long gradual uphill where you could just lay down the hammer and really cruise. We’re talking cranking, heavy breathing, sweat poring off of your brow, and moving swiftly up the hill. Getting it on when you’re going up makes the downhill even that much sweeter.
None of this would have been possible if it wasn’t for a little coincidence about a year ago.
About a year ago a good friend of mine had purchased a really nice brand new 29er bike. These bikes have only been around the last few years, and they have bigger tires than the old mountain bikes. This lets you roll over all sorts of stuff that you couldn’t before, and makes the experience even more fun.
One day at lunch, I asked him if I could ride his bike around the parking lot.
He said, “Why don’t you just borrow it for a week?”.
So I did. And let me tell you, this thing was amazing. I remember a particular rock field that I used to slowly slalom my way through, praying that I wouldn’t fall off the bike.
Then I took this new bike through it, went straight at it, and it was like I was flying.
He never got the bike back, because it’s mine now. I bought it off of him after taking that ride.
Moral of the story is this: I was pretty happy with my old bike. It got me where I wanted to go and I had a lot of great times on it.
But as soon as I upgraded to something with the latest design, the more efficient technology, and the better quality – my life was changed forever.
It’s the same in your business.
Successful people are always looking to upgrade, improve, and become more efficient.
But the thing is, a lot of times you’re pretty happy where you are. And that’s not a bad thing, except that you get stuck while missing out on some things that could really improve your results.
Whether you’re riding a different bike, or getting an outside perspective on your business, until you know what you’re missing – you just don’t know.
Getting a new perspective, and seeing things with a different view lets you operate at a higher level, and change everything for the better.
Here are a few people who’ve stepped up to the higher level:
http://wallythewebguy.com/success-stories/
Will you join them?
Until next time,
-Wally
P.S. – Mountain biking and being successful on the web are basically the same thing. They are both just creative uses of machines to achieve human goals. Check out these recent success stories.
P.P.S. — The view is better when you’re using technology to your advantage:
