Who do you want to be?

Who do you want to be?

Where are you in relation to that now?

The highest performers do not settle for where they are.  They are always trying to get better.

What do you have to do to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be?

Good character will take you far

Bad character will cause big problems for a person.  When others see you exercise bad character, they don’t want anything to do with you anymore – unless they also have bad character.

“Encourage all your virtuous dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises; being assured that they will gain strength by exercise, as a limb of the body does, and that exercise will make them habitual.” -Thomas Jefferson

Being virtuous and moral is an investment in your future self.

Bad character is a withdrawal from your tomorrow.

Our latest race update

Another great race in the books!  

This was Vegas to Reno – 555 miles in a UTV (desert race buggy).  Not Baja – this one is in Nevada obviously.  It’s the longest off-road race in the United States.

We started 5th of 8 in our class. By mile 20 we were in third but we hit a big rock in a silt rut I could not get out of fast enough and got a rear flat. Dustin changed it but it took longer than normal (11 minutes, should be 4-5) because the hoses from the shock coolers that were just put on were in the way of getting the jack out and back on. 
15 vehicles went by us. In that time and we were now last with 535 miles to go. We worked our way back up.  It stinks when you’re in last – but this race is long, and so is life, so do your best in this moment and keep going.

Trying to pass is tough in the dust. You are blinded the closer you get to the guy you want to pass. But lucky there was some wind to help blow the dust away. 

There are 13 pits set up. Our strategy is to only stop twice for fuel at pit 5 and pit 10. Our chase team would throw ziplock bags with sandwiches to us and on smooth sections Dustin could hand me pieces of sandwich while I was driving. That and Kind bars kept us going for 12 hours of non-stop driving at race speed. 

This strategy worked as we passed a couple of our own class competitors while they were pitting and we weren’t, but we also passed many race vehicles from other classes who were making dust in front of us. We didn’t change drivers like most other teams either. So no race vehicle in this 555-mile race stopped less than us. One flat and two 90-second pits. 

We caught up, 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd….we passed our main competitor from Baja and the Factory Honda team who both broke down. We were told that we were 8 minutes behind the leader. (When we drive through a pit we are close enough for VHF radio communication to our team, and they’d tell us how far back we were). 50 miles later they said we were 10 minutes behind. 

Our Honda Talon is underpowered with only 107 hp compared to most others who have  125 or 130 or so. (We are a non-turbo class). So on the high-speed straight sections they were doing about 10-15 mph faster and that’s where they’d pull away on us. In the technical sections, which means rocks or tight turns) we’d catch up. 

Then the leader had to pit once for five minutes and another pit for 7 minutes to work on their car. We were only 4 minutes down with 80 miles to go. At one point about 50 miles out we saw a UTV on the side with the driver out working on the car. We thought (hoped) we could be in the lead. But it was not them. 

The last 35 miles there were brutal rocks up and down the mountain. We made it through fast and with no flats. The leader got a flat there but had it changed in 4 minutes and he had pulled on us again on the fast sections before that. 

The leader started 90 seconds before us so if we were close enough we could still win. But we crossed the finish line 13 minutes behind him so it was not to be. 

We finished second in 11 hours and 45 minutes.

Besides the one preventable flat we ran a perfect race.  
Dustin called the turns perfectly for 12 straight hours without a break. 
So far this year I have one motorcycle race and one UTV race completed- with two second place finishes. Four more races left including the two most epic races on the planet – The Baja 1000 and Dakar in Saudi Arabia. 

I am grateful to be racing both motorcycles and cars still.  It takes a lot of effort and logistics to do it – but it’s a “reason”.

A sense of control

Did you know that crosswalk buttons and elevator door close buttons are dummys?  

They give people a sense of control.

When people have a sense of control in their lives, they are much happier.

People don’t like to have no control over their lives.

How much control do you have? 

In what areas do you have no control and are frustrated?

When you do have control you are happy about it because you get to call the shots; even if you make a mistake you are ok with it because it was your decision.

Life is people

Do you have negative associations in your life?

That’s a choice.

What are you tolerating?

The water you swim in

You absorb the environment you enter.

Be careful where you go.

Voices have moved you.

“Associations don’t shove you in a direction; they nudge you, ever so slightly in a direction.” – Jim Rohn 

We can’t help but be influenced by the people around us, and the voices coming to us through speakers and screens, and pages.

How have the people you put yourself around influenced your thinking and actions – and results?

Who can you listen to, watch, or hang around that will influence you in the direction of your goals or into a better place?

"When the student is ready…."

“When the student is ready, the teacher appears.”

Why?

Because the teacher doesn’t want to teach people who don’t really want to learn.  He or she would be wasting their time.

“The Master said, only one who bursts with eagerness do I instruct; only one who bubbles with excitement, do I enlighten.  If I hold up one corner and a man cannot come back with the other three, I do not continue the lesson.” – Epictetus, The Analects of Confucious

Do you want to learn?

Has the teacher showed up for you?

Where breakthroughs come from…

“When you look at most of the breakthroughs you have had in your life, most of them probably came out of an area of life that just wasn’t working.  There was pain and you had to navigate through it.

When you have to figure something out, tap into resourcefulness, or develop a skill, talent or capability to get through difficult situations, it breeds a breakthrough.” – Joe Polish

In order to have a breakthrough, something’s got to break.

Has that been true in your life?

Feeling engaged and alive

“The source of continuing aliveness was to find your passion and pursue it, with whole heart and single mind.” – Gail Sheehy

I have found this to be true for me.  If I am doing what I love (in my business or my play) and challenging myself, I never get bored or tired.

Do you feel “aliveness” each day?