Tough people are forged from challenge

“An easy life does not make men.  Challenges make men and it is these men who build nations.” – Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, leader of the United Arab Emirates (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and five other city-states).

Hard times make tough people.  Tough people make good times.  Good times make weak people.  Weak people make tough times.

Stay tough.

Education available to all

A few chapters ago, the king knew more than the people and had the power.

In the last chapter, only people who could afford could get a higher education.

In this chapter where everyone has a supercomputer in their pocket connected to all the world information, education is available to all – for free.

This levels the playing field.  This takes away any excuse that “my family was poor”.

This means the “haves and have-nots” are competing in our abundant world with the “wills”, but not the “will-nots”.

Will you?

Everything is hard before it's easy

The first time I had to change a blade on a chain saw it was hard.  

The first time I had to carry a sheet of plywood it was hard.

The first time I had to do sales training it was hard.

The first time I read a Balance Sheet it was hard.

The first time I had to do anything worthwhile, it was hard.

But it is by the doing that you learn to make it easy – physically, mentally and emotionally.

Do the hard stuff and grow.

Addition by substitution

When I stop doing something, it opens up time to do something else.

If I stop doing something that is not so good for me, and replace it with something that is better, I improve my life.

It’s addition by substitution.

What can you stop doing to make an opening for something better?

A Sense of Control

An experiment was done with people in nursing homes.

One group was told they had control over their schedules.

The other group was told that others would set their schedules for them.

The group that had control over their lives lived longer.

How much control do you have over your life?

Conquering Perfectionism

Many people think they are not supposed to make mistakes.  In order to avoid making mistakes they don’t try much because they might fail.  This of course keeps them from succeeding because they don’t try.

Do you know what percentage of the time a pro baseball player succeeds at getting a hit?  If you get a hit three out of ten times (Batting average of .300) you will be in the Hall of Fame!

270 players have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and only 114 of them had a career batting average of over .300.  Ty Cobb hit .368, Ted Williams hit .344, Babe Ruth hit .342, and Hank Aaron hit .305.

This means they failed most of the time!

In life, when you are ok with being bad at something at first, you try things.  But trying things you learn.  You learn things that people who don’t try will never know.  From what you learn you adjust and try again and get better.  Eventually, you succeed.  If you keep going you can get really, really good and be one of the best in the world at it.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes in order to learn and get better.

Break it up into doable steps

When you have a big project or a long-term goal, you may feel like it’s too big to do all at once, or feel it’s out of reach.  

Break it up into small doable parts.  Then prioritize them – What’s first?  What is second?…

Step 1) – Call _________ and ask for advice.

Step 2) – Call ___________ and have a conversation.

Step 3) – Write up __________ .

Step 4) – Ask __________ for ___________ .

Step 5) – Collect all the materials in the garage.

And so on…

You will have far more belief and motivation that you can get one step done then you will that you can get the whole project done.

Being able to get at least one thing done each day will keep you motivated and feeling forward momentum.

If you keep moving on a path to what you want, even if the path is a little wiggly, you will eventually get there.

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”.