November 5, 2007

 

Introduction – Mountain Biking and Passionate People, by Michael Kroth

This summer I decided, at the ripe old age of 54, to learn to mountain bike. The weather is perfect for it here in the Northwest, I have friends who are avid, and I decided I didn’t want my physical condition to keep devolving (read that as losing strength and gaining weight). So I went on a biking trip with my son Shane, a rusty, but old hand on the fat tires (note that I’m picking up the lingo).

 

People who love what they do take risks. The same is as true for an entrepreneur as it is for someone beginning a new interpersonal relationship. People who stop taking risks, because they are calloused or have been burned or who decide they need security, begin to lose their excitement, their aliveness. In the many, many interviews I have conducted with all sorts of workers who are fervent about their work - managers, CEOs, individual contributors, first line supervisors, authors, small business owners, teachers – I have never found one who wasn’t taking risks, trying something new, putting it on the line, and learning.

 

I looked down the “mountain,” and Shane urged me to “trust the bike,” and to “look ahead,” instead of at my feet. I was scared. My heart was flopping like a salmon heading up one of our beautiful NW streams. I started. I stopped. I fell over. I did that a couple of times.

 

Why had I decided this would be a fun hobby?  I got up. Decided, “To heck with it,” (maybe that’s not exactly what went through my head), and started down, wobbling all the way. The “mountain,” really a short decline in a beautiful wooded area, was conquered.  I let my breath out, and felt alive. It wasn’t a huge risk for someone like my son Shane but it was a big step for me, and as the day progressed I had many little victories (and falls – I was one with the earth and the brambles that day).

 

Conquering the fear of taking on risk in the workplace, I think, also means “trusting your bike,” in this case your own skills and intuition and wisdom.  It also means “looking ahead,” that is, not focusing so much on today’s possible mistakes, but looking down the road and the goal at hand. Too often we complain about managers micromanaging, when in fact we micromanage our own fears and hopes to the extent that we become paralyzed.

 

To be totally alive, in work and in life, trust yourself in the moment, and look down the road toward your own success.

 

For a look at my “learning” experiences click here.

Michael Kroth

PO Box 9557

Boise, Idaho 83707

505-450-4248

michael@michaelkroth.com

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