Everything I Needed to Know In Kindergarten, I Learned this Morning When I Crashed On My Bike

My skin's a little dry from swimming every morning, so I think I'll ride up the hill to the dirt this morning to get some exercise.

That was my thought as my alarm went off at 4:30. Besides, that means I can sleep longer.

"Alexa, set an alarm for 5:30."

"Second alarm set for 5:30am," came the reply.

The ride up the hill is through several blocks of very hilly streets. I live on 2nd Avenue and the dirt starts on about 18th Avenue. I hadn't slept well, so I was still tired but if I don't get my exercise in the morning, I tend to come up with very good reasons to not do it later. "It's not good to be out in the heat" or "there are people out and I don't want to get the Coronavirus" or "a nap would also be good for me" stuff like that.

There are a couple of options when you get to the dirt. You can go to the right and you find long straight conservative trails without too much risk of anything exciting ever happening--a wise choice for a 53 year old man from middle America. Or, there's the radical left. This is where the dirt jumps are. It's a full-throttle off-road bike park. The kind of place where 53 year old men from middle America only deviate to when no one is watching.

At 7:00am on a Tuesday, no one is watching. All the kids are sleeping in, I have the whole place to myself, and so I veer left.

I'm at the takeoff place looking down on all the trails and jumps and most of them make me anxious at the sight. I'm tired and thinking, I should just go back and stay on the flatter trails. But there's this one trail that's a lot of up and down stuff, and you can just ride over without leaving the ground, so I peddle down.

Hey! This is alright, it's mostly coasting and it's pretty fun. I've been on this trail before so I know what to expect. I get to the end and have to peddle up to the landing place on the other end of the park. From here, I decide I'm tired and I'm just going to peddle out.

I can go back the direction I came over the same whoop de doos, or peddle out from this end. I look down and there's a trail I think I've taken before. It's fairly steep downhill, and then turns in the middle, so I take it.

I get to the turn in the middle and that's when it becomes horrifyingly clear that I haven't taken this trail before.

My next move is what I believe the old-timers call "ass over tea kettle". I've thought about that phrase a lot, and I still can't conceive of a scenario where I would be in that position AND be holding a tea kettle--what are the odds? I guess you have to really like tea.

My bike is separated from me, I'm very dirty, there are sticks coming out of the holes in my helmet and I'm laying in the weeds.

There are scrapes and some minor blood donations, but I'm okay. Nothing's broken. It could have been much worse. Just imagine if I'd been riding with my hands in my pockets--I actually had this thought. Because there's no catching yourself when your hands are in your pockets. Don't do it.

I'm riding home now passing morning walkers with all the tell-tale signs of a guy who just wrecked on his bike, or a zombie on a bike, because everybody looks at me with this, "What the heck happened to you?" expression. It's mostly just dirt and scraped knees and elbows. I pulled the sticks out of my helmet. I don't want to look like an idiot. I guess people don't expect to see you like that on a bike riding through the neighborhood.

So, where was I? Oh yeah, I'm riding home and I start to think, what did I learn from this, because I'd hate for it to all be in vain, and here's what I came up with...

First, listen to your heart. For good or bad, if it's in your heart or mind, listen. I have this quite often and it's pretty helpful. Most often, it is about someone crossing my mind, so I reach out to them. That turns out to be a cool experience 100% of the time. Today, when intuition was saying, you're tired, go back to the flat trails, I went for it anyway. Maybe not the best choice. On the other hand, I got these cool lessons.

Second, if you're going to go for it, then just go for it. Don't second guess yourself. Don't hold back. If you're going to pursue something go full-on all the time. Today, I made a rookie mistake. I was covering my front brake with my finger and when I got scared I pulled hard on it. My bike stopped dead on a steep downhill. I never hit anything. Had I just kept going I would have stuck the landing. The metaphor for lesson #2 is "Don't cover your brake." If you're going for it, go for it. Take the island and burn the boats.

Third, pick yourself up. If you're going to go for it, you're going to have dirt on your face and sticks in your helmet a lot of the time. Get used to people looking at you like, "What the hell just happened to you?" Or more fittingly, "Are you crazy?" It's a good sign. It's a sign you're on the right track.

Here's the recap. Listen to your heart. For me today, it was trying to keep me safe, but more often it's going to tell you to pursue something good, something big, something important. Go for it. Stop asking yourself, "Who am I to do X?" Ask yourself "Who am I NOT to do X?" Finally, pick yourself up, and keep going no matter who tells you you're nuts or to play it safe. They mean well, but they don't know what's best for you. Only you know that.

Ryan Houmand has consulted, coached, trained and been a speaker to senior leaders and managers all over the world. He has 25 years of management experience in corporate and retail environments. He's the author of "A Passion for Monday" and has appeared on FOX, NBC and CBS discussing "The 3 Mistakes That Make People Hate Monday".

Photo credit: Photo by Irene Lasus from Pexels