CHANGE THROUGH ACTION: SAY IT OUT LOUD

One of the things about riding a big motorcycle is that is hard to go really slow.

The motorcycle I ride weighs in at about 900 pounds with a full tank. Add my big ass to it and we are well over a thousand pounds.

Physics, like inertia, balance, motion, centrifugal force and such come into play when you ride two wheels down.

Making a smooth curve at 40 miles an hour requires little effort. Push the handlebar ever so slightly and lean into the curve. Centrifugal force pushes the bike deep into the asphalt and you add weight to the lean with your body.

The motorcycle creates its own centrifugal force and doesn’t want to fall down.

Going slow, however, there is really very little centrifugal force and the bike will happily succumb to gravity if it is not held upright by the rider.

So at dawn today, I met with a motorcycle riding expert and we went through the paces of keeping that beast upright while going very slow.

I am proud to say that I handled that lesson fairly well going from an awful time in the slot of 4.5″ to keeping the bike upright crawling through at 12.6″

That was a win because it was at the upper end of the scale for the goal.

Woohoo.

Weaving the cones proved more challenging.

I only had to focus on three cones – turn, turn, turn… but damn those cones were spaced so they came up really fast.

I failed at first.

I could see where I wanted to go but it was like the bike would not let me turn. Keep in mind I was crawling along VERY slowly.

It seemed as though the bike would fall over if I yanked the handlebars to go the other way.

The instructor signaled for a break and we sat and talked about it.

“I sense fear in your turns”, he said.

“Yep, that is exactly right”, I told him, “the bike feels so unstable.”

“What exactly are you afraid of” he then asked me. He wanted me to verbalize it.

Well…
Fear of falling over.
Fear of damaging my bike.
Fear of damaging myself.

He asked if I could come to terms with those fears and I told him I could.

We talked a little bit more and then he had me verbally say out loud that I could handle those possibilities.

“I can handle falling over.”
“I can handle damaging my bike.”
“I can handle damaging myself.”

We went back to the track and I nailed the cones 5 out of 6 times and later in the lesson, I increased my speed and nailed the cones every time.

I had to verbally out loud tell my subconscious that I was giving myself permission to fail and would accept the consequences.

And it worked.

I did nothing different but this time I could turn the handlebars and force the bike into the opposite direction.

I then doubled my speed and did them again.

And again.

Sometimes to move forward, we have to acknowledge the fact that we ARE WILLING TO FAIL.

And that willingness to go down on hot asphalt in order to learn how to turn a motorcycle in a tight spot is WORTH it.

It also makes making three contacts per day and doing your marketing so much easier when you accept that you may fail. We all fail before we succeed.

In fact it looks more like this:

Fail fail fail fail fail fail fail fail fail win fail fail fail fail win fail fail fail fail fail fail fail fail win…

And that is OK. Because we fail before we win.

Always.

Give yourself permission to fail, and do it out loud where your subconscious has no excuse not to hear you.

Do it several times.

It feels great!