“Do you ever get tired of telling your story?”
The young woman told me she was studying to be a teacher and she worried she’d become bored covering the same subject matter year after year.
“You must have repeated this presentation many times, but you seem so passionate about it. How do you do that?”
It’s a great question. And she’s right—I never get tired of telling this story of hope.
As a teacher I believed it wasn’t my job to teach math. My job was to teach kids. And since the kids changed every year, there really was no same-old-same-old. I used similar lessons, with incremental improvements, many times, but they were always different because different people were involved.
That’s how I see every opportunity to talk about hope and overcoming adversity. It’s never about the Powerpoint slides and relating the same tired stories. That would indeed become very boring very quickly.
Instead it’s about the people who are kind enough to invite us and those who show up and listen. It’s about meeting interesting folks, hearing their stories, and seeking some connection that’ll make the interaction meaningful. Like everything that really matters, in the end it’s about relationships.
For me, the hardest part of these speaking events is the one-and-done nature of our contacts. I leave each of these events thinking about the special people we just met and wondering what happens next. I wish we had ways to maintain and deepen the connections. A few folks will read the books or follow the blog, but it’s not the same.
We need to work on that.
# # #
We need to give a shout-out to bike shops in general, especially the Slippery Pig Bike Shop in Phoenix.
I bent a shifter lever on my bike. It’s an odd part, not something most bike shops have in stock. Someone advised us to try The Slippery Pig.
Brad went to the back and dug into a drawer filled with odds and ends, old parts saved from years of working on every kind of bike. Eventually he pulled out an old shifter, took it apart, and extracted a lever that worked perfectly. Presto-chango—problem solved, and when we tried to pay he waved us off.
So Becky bought a Slippery Pig water bottle.
Most of the bike shop guys we encounter along the journey are like Brad. They’re generous with their time and expertise, often refusing payment for minor repairs and adjustments.
Get out and support your local bike shop. If you ever need bike work done in Phoenix, stop by The Slippery Pig.
# # #
Today we head toward Tucson by way of Casa Grande. I’m looking forward to a couple of days of simply cranking along before our next speaking engagements. We start the day at 379 miles, and my trusty Google Maps bike app tells me it’s 137 miles to Tucson.
Looks like our 500-mile goal just might work out.
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