I am finally on my way home! After months of non-stop travel, I have one flight left and then a 10 hour drive, but at least that’s it for a while. Last week I spent a couple days near Asheville, NC and while flipping through a tourist magazine, I saw an add that really stood out to me. A guy holding a unicycle and standing in the woods. I stared at the picture and thought, “I know this guy”. Sure enough, when I looked at the bottom it was Dan Heaton. Last year sometime Columbia Sportswear signed a sponsorship deal with him and have been using his awesome unicycling skills as part of their outdoor clothing campaign. Good for him!
If you’ve seen Revolve, you’ll probably recognize the name as well. I was visiting a friend near Seattle when I gave him a call and he was kind enough to do a segment for that video while I was out riding with him. While there, I had a couple tricks that I had been working on, but just couldn’t seem to get. I asked him and in a few short minutes he showed me what I was doing wrong and how to fix it. Boom, I got them. Never underestimate the value of asking for help.
I think it’s part of human nature to be proud. You’re proud of your child, or your team or your job. It isn’t something that you have to learn from anyone, it’s just there. Pride can be a good thing, but it can also hold you back from achieving your dreams. So many people naturally have this proud attitude that says I’m too good to learn from anyone. They act like they know it all, and will go to great lengths to prove that they can do it all on their own. I honestly thought that if I learned the basics, I could figure out all the hard stuff on my own. Don’t get me wrong, it will usually work if you stick with it…but you will waste an exorbitant amount of time figuring out how to do something. I would have eventually gotten the tricks I was working on, but Dan helped me leap frog hours of practice because he could already do it.
Be willing to ask for help, don’t let your pride get in the way of you accomplishing something amazing today! No matter how good you get, there’s always something that you can learn. It’s easy to ask when you’re just getting started, but when you’re at that in between stage, that’s usually when you need the most help and you’re least likely to ask…get over it! Ask away! I’m amazed at how much I still learn about jump rope from little kids. I’ve been jumping 2-3 times longer than they’ve been alive, but they still can teach me stuff. You’ll find that people are always flattered and willing to help if you’re not too proud to ask. Give it a try, you will be amazed at how much you can learn and how far that will take you.
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