Living here in Kernersville, North Carolina, most of the people I interact with are older than I am, and they lived their lives like most people in industrial age small towns. They worked a single job for most of their lives, conserved their money, and spent weekends and vacations at the beach or the mountains. The bulk of their lives were spent in the Carolinas. There's nothing wrong with that. But now they look at the TV news and are afraid of what they see happening in the world. They're good people, but they're nearly a polar opposite of the people I've spent most of my adult life around.
The weird little sport of BMX freestyle drew me to Southern California. A large majority of the people I met were into one or more of the action sports. Surfing, skateboarding, BMX freestyle, snowboarding, motocross, and similar sports lead one to a different lifestyle. Each day, people in these sports go out and try to improve on their physical skills. It's all about progression. It's about getting off the couch and facing your fears. Some of these people did crazy, death defying acts, but most did smaller, more technical feats on a day by day basis. These people tend to look at the opportunities in the future, rather than the negative stuff going on. Not coincidentally, many people I know moved beyond physical stunts, and into creating their own businesses. Some have been widely successful. Many are successful on a more modest level, but successful none-the-less. These people tend to fail much more often than those here in North Carolina, but they also get back up and keep trying. All of us in the action sports world have seen people come out of nowhere, sometimes straight from the streets, and create something amazing. They tend not to count someone out because of a bad spell in that person's life.
Recently, I was part of a conversation where a woman here spoke about how the world is going downhill, and she was just overwhelmed by all the bad news on TV. As a Christian woman she wanted to help in some way, but she had no idea where to start. How many of you reading this can relate to that? You feel you should be doing what you can to make the world a better place, but it just seems like there is too much to do. Many years ago, I developed a workshop to help people figure out what's really important to them right now. When you do that, it usually makes the next step you need to take apparent. When you get clear on where you are, you realize where you need to head next. I'll talk more about that workshop in future posts.
If you're feeling overwhelmed, like the lady in that conversation, what can you do? First, you can come to grips with the fact that you can't help everyone. You can't feed all the hungry, house the homeless, shelter the battered wives, and heal all the kids with cancer and other serious diseases. But you can pick one small thing you can do in the next few days to help someone in some way. There are literally thousands of worthy causes you can devote a little time and effort to. One person may take some homemade brownies to the local homeless people, another may bring gifts to children in the hospital, another may write a book about how they survived a really tough time in their life, another may volunteer with the Red Cross after a natural disaster. Pick one small thing, do it well, and do it soon. Once you get in contact with people who need some form of help, you'll begin to recognize other things that need to be done. Do something simple, do it well, and then build on that foundation.
But what if you don't feel called to do volunteer work? What if you have a business idea? Hey, lots of people need jobs. The same applies to you. Do something simple, do it well, and build on that foundation. That's one of the biggest lessons I've learned from the action sports world. I've watched entire industries develop out of nowhere, built by people who found one thing that needed to be done, and then followed that thread where it led them. So... what do you find needs to be done in the world?
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