I hit a dip

4 wheel drive
When I was young, my dad bought a truck with 4 wheel drive. At the time, we lived in the northernmost tip of Maine where it was mostly woods surrounded by more woods. Being part of a family that went camping and hunting often, it was not unusual for us to end up in places that normal street vehicles would have found impassable. I can clearly remember my dad getting out of the truck when we would reach one of these locations, engaging the 4 wheel locks on the front tires, and then proceeding ahead.

It’s time for me to engage my 4 wheel drive.

The “Dip”
After two months straight of non-stop, no breathing, running full steam ahead I realized I had hit “the dip”. (This was last week, by the way.) I had fully expected to hit it, just not quite so soon.

In my plans, things were supposed to just skyrocket from the start, I’d have clear ideas of what I should be doing by the third month, a business starting at the sixth month (at the very latest), and perhaps hit the dip around the nine month to year marker at which point I would just push through based on the encouragement of a successful start up.

Buzz! Wrong!

Unfortunately, I’ve realized a number of things recently that have sort of taken the wind out of my sails. I pushed through to create a number of posts after that, but then hit the dip hard. Two days passed that I had committed to posting and didn’t.

No one died. No catastrophe occurred. But I let myself down.

I’m not saying that I’m not allowing myself a break from time to time, but to just stop and sit down without communicating is not good. It’s not me.

Off road
One of the things I’ve learned from a lifetime of driving off road is that you encounter things that most people will never ever experience.  I can still vividly remember a waterfall I came across about two hours into an off road excursion I took when I lived in Portland, Oregon in my early 20s. I took as many pictures as I had left on my roll of film (this was before digital cameras were available) and just sat for a while to look at it. I was by myself and remember thinking that few people would probably ever see this waterfall. I was so thankful that I had been fortunate enough to experience it.

Before I started that two hour off road trip, I came to a definite place where the asphalt ended. It was a straight line after which was logging roads for miles. There was something monumental for me when I crossed that line.

I’ve crossed a similar line in my life in the past few months.

By deciding that I want to pursue being an entrepreneur, I’ve left the perfectly paved road behind. I’m not saying one is better than the other for everyone, but one is definitely better than the other for me personally.

I know that I will experience things that few others will ever go through. I will see things that others won’t even know exist.

I know because I’m already getting glimpses of that.

Out of gas
There was a point about two and a half hours into my off road drive when I looked down to see that I had less than 1/4 of a tank of gas left. One friend knew roughly where I was, and by roughly, I mean he knew that I had headed south of our apartment for a few hundred miles. This was before cell phones were commonplace. I hadn’t seen another human for hours. No gas stations. Nothing.

I started picturing myself stranded with an empty tank deep in the mountains of central Oregon. Thankfully, I found my way out of the mountains and at a gas station without needing a search and rescue team.

Last week I found myself running low again, only this time it was me and not a truck that was running low.

I’m not a truck
Luckily, I’m not going to literally run out of gas. Unlike a vehicle, sheer will can continue to motivate me when I’m running low.

But that “running low” is the dip.

Seth Godin has a book that discusses this called, well…”The Dip”. He draws a number of great conclusions, but the one that applies here is that I have put in a lot of hard work and finally hit a point where it is quite nearly overwhelming. It’s uphill right now. Things aren’t just coming easily.

And this is probably the best possible place to be for me right now because once you get past the dip and the uphill climb, you reach a place where you experience amazing things that few others will ever know exist.

It’s an off road journey because there is no other way to get there.

Past the dip
So I’m engaging my 4 wheel drive and am just going to keep pressing on. I’ve re-evaluated a number of things that I’m doing and will be making some changes, but I am going to continue to “crush” the hell out of it!

I’ve made a decision this month regarding where my first business venture is going to be. I’ll reveal my plans and thoughts tomorrow since I said I’d reveal them by the end of the month.

Then later in the week I will reveal the results of last week’s contest.

I’d like there to be a nice tidy ending to this post. You know, the kind that wraps everything up in a quick little lesson like an episode of the Brady Bunch. There isn’t. As always, I just wanted to be honest and open about where I was at.

Instead, I’ll leave you with this: Link