Before you do anything else, ask yourself: “What is the one thing that I can (and must) do today to get me closer to my goals?”

If you do nothing else, do that one thing.

It will be worth more, and you’ll feel more satisfied than after a full day of nonsense and busyness.

Before you do anything else, ask yourself: “What is the one thing that I can (and must) do today to get me closer to my goals?”

If you do nothing else, do that one thing.

It will be worth more, and you’ll feel more satisfied than after a full day of nonsense and busyness.

Validation is a great motivator. I know. It is for me.

The applause at the end of the performance, the pat in the back. Feeling part of the group, being looked at with admiration, makes me feel proud.

But validation by itself cannot be the driver of our lives. It is frail, competing for everybody’s attention, and many times it fails to recognize things that are unusual or just different.

Doing something because we want to, because we have a desire to see them come to existence, is much more resilient in the face of naysayers. For the visionary entrepreneur, this is especially true. Most of us fail to recognize their vision until it becomes obvious, and only THEN do we provide validation.

Be your biggest fan, you won’t be disappointed.

Sometimes, committing to do something daily, looks a lot more difficult than perhaps a few days a week. That may be true, but actually following through may be the problem.

I’ll say it here. I am not really good at going to the gym. Part of it, is that I am obsessed on how I use my time. I mean, I am the type of person that when I am passing the load from the washing machine to the dryer, I have a mental debate whether if I should start the next washer load before starting the dryer to have them both finish earlier. So this drives me to optimize my time at the gym, exercising all major muscle groups in one session, which then requires a day or two of rest.

This is when the wheels come off. Things get in the way, and I end up sabotaging my own schedule. What more muscular people than I do, is that they go to the gym every day. Once they are there, they spend a lot of time walking around and huffing and puffing. Me instead, get it done and leave.

Here my theory (feel free to roll your eyes): They don’t get more muscular because they spend more time exercising. They do because they keep their commitment. They go to the gym every day. THEN they figure out what are they going to work on, but there is no such thing as “gym day”. Every day is gym day, and that’s simple. Better to keep a commitment.

For some people, daily, is easier than twice a week.

The journey to anything worth getting to is never linear.

When climbing a steep mountain, the trail turns into a switchback. On a sailboat, by going in a Zig-Zag, we can sail against the wind.

And even though we understand these things, yet we expect things to go always forward, always more; and when there is the slightest setback, we feel defeated.

In our subscription economy, this happens every day, several times a day, especially when we are topping out our market. Two more clients subscribe (yah!), one cancels (bummer!). I experienced this myself in a very humble way, while watching how I gain subscribers to this very newsletter, only to lose another one in a matter of hours. I was shocked at first, How could that be?, but I learned to live with it, and truly assume that people can have better things to do than to fill their inboxes with my rants.

And we all know that metrics are important, but this is why you have to stop staring at the revenue number, at the gauge, at the bathroom scale, at your 401K; and let things play out a bit.

If you have ran, or have done any type of exercise, you’ll know what I am talking about.

The hardest part of a five Km run, are the 100 feet that take you to the door. Once you have made the decision and committed to the point of getting out the door, the rest of the run will come. You may quit midpoint, you will do so wanting to do it better the next time.

Many things in life are just like this. We mull about it and anguish around the decision, but once it is done and we made up our mind, things start happening. Then it is matter of following through.

Once you decide you are the type of person that runs every day at 6:00 AM, then you just have to do what you do.

This same idea gave birth to one of the simplest and strongest slogans for a brand: Just do it.

This is about the fourth life lesson a vintage, and very aqua road bike, taught me. You can read more about that in the first post of this series, The Univega and Life Lessons it has taught me.

The subject of that story, is a road bike I found discarded on the curbside years ago. After some TLC, I have been riding this road bike forever since.

Here is this week’s life lesson from the very-aqua bicycle:

• Sometimes it doesn’t matter that much where you have been, but what’s still yet to come. Your most epic journey may be still ahead of you, you just need to find those who see the value in you.

If we see the world from the standpoint of this bicycle, the day I found it was looking quite grim. It was also probably the last leg of something that wasn’t going well anyway. Relegated for months or maybe years, not being taken on rides, not living up to its potential. Now, on the curb, plainly rejected, worthless. With a wobble on the wheels, tires cracked, rattly and grinding gears, was just the shadow of a once proud existence. Even the aqua color, which was so in back in the day, had gone completely out of fashion. Not even worth the parts on eBay, going straight to the dump. Or so they thought.

Until a new owner picked it up, giving a new life to its old, yet good quality components.  And years later, it’s still rolling. I have ridden this bike on the shore of Charleston and in the mountains of California, it even did the commute a few times on CalTrain in San José. The bike, made it in a moving truck from Florida, to South Carolina, and then, cross-country, all the way to California and back.

Never let your circumstances define your worth. Sometimes, in the darkest hours, when we think everything is over, it is just the hour before dawn and the best is yet to come. Every single one of us has lots to offer, and each of us is on their own unique ride. Ride on…

This is about the third life lesson a vintage, and very aqua road bike, taught me. You can read more about that in the first post of this series, The Univega and Life Lessons it has taught me. The subject of that story, is a road bike I found discarded on the curbside years ago. After some TLC, I have been riding this road bike forever since.

Every one of us has lots to offer, and every one of us is on their own unique ride. Here is this week’s life lesson from the very-aqua bicycle:

• Trust your own judgement. Never dismiss opportunities (potential businesses, job opportunities, candidates) just because someone else has rejected them. They may not be the right thing for someone else, but they could be just what you need.

When I first saw this bicycle, in parts, on the curb, my first thought was “there must be something wrong with it, Why would anybody throw out a good bike like that?”. I could see from a distance that the bicycle had quality components. But I still doubted. Would I look like a fool? Was it just a cheap worthless piece of metal?

Following my own judgement is what made me take it. Later, at the bicycle shop, my initial assessment was confirmed. The components, while old, were good quality, and it turned out to be a keeper.

I would not be writing these lines otherwise.

Next: Aqua Road Bike Life Lesson #4: The Best is yet to come

This is about one of the life lessons a vintage, and very aqua road bike, taught me. You can read more about that in the first post of this series, The Univega and Life Lessons it has taught me.

Years ago, while on a ride with a friend, I found this road bike discarded on the curbside. After some TLC, I have been riding this road bike forever since, and while I did not ride it all the way (it went into the moving tuck!), this very same bike, has made it from Florida, to South Carolina, and then, cross-country, all the way to California and back.

Every time I get in that saddle, it reminds me that every one of us has lots to offer, but every one of us is on their own unique ride. Here is this week’s life lesson from the very-aqua bicycle:

• If you love to do something, just do it. Stop that inner critic and don’t stop yourself because you think you don’t have the perfect tools, equipment, and skills. Start doing it (as long as it’s safe!). Things will get better, and you’ll learn about the things you really need.

The first thing that I had to do, weeks before the morning I found it, was to overcome my own obstacles and accept the awkwardness of riding my only bike, a mountain bike, on a road loop. It was not the adequate bicycle for “the job”. It did not look the part. After all, my friend was riding a high-end carbon-fiber road bike. And my tires had knobs, which would slow me down. “This is not what people do”. I was going to look stupid, a noob.

It did not matter, I started regardless. Not a heroic big leap, just a “whatever… Why not?” That’s sometimes enough to get things going.

If I haven’t faced my inner critic and made it shut up, I wouldn’t be writing this story.

Next: Aqua Road Bike Life Lesson #2: Keep showing up