It’s 7:00 a.m. and I’m watching the sun come up over Manhattan from my room in the W Hotel in Hoboken New Jersey. I’m here for meetings later with my publisher and even though I’m not in New York proper, I have the perfect view of it all.

Directly across the river from my room stands the Empire State Building and the rest of the city that symbolizes all that is possible. And it’s now that I’ve truly come full circle.

As I wrote in a previous blog this stretch of my journey began with the tragedy of 9-11, but this writing isn’t about that. Nor is it a ‘look at me and how successful I am’ blog that are so prevalent across the web these days. I have by no means ‘made it’ and still have so much farther to go.

But I’m here right now at this crazy moment in time asking why and how did a Cajun boy from Louisiana sitting atop his 1972 Honda 100 end up here? 

WHY – because I’ve always been a dreamer that asked the question, “Why not me?”  Indeed all of the self help books tell you to visualize but in order to visualize, you first have to dream. What most don’t tell you is that the dream doesn’t have to be big; it only has to be important – to you.

When first straddling that Honda 100 I never envisioned sitting in this hotel room gazing at New York three weeks after my book has come out. Back then my dream was to graduate high school, ride that puppy to New Orleans, find a job and place to live…which I did, but on a Honda 350. 

Which leads me to the HOW.  Just like taking that ride into New Orleans, I dreamed one step at a time.  Yes, there was the overall dream of financial success, travel, meeting cool people and finding the perfect Margarita.  But there are so many intermediate dreams that we must lock into and not gloss over as we look over the horizon to the big one.  (I will find that perfect Margarita one day)

The problem, as I see it, isn’t that people aren’t dreaming, it’s that they tend to discount their smaller dreams as unimportant and as such, overlook them. But accomplishing one dream allows you to dream about the next with greater clarity.  And it’s within this state of clear that you figure out how to achieve that dream. It creates a wonderful domino effect that boosts your ability to dream more while honing the skills needed to achieve them. 

So, dreaming about making just a few more dollars or buying that second hand car doesn’t make you a loser compared to those who are dreaming of millions and a new Mercedes. Instead each achievement makes you stronger and more confident as you get that raise in pay and buy that new old car.

And then one day you find yourself sitting in a hotel room looking at the Empire State Building knowing that it’s been a long and twisty ride with many bumps and bruises along the way.  And that you wouldn’t have ridden it any other way. 

Dwain – The BusinessBiker

As always – these are just my thoughts on the matter, I could be wrong.  So, if you disagree or simply want to pile on, please do so either here on the BLOG or email me directly at Navigator@BikersGuidetoBusiness.Com  I look forward to hearing from you. www.bikersguidetobusiness.com

The reason life is like a baby in a swing is because if all you do is push, the swing eventually leaves your hands, flies over the bar and hits you in the butt, injuring both of you. In other words, for a happy baby/life you must know when to push it and when to let it come to you.

For most ‘Type-A’ entrepreneurs, this is damned near impossible. After all, we wouldn’t be where we are today or on the road to where we want to be without pushing long and hard. Therefore, the key is to know when we’re close to the point of tossing the baby over the bar.

For me it’s when I can no longer shake the little things.  They begin to really tick me off and I really begin to lose it over the bigger issues. Case in point – last week.

My new book, The Biker’s Guide to Business hit the shelves three weeks ago and I’ve been laser focused on its promotion.  I’ve assembled a great team and have reached out to other incredible resources. Now, it’s simply a matter of doing the work – of which there is a ton!

We’ve all been there, only so many hours in a day but the backhoe keeps dumping and dumping and dumping. Finally at the end of last week, it all became overwhelming as there were too many people to talk to, screwy interviews and things falling through the cracks. As a result, the background noise became deafening and my edges began to seriously fray.

So I took my own advice and shut it down. It was time for a lost weekend, so starting Friday at 6:00 p.m. the phone and the computer were turned off. On Saturday morning, after my workout I saddled up and hit the back roads.

It took about half a tank of gas for me to begin noticing the butterflies along the side of the road and the herons floating aimlessly above the marsh. I even slowed my pace enough to find that elusive pocket within the traffic flow where no one was in front or behind me for most of the ride. The only things left were the wind in my face and nature as my canvas. All became right again with the world.

Then on Sunday I was incredibly productive, not because I had to be, but because I wanted to be. Everything just fell into place and I regained my rhythm by simply giving up one day and re-calibrating my place in the world.

So if you’re moving faster and accomplishing less, stop the madness. All it takes is a day off by yourself doing something you love. Remember, it’s your ‘baby’.

Dwain – The BusinessBiker

As always – these are just my thoughts on the matter, I could be wrong.  So, if you disagree or simply want to pile on, please do so either here on the BLOG or email me directly at Navigator@BikersGuidetoBusiness.Com I look forward to hearing from you. www.bikersguidetobusiness.com

For most of this year I’ve watched a very interesting trend in business, the changing of the management guard. Or as I call it – The Rise of the Thirty-Somethings.

On the surface you may think that companies are replacing their older managers for purely economic reasons – younger is cheaper. To an extent that is true, but it’s not the whole story. 

The main reason this change is taking place is attitude. You see, these thirty something managers and entrepreneurs don’t know what they don’t know and that’s a good thing.  This is, in large part, the first time they’ve faced really tough economic times with the capacity to do something about it. 

When 9-11 sent the economy into a tailspin, they were still in their twenties and mostly dealing with growing up along with the tough economic times, so the effect was somewhat lost on them. This time however, they have a decade or more of business experience under their belts, energy and best of all, no memory.

The older managers and leaders remember the good old days and are still longing for them. They struggle with the fact that their five year goal of retirement is now ten or fifteen years away. And who can blame them? It’s tough to wake up knowing that their life has become the tale of Sisyphus with that darned rock getting oh-so-close to the top only to roll back down the hill.

Unfortunately, business doesn’t care and makes no concessions for being close. It’s the toughest win/lose game out there and all about productivity. If your head’s not in the game, you lose – simple as that. 

So, if you’re a business owner wondering how to energize your company, skew younger.  And if you’re a forty to fifty something out there I highly recommend you check your attitude and leave the past behind.  If you don’t, you’re bound to become part of it. 

Dwain – The BusinessBiker

As always – these are just my thoughts on the matter, I could be wrong.  So, if you disagree or simply want to pile on, please do so either here on the BLOG or email me directly at Navigator@BikersGuidetoBusiness.Com  I look forward to hearing from you. www.bikersguidetobusiness.com

To be sure, we all know where we were and what we were doing on September 11, 2001 as everyone was deeply affected by the tragedy and loss of life. And, having never experienced a terrorist attack on our own soil, the country threw itself into the equivalent of neutral on the economic transmission of business and dropped the kickstand for a while. Commerce came to a screeching halt as businesses everywhere were hit hard – I know, because that day literally cratered my company.

On that fateful morning I and my team were in a planning meeting putting together the proposal that would, in our minds, win us the first contract on a project I’d literally bet the farm on. But it was not to be, as everything I’d worked on for the previous nine months was wiped off the table along with so many of my hopes for the future. In a matter of hours I found myself perilously close to the abyss that is failure, left to metaphorically pick the bits of pavement out of my butt from one hell of a wipeout.

Second to being told I had cancer, it was the most frightening and challenging time of my life as every fiber of my being was put to the test.  But I, like many others, picked myself up and began the difficult task of rebuilding my company.  And in doing so, I created my process for navigating one’s life and business through tough times.

Fast forward seven years and on September 11, 2008 the editorial team at John Wiley and Sons were deciding to take a flyer on a first time author with the concept for a book called The Biker’s Guide to Business. My agent called the next day, September 12 giving me the good news and once again, that fateful date of 9-11 shifted my life. I almost finished that last sentence with ‘for the better’, but in reality, the first 9-11 did too.  Only I didn’t know it at the time. 

Bikers know that there are two types of riders, those who have laid them down and those that will.  And it’s the same in life as we’re all going to face our own personal tragedies and challenges along the way.  And we may not know it at the time, but they occur for a reason and it’s up to us to find the lesson in each and if possible, carry on.

I recently heard a quote attributed to the great Jack Welch that goes “Great companies are built through tough times.” I submit that it can also apply to one’s life, but only if we’re paying attention. 

Dwain – The BusinessBiker

As always – these are just my thoughts on the matter, I could be wrong.  So, if you disagree or simply want to pile on, please do so either here on the BLOG or email me directly at Navigator@BikersGuidetoBusiness.Com  I look forward to hearing from you. www.bikersguidetobusiness.com

I love to ride – anytime, anyplace, all day or all night, or both. 

This Labor Day weekend, rather than attend the barbeques or hit the beach I joined The Ribbon Riders, a group of female riders raising money for breast cancer and rode 1000 miles in 24 hours in order to attain Iron Butt status, something I’ve wanted for years. 

It began with Pam, one of the group’s founders, letting me know that they were doing it to raise money for their cause – breast cancer. And, after much groveling and pleading, the ladies agreed to let me ride with them – as long as it was in the back of the line. 

We lifted the kickstands at 5:00 a.m. and 20 hours in the saddle and 1059 total miles later we became Iron Butt Certified and members of the World’s Toughest Bikers. Along the way, I thought about this challenge and the others we all face each and every day. I came to the conclusion that there are only two types of challenges out there, the ones we want to accomplish and those that we have to accomplish. 

The first is by pure choice and the second is usually thrust upon us out of circumstance rather than consent. In either case, these challenges are difficult and thrilling and what makes them fun (or not) at the time is advanced notice.  We don’t like surprises and the notice offers us an opportunity to plan and therefore anticipate the needs and difficulties we’ll face along the way.   

Therefore the key in accomplishing those thrust upon us is to remember that it too is usually associated with something we love doing. It’s just hidden behind that mountain of doubt that comes from being blindsided.

Dwain – The BusinessBiker

As always – these are just my thoughts on the matter, I could be wrong.  So, if you disagree or simply want to pile on, please do so either here on the BLOG or email me directly at Navigator@BikersGuidetoBusiness.Com  I look forward to hearing from you. www.bikersguidetobusiness.com