Change Your Perspective, Not Your Circumstances.

Kid Johnson was one of my little neighbor boys next door.  I lived in California when his dad was my neighbor.  Kid Johnson had a lot of energy.  I think he was seven years old when I met him.  He loved to go outside and ride his bike.  His bike and the time he spent awake were almost linked together one hundred percent of the time.  His dad would call him in to come and eat.  He would be riding his bike.

It did not rain a whole lot where I lived in California.  Kid Johnson had a lot of good weather days to ride his bike.  I never saw Kid Johnson outside riding his bike when it rained, however.  His bike was in the front yard laying on its side when the rain was coming down.  Kid Johnson was not to be found anywhere.  The circumstances for riding the bike in the rain were not very good.  Rain was a bad event for Kid Johnson.  He did not go outside to ride his bike in the rain.  The circumstances were not good.

One summer day it was raining outside and I thought I heard Kid Johnson riding his bike outside.  It was a new noise during the rain so I got up out of my chair to go see if it was him.  It was.  He had a bright yellow full body rain coat on trying to navigate his bike in the outfit.  He was riding the bike with new enthusiasm, too.  You could see it in his body language.  It made me smile.  Kid Johnson found a way to overcome the bad circumstance of falling rain.  He also did not care enough about how it hit him in the face to go get his joy served.  He rode his bike even though his face was getting pelted with rain.  Kid Johnson changed his perspective about stopping his joy during the rain.  Change your perspective, not your circumstances.

It sounds so simple.  It sounds so plastic.  It sounds so fake.  Yet, all of us allow circumstances to stop us from riding our bikes.  We know we can wear a rain coat but we think it is not the same.  We think if we need to wear a rain coat to ride our bikes of life, we would just as soon skip it.  We can ride our bikes some other time.  We own a rain coat, we just never wear it.  Rain is a circumstance we rarely overcome.

There may be someone reading this post that is the kind of person who loves to go outside in the rain.  When that person read that last paragraph, they immediately replied in their mind that they don't miss a chance to wear their rain coat.  They likely said something in their mind like, "Not me!"  "I love to go outside in the rain!"

Kid Johnson was no different than anyone else who leads a business.  We operate our businesses because we love to operate our businesses.  Kid Johnson loves to ride his bike because he loves to ride his bike.  We do what we want to do and we do what we think we can do.  In the end, what we want to do bad enough will become the thing we do the most.  Kid Johnson rode his bike.  He did not love to go swimming, even though his parents had a pool in the back yard.  I know he did not like to swim.  They had a pool in the back yard they eventually emptied and turned into a bike park for Kid Johnson to practice jumps and aerials on his bike.  In the end, he did what he wanted to do bad enough.  His backyard was once off limits to his bike riding permissions.  Someone had to change their perspective to make the backyard become a place for Kid Johnson to ride his bike.  What was once a halting circumstance for Kid Johnson and his bike, the swimming pool, found a new perspective to open up a new door of permissions for him to enjoy.  Some perspectives had to change.  Bad circumstances were overcome every time Kid Johnson wanted to do more of what he loved to do.

You guessed it.  Kid Johnson eventually became a professional bike rider on a competition circuit.  He added an engine to his bikes and spent his career riding jumps and tracks on a motorcycle.  He made a living doing what he loved to do.  Every time a bad circumstance got in his way, he changed his perspective and found a way to overcome the obstacles that stop most people from the pursuit.  Kid Johnson did not allow circumstances to get in his way of performing what he wanted to perform.  He learned the simple art of changing his perspective.

Every business owner, large or small, faces these same set of choices.  Our perspectives leave us all where they remain.  We either permit bad circumstances to limit what we want to do or we change our perspectives and go around the obstacles they deliver.  Kid Johnson made it look simple.  I would love to have become a mouse in their house to hear the pleas for the many times Kid Johnson kept trying to convince his parents how the swimming pool would make a great bike ramp!  His parents used that swimming pool many times for entertaining business friends when Kid Johnson was growing up.  They had groups of people out in the backyard on weekends and some evenings when they entertained.  Turning the pool into a bike ramp was not likely an easy sell for Kid Johnson.  Somehow, he changed their perspective.

How are you doing with your obstacles and circumstances?  Got perspective?

It is so simple to see what Kid Johnson did to change his circumstances.  When we look at his path we think it was simple, easy to do.  Not so.  Kid Johnson had the same fears you have.  Kid Johnson had the same emotions you have.  Kid Johnson had the same dreams, the same desires and the same sets of disturbances that got in his way that you keep finding.  Kid Johnson was not 'given' an easier set of circumstances than what you are facing.  What I am 'not telling you' about Kid Johnson and his past is not about how to overcome obstacles that we all face in life when we try to build our business models.  Overcoming normal obstacles is an easy thing to understand.  Try to overcome obstacles that are impossible to understand.  When you do that kind of change in your perspective you become driven in a different way.  Circumstances become nothing but a ramp to your success.  Your 'changed' perspective carries you to a new field of higher performance.  Your success does not see circumstances in its way.  Your new perspective sees angles and options that can be used to catapult your dreams into new levels of higher performance.

When you are faced with large circumstances that get in your way to build a successful business, learn how to change your perspective.  Learn how to turn rain into a fun place to ride your bike.  I know it sounds stupid to share such a simple story.  I know that.  Success is simple.  A simple story is all that it usually takes to become good at what you want to do.  Learn how to convince your parents to give up their entertainment process for friends in the backyard swimming pool.  Convince them that there are other ways to entertain their friends.  A lot of people entertain friends without owning a swimming pool.  Learn how to turn that swimming pool into a bike park with jumps and ramps that you can use to practice how you will eventually become a professional motocross bike rider.  Once you accomplish those changes in your perspective, you will eventually learn how to overcome the tragedy of losing both of your legs in a car accident when you were two years old, like Kid Johnson did.  Kid Johnson was riding in his Aunts car when someone ran a red light on a busy boulevard.  Kid Johnson was not in the car seat like he was supposed to be buckled in.  His legs got crushed beyond repair.  Kid Johnson lost both of his legs that day.  He was only two years old.  His Aunt was devastated.  It was a huge circumstance that built a large ramp for Kid Johnson to learn how to form his wonderful perspective.


What is your excuse?  Kid Johnson's was the loss of his legs.  What circumstances are you using to keep you back?

Learn how to change your perspective.

By the way, Kid Johnson's Aunt eventually became his professional manager.  They operate a successful motocross bike shop and travel the world doing gigs and competition.  How is that one for perspective!

Change your perspective.  Circumstances are everywhere.  Who cares.  Build it anyway.

Until next time...