Without going into too much detail, my older sister and her husband moved to Durango last year after spending over 20 years in sunny, warm California.
They moved because their daughter and her husband become business owners for the first time, buying a business in Durango. There are grandkids involved so hence the complete desertion of the California lifestyle.
As kids growing up in Fort Collins, CO, we were hitting the ski slopes at a very young age. Throughout my teen years I skied quite a bit but never considered myself a great skier. Then in my late 30s and early 40s I took it up again with a determination to excel at a sport I had been very tentative about. I took lessons at Vail, CO and was soon skiing down black diamonds and skiing moguls — something I never thought I would or could do.
I got the call last December, just before Christmas. My sister had signed up for ski lessons at Durango Mountain (what us locals still refer to as Purgatory). Really, I said with a bit of hesitation. Since she had never been a serious skier I gave her all the caution about being careful, you’re too old to be breaking any bones, I joked.
It was after I hung up the phone that the thought first entered my brain. If she can do this, so can I! I didn’t think that much about it until the first of February. I called and said I’d be there on a Wednesday in February and I’d attend her morning lesson, then we’d ski together the rest of the day.
As I drove from Sante Fe, NM to Durango, I remember thinking that it had been 10 years since I had last stepped into a pair of skis and hit the slopes. Nervous energy surged as I thought about that first run which I knew would be down a very gentle slope — but still, I was not at all in the same shape I was in when I was tackling those Black Diamonds.
On the chair lift, I joked with my sister and my niece about taking it slow. Getting off the chair proved harder than I remember and I didn’t appreciate it hitting me as I stuggled to get out of its way. My thought was: go easy, keep your weight forward, stay in control.
It only took me about 10 minutes of taking it easy that I knew that plan would get me hurt. I started becoming very intentional about what I was doing. I knew what to do. I had always known what to do. And as soon as I started skiing with intention, I started skiing. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face as I schussed down that first hill. Poling, gliding and turning as I attacked that bunny slope with confidence and wonder.
There was a lesson in this, I thought as I rode the chair back up for a run at a Blue. As business owners we sometimes lose our confidence. We sometimes forget what we know and we allow self doubt and fear to affect our ability to make decisions. We may have ‘been off the slopes’ for awhile because sales were down, a client went away, we lose good people, we have to start over. Those are the times when it will do us no good to be tentative.
We have to attack our businesses with intention every day so we don’t lose our edge. We have to believe we know what to do and then go do it. I didn’t do any Black Diamonds that day on the slopes but I’m confident I will. After all, Green, Blue or Black, the difference is the slope and with the right gear and the right technique, anything is possible.
So it is with our businesses.
