Tour de Life 5

The next thing that truly fascinated me was the equipment as we traversed areas, which I did not think possible on a bicycle, we went up rocks and through Mopani thickets, we put the equipment under enormous pressure, but yet very few bikes broke.  This reminded me that in business as in life we can endure many challenges and come out from them having been tested, but never defeated.  It may take a day, it may take hours or years, but what is meant to be, will always find its way.  The outcome is as important as the journey and we are best not to spend too much time worrying about either.  We should celebrate the journey enjoying its challenges and setbacks, we can be grateful for tough times to provide a comparison and reference for when it goes much better, we owe it to ourselves to run headlong into battle, to secure our future and our dreams and we need to share the moments with the right people, even if they are neither popular, or perfect.  Along a route like the Tour de Tuli you can many times stray off line and find yourself needing to make your own path not directly following the person in front of you.  You will definitely have places where you don’t stay upright and you fall down, because of the terrain, the decision to follow someone else, or simply because the track may be too difficult.  But the secret lies in the following:  what defines us is how well we rise after falling.  What do we do when we have gone down the wrong path – accept defeat or try again?  We learn from the fall and make sure that the next time we pick another gear, or a different path.  This is the same in life.  We need to be able to rise and be better than before, we need memories to remind us and pain from a fall to help us focus on the next time we are faced with a similar challenge.  I met men and woman of real character and I was humbled by the fact that all riders endured the challenge.  I sat with men of adventure that have traversed the globe in various forms and against many odds have achieved their dreams.