Everything I needed in life, I learned from {skiing}.

This is an article I’ve wanted to write for a long time. It won’t make me any money, which is likely why I have put it off for so long.

It’s about my own experience. Not the experience of my customers, not in an attempt to make people understand my business, but about how I learn, told through the story of action sports.

Another reason that I haven’t written it is because I feel like I’d need to write another one through the story of punk-rock. And another through the story of raising children. I guess, to the point, let’s just start.

I’m mostly a skier for a host of reasons.

I started before my 3rd birthday. My dad sold skiing through the promise of the chairlift ride. You needed skis to ride the chairlift and the chairlift was fun, so we skied between chairlift rides.

The first few times you ski, it isn’t that fun. Sure, it’s slippery, and it’s fast, but it was mostly just weird. Like, why is this going to be fun?

Because of the chairlift, I kept at it. Dad was always excited when I did, and it was cool to hang out with him anyway.

But then I started trying stuff.

I tried to jump. I tried to go super fast. I tried to duck under one of the signs on the hill that says SLOW.

Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. But sometimes it worked. And each time it worked I got better. Heck, I likely even got better when it didn’t work.

So I got good.

Nowadays, this is how I learn everything. I try things.

Now, I help run a learning company. I’m a learning geek who’s sure he can learn how to build a good learning company because he knows how to learn things. And we’re getting good.

Like making mistakes as we learn at work, snow doesn't hurt much either. Especially the kind of snow you find when you know what to look for:) Ok, let’s start.

Skiers, you know how to:

1. Try cool shit
2. Recognize when it’s safer to go fast than to go slow
3. Find fun in any conditions
4. Make small decisions quickly
5. Be OK being uncomfortable
6. Get back up from a fall with a smile on
7. Cheer for your friends when they try things that might not work
8. Stop before you run out of steam because the “last run” is where you usually hurt yourself. So, I’ll stop at 8.

When we got good, skiing got fun. The more fun it got, the better we got at it. The better we got….you get the picture.

Learning doesn’t have to be in service of a goal. Good things come from it intrinsically. But, it can sometimes feel like play.

So I play. Building a business can be super playful. “Let’s see if we can” is a supercharger for “being able to.”

I learn by trying things and then reflecting on them. Ideally with other people. Ideally verbally. Shit, now I’m selling you my product again.

The next one will be about music — and lessons I’ve learned from playing and listening to and watching music. Let me know if you’d like me to send it to you when it’s done by signing up here.

Lastly, this year I’m simply editing old writing where the ideas have held up. This was originally published in 2020, and I’m editing in January 2024. Funnily enough, here is the sentence that used to be in this paragraph place:

Lastly, I tend not to ship work I attempt to edit. Maybe that’s a skier thing too.

I know it could be better, and/but I hope you’ll like it anyway:)

See you out there! (Scroll down for an updated picture of lil skiier too, circa 2024.

Teaching what I’ve learned where I learned it:) Jan 2024