I posted this story on Facebook two years ago, but I thought it might serve as a good blog post to helps us all remain motivated as we move into spring 2017:
A couple of years ago I was in Vegas attending an amazing marketing conference at the Aria. I decided to stay over the weekend and go skiing to free my mind… Turns out there is a cool little spot to ski about 40 miles into the mountains away from the strip to the north.
I packed up and left the Aria in my Jeep Cherokee rental and headed to my new hotel in the mountains closer to the little ski resort. Don’t trust everything you read on the internet about hotels and the reviews can be deceiving too. After one night at Hotel Deception (I jest, but I will save the name of that place to protect the innocent) and one day on the slopes, I secured a room back at the Hard Rock back in town for the next two nights and just decided it was better to drive the forty miles to ski and then forty miles back to my hotel.
So, I committed to three days on the slopes and I have two left now. Out of the 60-70 times I caught the lift in those 3 days, I was the only person in my chair on the lift, except for one time. Friday morning, second day of skiing, early on the slopes… 9am… morning snow man, freakin’ awesome… a slight layer of snowfall blanketed the mountain as if it were tucked in the night before from God in heaven and I am the first person on the lift…well, maybe not…
Out of the blue some tiny girl in a neon orange snowboard outfit jumped on my chair. I had my Skullcandies in my ears listening to some bad ass rock music… probably Green Day, I can’t remember… Next thing, I notice the neon orange girl trying to communicate with me. I pulled out my earphones and she was almost screaming, “Hey, can you hold my snowboard? I need to attach it to my foot.” So I was like, “ok.” There was no security bar on this particular chair and she didn’t even care… gave me serious pause, though… For the next 15 minutes, she told me her life story. It was obvious now that she wasn’t a “millennial,” LOL!
Her and her husband were serial entrepreneurs and had been very successful throughout the years with numerous businesses including a chain of retail stores and restaurants. They were immigrants from Korea (we are a nation of immigrants, remember?) who had settled in Vegas because their kids lived in California. She said they chose Vegas because there were so many activities that they could do and because they could be close to their kids.
I had left the hotel that morning with the air conditioning on and 20 minutes later I had to turn on the heat… then it was snowing! I think that experience, and the realization of the activity options, was a game-changer for me, too, perhaps, just like it must have been for the neon orange snowboarder lady.
Anyway, we were almost to the end of the lift at the top of the mountain and she said to me (I never got her name), “I’ve been skiing for 40 years. I took up snowboarding 10 years ago. I’m not suppose to be up here because I injured my ribs last week doing a jump. I’m 68 years old…” she said to me. Next thing you know, we are off the lift and she was gone in a flash down the slope…. and at that moment, I stood there on the snow, dumbfounded. I was at the top of the mountain wanting to at least know her name and ask her a couple of questions about…. “da," “um," “what is the secret to longevity?” “How can you do jumps on a snowboard at the age of 68?” I will never know how the orange snowboarder lady would have answered those questions, but that experience was a game-changer for me. It was a life altering moment. If I hadn’t been there for exercise and free thinking, then I would have never written this blog!
Why was the orange lady really on top of that mountain that day snowboarding by herself? Why were she and her husband so successful in business? There has to be a correlation between the two. Let’s see. She goes to the top of a mountain and carves her way down to the bottom with a snowboard and jumps in an attempt to defy gravity over and over again. But why? She may have never considered that while she is doing battle with gravity and practicing a sport that she loves, the “thrill” may be the reason for her success. She flies down the mountain giving gravity the finger and she talks to strangers about her successes in business on the way back up! Physical fitness and success go hand in hand, but there is a tie that binds, and that tie is mental toughness. Mental toughness is the “cradle that rocks,” to borrow a line from Van Halen. Fitness discipline makes the body and the mind strong. Rock on orange snowboarder lady!
I will never know your name, I suppose, but thank you orange lady for reminding me, once again, that fitness is happiness. I know we are all on a clock, and we are all in a battle with gravity, and we each have the power to extend the amount of time that we have on this planet to achieve whatever it is that we want to accomplish. What we need to do is to fight gravity like the orange lady who builds businesses and jumps with her snowboard at the age of 68.
