Category: Trail Tips

Why are we always in a hurried state of mind?  As I look back over the mishaps I’ve had in life, many of them can be traced to “being in a hurry” and getting careless.  And while I shouldn’t dwell on the past, it is important to reflect on these events so I know what I need to do differently in the future.

Part of my hiking routine is to trail run whenever I can.  While that is ok to do, I need to pay more attention to the terrain I’m running on and to make sure I’m picking up my feet.  It’s the small things that get us into trouble: an exposed tree root, a wet slippery rock, loose gravel, an unstable rock.  Getting caught up in taking in a view, while we think we can keep running over unfamiliar terrain get me into trouble.  My mishaps on the trails over the past few years have been “simple falls/stumbles” over tree roots, then landing on my side or taking in a hard head bump.  So, if I’m going to trail run, I shouldn’t be looking around at the scenery or if I am taking in the scenery, I shouldn’t be trail running.  Hey, this sounds like a multi-tasking problem (more on that later).

In my personal life, my hurried mishap was on August 15^th, 2013 when I broke my leg.  It was going to be an evening of knocking out a bunch of tree/bush trimming.  I had bushes to trim back, tree limbs to cut off and a few whole trees to take down.  I knew it was a mistake the minute I got on the ladder with the chain saw because I was down-hill from the branch and I didn’t have anyone to hold the ladder for me.  Yet because of my pride and thinking “I’ve got all the stuff that just has to be done”, I pressed on.  And sure enough, I get the branch cut, branch falls on the ladder, I jump, my leg gets caught in the bottom rung; and I’m lying on the ground with my right tibia and fibula broken in several places.  My new rule here has become:

“What is the cheaper: a trip to the Emergency Room/Hospital or going to The Home Depot to rent or buy the equipment to do the job safely?”

In this case, the choice was getting a pole chain saw or a mishap with surgery and a two-night stay in the hospital.  Guess which one was cheaper and which one I chose???  However, yes now they do know my name at The Home Depot rental desk.

In our work life, being hurried takes on a few forms.  The most common one is “multitasking”. And everyone knows when you are doing it on a conference call.  It’s when they hear you say: “can repeat that”, “let me call you later to recap those details”, “was that question for me”, etc.  We have this mindset of thinking we can get more done by calling into a conference call bridge and then going on mute to get other things done.  In the end, we don’t capture content of the call and have to redo the other work we were doing while on the call.  Another form of hurrying is when we are in a rush to send out a detailed email without taking the time to read, re-read, and re-read it again before sending it out.  I don’t want to count the times I’ve sent out emails without attachments or have tried to recall them.

I think one reason we become hurried is because we think we need to be BUSY all the time.  Ask people how they are doing and so many of us say we are BUSY, as if we wear BUSY like a badge of honor.  Yet when we tell them we are BUSY, we are too embarrassed to say what we are BUSY doing.  Take some steps this weekend to slow down your hurried life by trying to focus on JUST ONE THING at a time.  You will be surprised how good that can actually feel and what you can get done…

Ok, you just had a hard event hit your life (See my Trail Tip: “Getting prepared for the hard events that will hit us in life”); now what??? How do we start the road to recovery? If there is only one thing you should take away from this trail tip, it is what you hear on a plane.

“In case of emergency, oxygen masks will drop down in front of you. Please pull the mask down toward your face and place the mask over your mouth and nose. If you are traveling with a child, please attend to yourself first, then the child [and everyone else around you].”

If you are not healthy, how can you take care of those around you? You need to rest, realize that 80% of the stuff we are doing really isn’t that important after-all, and reach out for help on your recovery journey.

In a physical accident, the recovery starts with realizing you are going to have to rely on others to do just about everything for you. It strips away the pride you have and make you very humble. I couldn’t drive for 6 weeks and when home I had to keep my leg elevated all the time. We opened up the sofa sleeper in the family room and when guests came over, there was always at least one other person on the couch with me. Recovery is gradual and consistent. With the rod in my leg, I wasn’t put into a cast and my recovery therapy consisted of putting my right leg on a bathroom scale to gradually (over several months) put more weight on my leg. It was hard put more than even a few pounds of pressure when I first started. Recovery -like training- is a combination of exercise and rest.

In life, as we go through a death, we don’t realize how hard we can be pushing ourselves until after the event and we come down with an illness. After my dad passed away, both my brother and I both got the flu and ended up at the family doctor together (just like old times). Part of the problem is that we push ourselves through the event -which can take days, weeks, or even months- then we get back to our routine and think we can put in 20 hours days and catch up with everything; NOT! Just like recovery from a physical event; the stress on the body from a family death can wear us down and cause a serious illness if we don’t take care of ourselves. Remember, focus on only the top 10 to 20 percent of the things you need to get done. The rest really don’t matter in the long run.

In a work layoff situation, we think we need to be applying for jobs 12 hours a day. But that just isn’t possible. A job search is a very stressful period, so you need to have that balance of applying for jobs, networking, creating new contacts, exercising, and other activities to stimulate/focus your body, mind, and spirit. Accountability and discussion with a close friend/peer mentor is key to helping you stay focused.

Recovery is possible but it takes time. Time, you can only get by making your recovery (your life) a priority and saying NO to 80% of the things you think you still need to be doing each day. During this time: your focus, goals, and activities need to center around getting yourself through the recovery journey. Because then, and only then; [with your mask securely fastened] will you be able to put the mask on of those around you.

I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but we all are going to be hit with hard events as we journey through this adventure called life. Be it: hiking and a physical accident, life with a death in the family, or work with a job layoff; it will happen. And the key to getting to the other side of these events is knowing what you can be doing now to prepare for them.

 
My hiking impact event was on August 15th, 2013 when I was on a ladder cutting a tree branch with a chain saw. The branch falls on the ladder, I jump, my leg gets caught in the bottom rung; and I’m lying on the ground with my right tibia and fibula broken in several places. I laid on the ground looking at a leg turned sideways; thinking I’ll never walk or hike again without a cane. Two days later I’m home from the hospital, with a titanium rod in my tibia and screws that will be there for the rest of my life. While I was given a plan for the recovery, my thoughts gravitated toward what should I have done before to get ready for this event. It’s not the initial injury that will get us down, but rather it’s if we have been living a healthy life style that will allow us to recover. It’s the: sleeping 7-8 hours a night, eating breakfast, not eating evening ice cream (what??? Rocky Road ice cream isn’t in the core food groups), aiming for your target weight, and having a year-round exercise program. The key is to have a simple exercise program that is sustainable; for me that exercise goal is hiking 3 times per week for a total of 15 miles and 4,000 feet elevation gain or 60 miles and 16,000 feet gain each month. I wasn’t able to initially do this goal, but set it out reach it over time. Having this healthy baseline (and it will vary by person) is key to recovery from injuries.

In life, a hard event we will all face is the death of parents, spouse, and possibility children. As I have walked through the passing of both my parents, my mother-in-law, and brother; I’ve come to realize that one reason we hold on and try to keep them alive is because we have unfinished business with them. Words and actions, we wish we could have shared with them. What are the words, actions, and time you need to do with those around you now? And if there is a deep hurt there, it’s going to take time, effort, energy and likely some pain to get these things right. But it is all worth it. Having made peace with my parents before their passing, I was able to speak at their funerals, and I still remember what I said about their life.

In work, a hard event will be a layoff and I have gone through two of them. Each time, I thought it would never happen to me (I’m too valuable) and I wasn’t prepared enough. For me I had become comfortable in the current job, thought I was a key person, and believed I had skills that everyone would want if I did get let go. Here are the things I’ve learned that I need to be doing now to prepare me for my next job (and the one after that). Resume – updating it and reviewing it on a monthly basis. LinkedIn – creating, updating, and posting on it. Training/Certifications – the more the better; I was able to get my Scrum Master Certification before I was laid off in June, but oh what I would give now to have my PMP Certification. Personal website – helps you take your Brand image to the next level and define who you are and the value you can bring to a company. Face Book – clean it up and check what others are posting about you on their Face Book.

Hard events! We are all going to face them with our health, personal life, and work. And getting to the recovery; starts with what you can be doing now to; get healthy, making peace with family members, and learning new skills in your profession. Make a list of what you need to do and become accountable to those around you. Let’s go from “I wish I would have” to “I’m going to start today to…..”

Scrum – a methodology used in software development to make sure the important stuff gets done with a focus on continuous process improvement.  Agile, Scrum, Backlog, Artifacts, Sprint, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospect… all words that are commonly used in Scrum based software development, but are mostly foreign to everyone else because no one thinks they can apply to other areas of our lives, i.e. Hiking and Home… until now.  Below are these Scrum words with a short definition and examples of how they can be applied in your daily Hiking and Home life.

Agile: being flexible and able to adapt to changes.  In Hiking; it’s the ability to change routes or speed based on the weather or team member conditions.  At home; it’s keeping a flexible open mindset when you have plans with family, projects, trips, etc.

Scrum: a Rugby term for when a team locks arms to move as a group down the field with the football.  In Hiking; it’s moving together in unison as a team, keeping a pace that keeps everyone together.   At Home: it’s moving together with the same goals, plans, priorities.  So, may I ask you: “Are you being Scrum today?”

Backlog: a list of things to get done.  In Hiking; it’s the hikes you want to do, the 14’ers you want to climb, the new routes to explore.  At Home; it’s the books you want to read, the house projects you want to get done, the trips you want to take.  The Backlog should never be completed; it’s your dreams, goals, things you want to do in your life.

Artifacts: items understood by everyone that are used to get the Sprint done.  In Hiking; it’s the trail maps, weather reports, trail conditions.  At Home; it’s the paint colors, a garden layout plan, maps.  The key here is that everyone understands the artifacts being used, so everyone is in agreement.

Sprint: the set time to get something done.  In Hiking: it’s the time the hike needs to be done by.  At home, it’s the time determined to be finished with your project on a Saturday.  So, you can be Agile during the Sprint and adjust things, but if one thing is added, you may need to remove another item, so you can still be done by the set time.  I.e., “Let’s explore that new canyon, but we may need to skip another part or a summit, so we get off the trail before dark” or “Yes, we can finish cleaning up the rest of the garage, but the back-deck clean-up will have to wait for another Sprint.”

Daily Scrum: A 15-minute meeting to discuss: what got done, what will be done today, and are there any impediments that will prevent me from meeting the goal.  In Hiking; it’s a review of your monthly hiking goals.  At home; it should be the first 15 minutes you use to plan your day: what did I get done yesterday, what are my plans for the day, and what impediments am I going to face that will be hindering me.

Sprint Review: A review at the end of the Spring to discuss what you got done during the Sprint.  In Hiking; it’s a discussion of the trail taken, did we accomplish everything we wanted see, i.e. did we fail to summit, so we need to add that 14’er back onto the Backlog.   At Home: it’s a review of what got completed in the Sprint project, i.e., the crown molding looks great, but we need to add “filling in the nail holes” to the Backlog.

Sprint Retrospect: A review of the what worked or didn’t work during the Sprint.  In Hiking; did we have the latest weather report, did we know a stream was going to be at flood stage, did we have the proper hiking gear.   At Home; it’s deciding that we should call and get buried utilities marked before we plant more trees and bushes.

Living the Agile and Scrum life is all about being flexible and putting guidelines in place to help you get the important things done on a daily basic.  It’s taking the time to make sure everyone is in alignment on goals and doing reviews/retrospects to strive for CONTINUOUS improvements in your daily activities.

Whether hiking or in your social media, the amount of control have you is key for success in what you want to accomplish.  So it’s important to realize the trade-offs that come with different types of hiking and the social media you are using.

1. In hiking, there are three basic types of hikes you can do:
   Group hikes – This provides the least amount of control as you are at the mercy of the slowest hiker, group decision can be made that may veto your personal preferences, and your personal goals for the hike may not be met. Yet there is value in this type of hike because of the wisdom, comradery, connections and help others can provide.
2. Partner hikes – This provides you more control as you are choosing a partner who is more aligned with your goals (for the given hike) and there is a sense of trust that allows for deeper conversations to take place along the way.
3. Individual hikes – This gives you the most control, as you can set your own pace, destination, and have more time for inward reflection along the way. But at the same time, you have to be better prepared and carry everything you need for the hike. There is no one else to rely on.

One type of hike isn’t necessary better than others, they are just different and I use all three.

Our social media presence is very similar as there are three basic types of social media you can use:

1. Facebook – This (like Group hikes) is by far the most common, easy to use, and provides the least amount of control. Others can post comments on your posts that you don’t want to be seen or they can tag you in one of their post, with the result appearing on your Facebook page.
2. LinkedIn – This (like partner hikes) provides more control and allows for more detailed professional information to be shared. I can also see who has visited my LinkedIn page and it allows me to see more specific information about others.  As I’m in a job change point in my career right now, I can use Linkedin to see the picture, name spelling, and background of individuals for upcoming job interviews. And others can see the same about me.
3. Personal Website – This (like Individual hikes) provide you the most control, as it provides you the most freedom for: setting your content, the Personal Brand you want to convey, and the reason for creating your site. This also takes the most work, as you have to determine your domain name, the purpose for your site, content, and other factors.

With all the hype we have around hiking and our social media presence, I think we have forgotten or have never taken the time to ask, “Why am I doing this in the first place?”  The most important thing with all these types of hikes, is to know what your hiking goals and then determine how to use all three of these types of hikes.  My basic hiking goal is to hike 3 times a week, covering 15 miles, with 4,000 feet elevation gain.  And do this year-round into my 90’s…  For social media, have you ever stopped to ask yourself “Why am I really spending all this time on Facebook, LinkedIn or your Personal Website (if you have one).  Answering these questions, will help you better know how to spend your time going forward.  And yes, I do have a Personal Website.  You can find me on the web at alandersen.co  For me it is becoming the home for all my Trail Tips (22 done so far) and other thoughts I want to share.  Or as my tag line says,

Providing inspiration for your journeys on the Trail, Personal, and Work Life

While my Trail Tips are currently on Face Book, LinkedIn, and some on my Personal Website, over time they will all reside on my Personal Website, allowing me to have the most control on the content and brand I want to convey on social media.

Lately I’ve been being consistent with my trail running hikes of 4 to 6 miles in Pike National Forest, which is close by. Given the limited time available, I’m always focusing on my “Times”; how do I reduce my time on each run, etc. This often means ignoring others while I’m out running and not stopping to help people who seem lost, etc. It’s sort of like work. We have all this “stuff” to get done each day, so we focus on our “to-do” list and don’t take time for those around us, who can use our help. And in today’s age, most of those help requests come via email or phone calls.

However, the last few times I’ve been out trail running, I’m thinking more about my “Time” out there. Am I using that time: to stop and help others, to slow down my pace and run along-side of those on the same journey, to take in the beauty of an overlook, to notice the changing of the colors, to be still and let my inner spirit talk to me about things I need to change in my life.

There will always the opportunity to try to improve your “Times”, but each opportunity to make use of your “Time” is unique and only happens once. So how are you making use of your “Time” today as you run the race set before you?

Today (8/19/16) the Manitou Colorado Inclines closes until December for repairs. This is an iconic hike done by hundreds of people each day. http://www.visitcos.com/manitou-incline-near-colorado-springs-colorado

As this closing approached, my buddy Brad and I decided to hike it one last time a day earlier to try to set Personal Records. Brad (14 years younger) waited for me at the top as his time came in under 38 minutes and I arrived at 49:04.4; with us both setting new Personal Records.

Throughout the rest of that day, I kept looking at my time from the hike knowing that only 4.4 seconds faster and I would have been under 49 minutes. This got me thinking about all the Olympians who train full time for years and lose races/medals by 100^th of seconds, which gets me to the point of realizing that everyday has a present, a future, and a past; all there to enjoy in the moments of the journey.

While I might have saved a few seconds by not taking the picture of the sunrise, I would have missed the beauty of a sunrise starting a new day; reminding me that there is joy to be found in the moments during our days. Be it working in an office, getting a pounding heart rate on the incline, taking kids to school, etc: there is joy to be found in the present of each day.

Heading back up the trail, I press on to the future with the high calling of the top and run the race before me (figuratively speaking because no one really runs up the incline). Here I need to run the race set before me.  Not Brad’s or any of the other 100s of people who do the incline each day.  I need to focus on getting to the top with the God given strengths and skills given me.  I’m not to get caught up comparing myself to others who do the incline faster or slower than me.  That why they call it a Personal Best!

And once to the top at the end of the climb (day), we need to stop to reflect on the past – the trail we just ran – taking in the beauty of the day, rejoicing and celebrating, in the strength we have been given to complete the task at hand. This is where I know I fail the most as I’m always looking at the next thing that needs to be done.

As your day draws to an end, I encourage you to pause and: reflect on the joys of the present, the future with what lies ahead tomorrow, and celebrate the journey of the day that is now in the past.

Meriam-Webster defines courage as: “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty”. However, I like the definition from Malcolm Gladwell in his book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. “Courage is not something that you already have that makes you brave when the tough times start. Courage is what you earn when you’ve been through the tough times and you discover they aren’t so tough after all.” And having earned courage; it allows you to give hope to others that are in those same types of situations you have faced. In my life there are two courage learning times that stand out.

On August 15th, 2013 I was on a ladder cutting a tree branch with a chain saw. The branch falls on the ladder, I jump, my leg gets caught in the bottom rung; and I’m lying on the ground with my right tibia and fibula broken in several places. In that moment, I had anything but courage. I was crying and looking at a leg turned sideways; thinking I’ll never walk or hike again without a cane. It became a journey of relying on others for everything and having a sense of complete helplessness. I couldn’t drive for six weeks, needed help walking anywhere in the house, and when a storm hit at 3 am with over flowing gutters and water seeping into the house, Arlene and the kids had to take care of it while I could do nothing. And yet, there was a recovery that grew stronger over time. The bones healed with the titanium rod forever in my leg, strength came back, six months later I did the Manitou Incline, and three years later I hiked the Grand Canyon Rim 2 Rim in one day.

A few years before that on September 9th, 2009 I got the call and was told that after 29 years at Bell Labs/AT&T/Alcatel-Lucent, I was being laid off as part of a force reduction. In this case, we were driving home from my uncle’s funeral and I’m taking this call while driving on the Interstate in Illinois. Again, anything but courage; I looked at Arlene and said “I just got laid off; I think you should drive the rest of the way home.” With two kids in college, three more at home, and having one income (which was now gone), I was a mental wreck. I remember staying up till midnight working on job applications, trying to go to sleep, and then being wide awake at 4 am, looping in my mind on all the next steps I needed to take. Then two months later, I was interviewing at Cognizant and starting to work in early December.

In both these life situations, I found that while hard at the moment; they aren’t life ending events and that there are lessons to be shared and hope to offer to others. With my leg break the hope offered is: it’s ok to rely on others, take time to read books, you will be healed, and will come back stronger than ever before. In the job loss, the hope offered is to see this as “once in a life time event – a gift”, so take a vacation on a beach for a month (I still regret I didn’t do this), know that you will land another position, and see this as an opportunity to do something different or move. In our case, a year after being laid off/getting a new job, we moved from Wheaton, IL. to Monument, CO. And just think; I’m only able to write these Trail Tips because I was initially laid off.

While your situations may be different, I know that we all go through these huge life events. We have the opportunity to gain courage through them, learn lessons, and offer hope to others. So use your new courage to give hope to those around you who think they will never get out their current situations.