Built Dffrnt: Where Are You Looking?

Phase 3 begins.

A mountain bike, a ten-year habit, and why systems beat goals every time.

When I started teaching my son Austin to mountain bike, rule number one was simple: the bike, like life, goes where you are looking. Out on the trail here in the desert, if you fix your eyes on the cholla cactus or the jagged rock, that is exactly where you end up. Want to be fast through a corner? You look out through the corner, to where you want to be. Your body follows your eyes. Every single time.

Life and business are no different. Stare at the hazard, the lost bid, the problem, the fear, and you steer straight into it. Look down the trail at where you are going, and you start to flow toward it. Where you put your eyes decides where you end up.

RULE NUMBER ONE

“The bike, like life, goes where you are looking.”

– Nate Lowrie

But here is the trap I fell into, and it is the whole reason for this next phase. Looking down the trail once is not a strategy. You need a system that makes you do it every day. Years ago I found a simple daily planner. At the top of every page you write three things you are grateful for and three things you are excited about. The grateful part came easy. Then I sat there, stumped, on excited. I could not name a single thing. I had fallen into a bad pattern, head down, just grinding, no longer looking down the trail at what was coming.

I have run that habit for about a decade now. I fall off it sometimes and climb right back on. Three grateful, three excited, every morning. And here is the key that changes everything: I write them from the place of already having done it, already grateful for the goals I set years in advance, as if they are already won. That is not a to-do list. That is aiming my eyes down the trail before the day even starts.

James Clear · Atomic Habits

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

Goals point you down the trail. Systems are what actually carry you there, one small rep at a time. And small reps compound. If that sounds familiar, it should. It is Kaizen, the very first letter I ever sent you. One percent better, every day, come full circle.

This is what Level Up is about. Phase 1 you learned to see it. Phase 2 you learned to own it. Now we build it into daily reps that compound.

At Bjerk we have a name for this muscle: Disciplined Drive. Excellence is not a burst of motivation. It is a system you run when you do not feel like it, until it runs you.

Eyes on the Hazard

Stares at the problem.

Grinds with his head down.

Chases goals, no system.

Waits to feel ready.

Rides into the cactus.

Eyes Down the Trail

Looks where he is going.

Runs a daily rep.

Trusts the system.

Starts before he is ready.

Flows through the corner.

You will not out-grind a bad system, and you will not out-goal a good one. Build the daily rep, then let it carry you further than motivation ever could.

Run the reps.

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.”

(1 Corinthians 9:25)

One more thing, and I will tell you the whole story another time. A national consulting group once told a team of ours we would be lucky to raise fifteen million dollars in four years. We raised twenty-five million in two. That is what happens when you stop staring at the odds and start looking down the trail, then run the reps to get there.

Let’s Play to Win

Start the rep this week. Join me.

Every morning, before the grind starts, write down three things you are grateful for and three you are excited about. Write the excited ones as if they are already done, the goals you want a year and five years out, already won. It takes two minutes. Do it enough mornings and your eyes stop drifting to the cactus. That is Disciplined Drive, and it is how we Level Up.

Phase 3 is here. Keep your eyes down the trail, and run the reps.

Let’s get after it in life, family, and business. AND LET’S PLAY TO WIN!!!

Lots of love,
Nate