With the 2019 Rebelle Rally over and Rally Hangover ramping up, I relish at the bluesy feelings that lead to interesting insights.
This year I played with some interesting mindsets for the rally. I have to call myself out on one of them right off the bat. Because I haven’t yet mastered this idea. The idea is simple, don’t focus on the results, focus on the process. Elise, my navigator, and I made a pact to not look at the standings each day as we rolled into basecamp. It went fine the first few days, and then I accidentally saw the standings. Weaving my way back to Elise through the communal tables of basecamp, I asked if she wanted to know where we were in the standings.
”You looked?” Elise glanced at me with curiosity. “I accidentally looked, while searching for our enduro results from today.” I really didn’t mean to look, but I did. And I was excited, 14th place of 40 teams. We both promised to not care. But a few more days went by, and I purposefully looked. It was at Cougar Buttes in Johnson Valley that I couldn’t help myself. We were in 13th place. My excitement was hard to contain. Unfortunately, my mindset shifted. The exact thing we hoped to not do was happening, I was thinking about what we could do with this information going forward. The risk was a change to our consistent process.
Truthfully, I wish I hadn’t looked. The mindset of living by our process/strategy was working, and looking at the results only created doubt. The end results in business and competition do not matter, it’s the small things you do over and over, your process, that matters. Those little things that comprise your process are the only things you can control and learn from, making your ax sharper. That process leads to success.
Starting the rally this year, I did a long-standing tradition of making notecards of inspirational quotes to pull out when we needed them the most. In the end, these were not the quotes we needed, but they served well to remind me what our purpose was or principles to hold on to no matter what. As you read through these, remember that by the end, the only thing that mattered was principles and process. How we would compete and what our steps would be each day. But when you are tired and have made mistakes, these also served well.
“We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.”
“It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.”
“Push harder than yesterday if you want a different tomorrow.”
“Never, never, never give up.”
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal, its is the courage to continue that counts.”
“Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid. But that doesn’t change the truth that I am brave.”
“Relax, it’s just a drive in the desert from Point A to Point B.”
“Courage is more important than confidence.”
“You did not wake up today to be mediocre.”
“Confidence is the belief and feeling that things will turn our well because you are willing, worthy, and capable. ”
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve; the fear of failure.”
“I made it through the darkest part of the night and now I see the sunrise.”
“I feel glorious, glorious got a chance to start again, I was born for this, born for this.”
“It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”
“Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life. ”
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
Next post, I will go into more about minsets and principles but for now, it’s all about the process. Not to be forgotten, more on growth in crucible moments and the Rebelle Growth Framework I’ve been tossing around in my head.
How about you? What strategies-mindsets-principles did you come into the rally with? Did they serve you well? Will you make changes next time?