One of the best days recently occurred recently when my husband and I went for a long bike ride. It was a beautiful day, perfect temperature, and we had the whole day to enjoy the outdoors. On a map we had seen a bike trail that we wanted to explore, and we drove an hour to a nearby city where it started.
We weren’t exactly sure where the trail started, but knew it was supposed to go along the Iowa River. We saw a small sign indicating a bike trail at the edge of town and were delightfully surprised to find that the trail started at a brand new recreation site on a 6-acre man-made lake. It was the perfect spot for our picnic lunch.
Afterward, we biked the new paved trail around the lake. Then we followed it to the river trail. We were really enjoying the ride when the trail split from the river, entered the industrial part of the city, and just stopped. We weren’t sure where to go next or how to pick up the route again. (It was not the pretty part of town either.)
And then it happened. Doubts stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t really want to bike in a city—I thought, “Let’s just turn around and go back.” I wanted to quit. But then I stopped to reflect: Isn’t this what happens in business?
You run into an obstacle and you feel like quitting. That seems easier than trying to figure out how to overcome the obstacle. But I have noticed that I only feel that way when I’m tired. And I had experienced a pretty eventful week that left me tired at the end of it.
But fortunately, my entrepreneurial spirit kicked in. I remembered that if I could just keep going, the Universe would support my effort. And it did.
We stared looking for trail signs of any kind. Then I saw two bicycle riders ahead turning to the left and we followed them. A block later they turned to the right and we followed again. When we came to a traffic signal, there was a rider and I asked him where the bike trail was. He asked which way we wanted to go and we said north by the river. He then said he was just out for a ride and he would take us there.
This stranger ended up taking us not just to the trail, but all the way to a large park, which we hadn’t known about. His guidance included a detour around a big construction site, which we wouldn’t have known how to get through on our own.
The ride through the park was superb, and we were so glad we found it. When our guide left us, we knew the whole 5-mile trail and how to get back to the lake. Any hurdles in the way we knew how to tackle them on our own.
What a wonderful experience we would have missed if we had not tried to overcome the obstacle and had turned around when we got stuck! It’s a good lesson to remember as a business owner too. Just keep going and an opportunity will come to help you on your way.
