Creating Memorable Moments

When you look back on your childhood, do you remember the day-to-day routine things you did? Or do you remember most clearly the times when you were on vacation, or other special events spent with family and friends?

For me, I remember the unique and special events we enjoyed as a family like our family vacations, Christmas Day at my grandparent’s house, and other similar events. I can barely recollect the routine of my childhood years. But the memories of times spent with my family camping in the shadow of Mt. Rainer in Washington, canoeing the Bowron Lakes in British Columbia, Canada, rafting the Tuolomne River out of Yosemite in California and many, many more hold very special places for me.

I have three older brothers and for the first time in probably 20 years or more we spent a week rafting together with our families in the summer of 2008. Usually there is something that doesn’t allow for all four of our families to make whatever rafting trip we have planned each year.

That year we decided to make it a more valuable memory by spending one of our evenings in camp gathered together and each brother shared how river rafting teaches life lessons. We also took this time to tell our dad how much we appreciated him and all he has done for us over the years. He turned 80 the following January and was still able to keep up with the rest of us on the river. We made sure to note how there is now a third generation that can guide a raft through world-class whitewater and what a great legacy he’s been able to establish.

Can you put a price tag on that kind of experience? No. But the real question is, “Are YOU making memories with your families and creating the kind of positive legacy that spans generations?” These kinds of opportunities rarely happen by chance. You will be able to create many more significant and lasting memories by planning for them and being determined to make sure they happen. I think it was Stephen R. Covey who said, “No one ever says on their deathbed that they wish they had spent more time at the office.” Step away from the “rat race” once in a while and do something significant and memorable with your family.

Children grow up way too fast. Wouldn’t it be nice in your later years to spend time with your grown children and their own families and reminisce about the great memories you’ve created with them over the years?

I recently read a short story about an older man going through some old papers and journals. He found a journal entry that said, “Spent the day fishing with my son, didn’t catch a thing. What a waste of time.” Then out of curiosity he compared that with a note his son had written on the same day that read, “Spent the day fishing with my dad. Best day of my life.”

Life isn’t really all about the acquisition of things, but the making of memories. If you aren’t creating memories on purpose yet, there’s no better time like the present to begin!

If you need help putting together a life plan that includes intentional planning for memorable moments, check out my website www.dtesuccess.com and look into the Life Well Lived Program offered there. Memorable moments rarely happen by default, at least not the ones you want to experience!

(C) DTE Consulting “Helping you Do The Extraordinary!”

Stopping the Leak

White water rafting equipment has evolved over the past 40 years since I started running rivers. One of the significant advancement has been the development of the self-bailing raft. To describe it simply, a self-bailer has a floor that is not water-tight, but instead is secured loosely to the bottom of the boat to allow water to run out, but is also inflated with air to rise up tight against the boat to hold water out.

In my world, I have the old style “bathtub” rafts  that have a sealed floor that must be bailed out whenever too much water get into the boat. The weight of a fully geared 16 foot raft full of water is way too much for one person to maneuver. 

Holding on to that idea of an extremely heavy boat for a minute, a few years ago we attempted a trip on the San Juan River in the 4 Corners region of Utah. The reason I say attempted is because the water was very low when our launch date finally arrived. 

The BLM Ranger who checked us in for the trip suggested it would be a low water run but doable as long as the water didn’t go down any more than it already had. We planned to raft two days to Mexican Hat and then 4 days to the take out at Clay Hills Crossing, just above the point where Lake Powell backs up to the river. 

On the second day while running 8 Foot Rapid one of the boats got hung up mid-rapid on an exposed rock and was really stuck. The surprise for all of us was two of us were able to walk back up on opposite banks and walk out into the rapid from both sides of the river and help get the boat free and through the rapid.

The son Rob who was rowing said that no matter what he did the boat would not respond well and he couldn’t navigate around the rock he hit. We discovered later on in camp that there was a gash in the floor of the boat. This allowed water to flow in at a steady pace and continually make the boat too heavy to maneuver very well.

The most important thing you can do at that point is fix the hole by patching it. This means completely de-rigging the boat and patching it on both the inside and the outside because the floor bears a lot of weight when people are in the boat. 

 

If we decided it was too much work to de-rig and just keep bailing, it would really end up not working very well if the hole was even just less than the length of dime. Constant bailing by the passengers isn’t fast enough to keep the water out enough to be able to maneuver the boat properly. The floor really must be patched in order to continue the trip.

So we de-rigged the boat at our camp and we were able to get back on our journey. We ended up cutting the trip short at Mexican Hat because the river was just too low to run and we discovered another hole in the floor of a second raft. 

In life, we can find ourselves confronted with negative thoughts and ideas flowing into our minds from others and even from our own internal conversations. Too many of these negative thoughts can really weigh us down and slow our momentum. 

Like a raft, we can try and remove them as they come in and if we have a lot of negative thoughts it’s good to remove them. But wouldn’t it be wise to also put a patch on the “floor” of our minds and improve our ability to repel negative thoughts and eventually no longer even let them in?

There are excellent ways to do this. Affirmations, declarations, vision boards, and more are great tools. 

To learn more about how to remove and repel negative thoughts, check out the programs provided by DTE Consulting at www.dtesuccess.com where we help you Do The Extraordinary!

You Go First - Follow the Leader

In August of 2014 I was the Head Boatman for a private family Grand Canyon rafting trip. There are a number of responsibilities that come with being the head boatman, but the main responsibility is the head boatman would typically go first through each rapid and also have the final say on how a scouted rapid would be run if there needed to be a consensus.

The benefit of following someone else into a rapid is you can simply follow the same entry into the rapid if all goes well.

If the lead boat has some trouble you can alter your route to avoid the same problems. The lead boat can also signal back to the others challenges in the rapid to avoid that may have been hard to see until in the rapid.

In Northern California near Yosemite National Park is a very fast and challenging river called the Tuolomne. It’s recommended that before you run this river on your own that you go with someone experienced because it is so steep and rocky it can be difficult to see the route if you are unfamiliar with the rapids.

Some of the more challenging rapids in Grand Canyon have huge holes (reversals) that are hard to see when first entering the rapid. A less experienced head boatman might choose to scout many of the rapids in Grand Canyon just to be sure of the best route and not be surprised by the potential problems a rapid may present.

It could turn in to a big problem if the lead boat had a boatman that was not familiar with the river or the rapids if they chose to just run most of the rapids and not scout the big ones in advance. In challenging whitewater runs like the Toulomne or Grand Canyon, it just makes sense to have someone with experience lead the way if you are not familiar with the river.

So do you have a “head boatman” in your life when you venture into unknown territory? Having been a professional mentor and coach since 2005 I have noticed there are a lot of good mentors and coaches, and unfortunately, a lot of bad ones too.

Sometimes the problem lies in the client who chooses not to make the changes identified by the mentor and they blame the mentor for their lack of success.

Sometimes the problem lies with the mentor essentially being unqualified. And one of the best ways to determine if a mentor is qualified is if they’ve gone first, and have done the work and made the changes you are looking to make. Very much like a good head boatman on a river trip, they go first. 

Forever Eddy - Sometimes We Fight!

In the Kenny Loggins song, “Don’t Fight It” the chorus says, “Don’t fight it, it’ll do your heart so good.” Sometimes we need to fight. Sometimes we need to stop fighting by letting go or by compromise. So Kenny gives us good advice for certain situations.

In a previous blog I mention when I first learned to row, I wasn’t very old or very strong so I had to learn how to work with the river instead of fight it with my strength.  And since learning how to row I’ve had the awesome opportunity to run most of the very best rivers in the western United States.  In all these excellent rafting experiences I have found a few places where there are some legendary eddies.

An eddy is a section of a river near the bank that reverses course and flows upstream. Usually found just below or along a rapid. I consider eddies on a river to be like the brakes that allow us to stop or slow down if needed.

I once had a coaching client who said they just felt like they were spinning in circles and getting nowhere with their business and investments. I immediately pictured in my mind a raft cycling around and around in one of these legendary eddies and unable to get out.

One of those legendary eddies is affectionately called “Forever Eddy.” It’s found near the end of a really wild rapid in Grand Canyon called Granite Rapid. 

This rapid forces the guide to run the right side of the rapid along a sheer cliff into some big waves.

Then the guide must attempt to move towards the middle of the river through big waves to avoid Forever Eddy which is found on the right hand side of the river about 3/4^th of the way through the rapid. If the raft ends up in Forever Eddy it can take many attempts to get back out into the main current.

Forever Eddy shows up right after some pretty big waves as you can see in this photo. Just past the cliff and this huge wave, the raft comes very close to the edge of Forever Eddy. The tail waves in the rapid tend to push the raft into the eddy if you the guide isn't trying hard to keep to the center of the river.

Fortunately, I’ve been lucky not to get caught in Forever Eddy. In my 2014 run it was close. But whenever I find myself working my way back out of a particularly strong eddy there is a certain technique I’ve found that really helps raise my chances of getting out on the first attempt.

First, I allow the boat to drift upstream,  to the top of the eddy as far as I can to give me more distance to try and row back out into the main current before being forced back into the eddy.

Second, I position the back of the boat pointing slightly upstream, knowing that when the boat hits the main current going the opposite direction of the eddy it will push the raft downstream and start pivoting in the wrong direction. If you allow the boat to pivot this way it will usually get pushed right back into the eddy.

Third, just at the moment the back of the boat starts to hit the main current going in the opposite direction of the eddy, I put the upstream oar handle under my leg and grab the downstream oar with both hands. This way I have twice as much pull on the downstream oar which usually keeps the boat from pivoting around and getting pushed back into the eddy.

In the legendary eddies this technique may not always work. I’ve heard stories of rafting groups dismantling their raft and climbing up the cliff and carrying the boat downstream to get out of the “Room of Doom” in Westwater Canyon on the upper Colorado River in eastern Utah. Check out this You Tube link to see how difficult a "keeper eddy" can be to escape. Also consider if the outcome could have been different if as soon as he hit the main current he used two hands to pull on the downstream oar. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhWtGeGYwsw

If we find ourselves in a situation where we cannot get out under our own power, we’re going to need to get help and no longer rely on our own strength and technique to get out of a “keeper eddy.”

So I explained the challenge of a ‘keeper eddy’ to my client and then asked them if there was anything they felt like they needed to drop for now (putting one oar handle under your leg and put all your effort into one oar only) and if their situation was a lack of focus. (Focus can be an acronym that stands for Follow One Course Until Successful, by the way.) They felt like there were some things that could and should be dropped.

Then I asked if there was anything they felt was simply too much and it was time to call for extra help from outside their regular circle of people.  And we discovered there were some opportunities there as well, particularly with their real estate investments.

Usually on a river it’s not a good thing to fight the river. Normally it is better to use the current to your advantage, using both oars. Because in most situations, using only one oar means being out of control.

But there ARE occasions when fighting hard and using only one oar is exactly what must be done to free ourselves from the influence of the current if we’re stuck in a powerful eddy.

Life is often the same. Usually, we can have multiple projects and activities going on at the same time and usually create the results we want. But sometimes we need to drop everything else and focus all of our effort and attention on one thing and fight for it!

In parenting, we often refer to this as choosing our battles. Sometimes we don’t fight, and sometimes we fight hard. When we choose wisely the best course of action, we can “do our hearts so good.” Thanks, Kenny!

Life In-Between

When I first started rafting, it was all about the rapids. The flat water in-between was something I would just sort of endure.

Then I started to pay more attention to the scenery and characteristics of the canyons between the rapids. In some cases there was a lot of “between the rapids” when we would go miles and sometimes days without a rapid.

It was in those times of flat water that I made a decision I was going to enjoy the calm, sometimes as much as the exciting adrenalin filled rapids.

As the popularity of river rafting increased over the years, it became harder and harder to get private use permits on any river that was longer than a few miles. But there is still one major river in the west that hasn’t been too difficult to get a private permit to raft. And that’s Cataract Canyon through Canyonlands Nat’l Park.

I used to wonder why it was so much easier to get a permit for “Cat” as we would affectionately call it. Then I realized that the river isn’t as ‘commercially’ popular because the shortest distance to get to the rapids in Cataract Canyon is from Moab, UT and that can take up to 3 days of rowing flat water. Many rafting companies will minimize the time on this section of the river by jet boats to take their customers down to the top of Cat and then run them through in one day.

So I realized we could get non-commercial permits more easily because there wasn’t the same kind of commercial demand as there was on other rivers.

 The flat water above Cat for me is one of the little known gems of Canyonlands Nat’l Park. I just love meandering through the twists and turns of the Colorado River at a very slow pace. That's often lost when blasting down the river in a jet boat. 

Frequently while meandering the canyon the kids would jump out and just float along near the rafts and enjoy the peace and quiet of the cool slow moving river on a hot summer's day.

Or just make the one rowing work a little harder.









The views of the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands, or the spectacular view from the river of Dead Horse Point are amazing. And from the river you get to watch the scenes unfold for hours, even days.

  
I’m a huge advocate of taking time occasionally to slow down and be still. In our hectic fast paced lives it’s almost like our lives are always rapids and no flat water. It’s only in the flat water you can really step back and observe the intricate details of the canyon and appreciate what’s around you. It's also a great opportunity to be still and contemplate your life's purpose and major decisions.

In the “rapids of life” we should be focused and single minded. But we can miss out on a lot of detail and beauty if we don’t have some flat water in-between and appreciate those times when the flat water may even go on for long stretches.  

Or We Don't Go

I was recently speaking with a client who I’m helping get his new business designed and up and running. He “dropped the bomb” saying that he was down to his last $10 and his credit cards were maxed out.

How would you respond to that kind of situation?

First of all, if you plan to just give generic advice then you’re doing that person a disservice. You must see the problem from exactly where that person is, not some canned answer everyone gets.

Second, if you understand where they are personally and what brought them to this point you can start to provide very specific solutions.

So you might be wondering how this fits into a lesson from my river rafting experiences.

Most whitewater rafting opportunities are on rivers that run through narrow canyons. This means the areas for camping and off-river activities are often in small spaces used over and over again by river runners.

So these spaces are in some cases over-used or at least have an unnatural share of human activity during a river running season. For this reason, rules and specific guidelines have been established to minimize the amount of human impact but still balance that with the demand for use on that river.

Since there is a need to balance the desired uses of the river corridor with the need for environmental protection, the most popular whitewater sections of rivers are regulated by a permit system, The permit system usually limits the number of people who can go on the river at any one time as well as throughout the year and enforces specific rules of conduct and the required equipment for the trip.

When you apply for and obtain a permit you essentially promise to abide by the rules governing that permit. If you don’t, you may be heavily fined and may even be banned from applying for a permit in the future.

Most permits require the river users to carry EVERYTHING out and leave nothing behind on the river and especially in the limited spaces for camping. And one of the most serious problems with multi-day trips is the management of human waste. When they say carry everything out, they mean everything!

So who would want the job of taking care of the human waste system that has to be set up and taken down each and every time a group breaks camp and moves downriver? What if as a group we decided we just didn’t want to deal with that part of the trip because it’s not the glamorous and fun part of river running?

Back to my "broke" client: What if the only reason he was not making money in his business was because he had been simply avoiding the “un-glamorous” parts of his business development?

So I ‘called him’ on all the actions in his business he had taken up until that point and simply asked him if he had been avoiding the un-glamorous stuff. And he had to admit that that was exactly what was happening.

So I explained to him that just like on a river trip we have some unglamorous and quite frankly disgusting jobs that need to be done or else we don’t get to go on the trip. And there are activities in our businesses that are not as fun and exciting as others, but they still have to be done.

Keep in mind it doesn’t always have to be us doing those less glamorous jobs, but somebody needs to do it. And to be sure, if it is not us we still need to properly delegate and follow up. And it doesn’t just apply to business, but every important activity where we are looking for a specific outcome and requires some “less glamorous” effort.

So the next time you find yourself avoiding activities or parts of a project because they aren’t as interesting or glamorous, but you know they need to get done, remember this phrase, “Somebody has to do this, or we don’t go.” And I bet in most cases what you are dealing with won’t be as unglamorous as dealing with everyone else’s human waste anyway.

Avoiding the less attractive work means it may end up blowing up the whole project or anticipated experience. Or maybe even causing the failure of your new business venture.

So instead of focusing on the unpleasant task and avoiding it completely, resolve to just get it done and look forward to all the fun, excitement, and glamour that represents the entire experience or business development.

By the way, my client emailed just two days later telling me he had just made $5000.00 and his immediate cash flow issue was resolved. Not a bad result for choosing what needed to get done even though it was not so glamorous.

A Near Disaster in Disaster Falls

Most people do not realize that Major Powell and his crew started their first exploration of Grand Canyon way up in Wyoming on the Green River, which is a major tributary of the Colorado River.

An excellent section of the Green River that Major Powell explored on his way to Grand Canyon is a section called Ladore Canyon. Ladore is a beautiful canyon of deep red rock walls and a couple of challenging rapids.

One of those rapids is called Disaster Falls. The rapid received its name because the Powell Expedition lost a boat in that rapid. Another little known fact is that the Powell Expedition lined most of the rapids throughout their trip as well. Lining a rapid means they take lots of rope and lots of muscle power to lower the boats down the side of a rapid with ropes to avoid having the navigate the rapid by oar power only. Lining is a very difficult and time-consuming way to go, but a lower risk way to go in Major Powell’s day as well.

Since lining a rapid is considered a last option in modern rafting times, an important skill in rafting when the water level is extremely low is the ability to keep your oars from jamming in rocks while negotiating the rapid. Sometimes the water may only be inches deep at the top (beginning) of a rapid.

In a shallow rapid, if your boat is sideways in the current, which is very common and necessary, you have to be very careful about the oar that is on the downstream side of the boat. If you take a stroke that is too deep, your oar can jam in the rocks below and break. Or worse, it can get pushed up right into the face of the one rowing. I met someone early in my rafting days that was missing his two front teeth because he jammed an oar and the handle end launched right into his mouth.

So back to Disaster Falls on the Green River. The most difficult thing about Disaster Falls in my opinion is all the current constricts down into a smaller channel and heads right for a huge rock which blocks the middle of that channel. And the biggest concern about that kind of situation, even bigger than jamming an oar, is that it’s easy to wrap the boat.

Wrapping a boat is worse that flipping the boat upside down because it can be virtually impossible to free a boat that wraps on a mid-stream rock. Personally, I’d rather flip than wrap. A wrap usually occurs when the boat hits the rock sideways and the current upstream of the boat flows inside the boat and pulls it down and then around the rock and then the current pins the boat against the rock.

To compound matters in Disaster Falls, there are two sections called Upper and Lower Disaster Falls. Upper Disaster Falls has the big boulder that can be difficult to avoid. Lower Disaster is not as challenging but still requires good navigation skills.

In a low water run through Disaster Falls I made the mistake of digging my downstream oar in too deep as I entered the rapid. I remember very well being so focused on that big rock and avoiding it that I took my attention off the fact that the water was getting very shallow.

I remember just as I was digging in deep to make my move to avoid the big rock I realized too late that I had just made a huge mistake. The oar jammed and snapped just above the blade. Now I only had my right hand (upstream) oar remaining to maneuver the boat and I’m heading sideways towards that big midstream rock. Anyone who has rowed a boat knows that one oar makes navigation almost useless. I was now at the mercy of the rapid.

Knowing the difficulty that a wrap could bring I quickly decided that giving up and waiting for the inevitable would not be good. I decided I needed to do everything I could think of to avoid a wrap.

With my one oar I turned the boat with the front headed towards the rock instead of being sideways when we hit it. Once we hit the rock I pulled as hard as I could with my one good oar and we were able to pivot around the rock instead of wrapping around it.

Had I given up when the oar jammed and broke assuming the situation was hopeless, Upper Disaster Falls could have turned out to be much, much worse than it did.

In life, we sometimes feel like there is no hope and that we should just give up. But if we choose to keep on trying while we still have an opportunity to do something, we may find a more favorable result. I didn’t know if hitting the rock front end first and trying to pivot would work. But I learned early in my rafting experience that if I kept working the oars even when it wasn’t looking good that many times I was able to get just enough movement to avoid a bad situation in the rapid.

Winston Churchill is famous for one of his last speeches repeating the phase, “Never give up.” I believe he was expressing the same thought I learned rafting Disaster Falls that as long as there is something you can try then don’t stop trying and don’t give up.

Winston Churchill learned to never give up in a world war. Fortunately I was able to learn it in a rapid. In both cases, disaster (excuse the pun) was avoided because the choice was made to never give up.


© DTE Consulting 2012 “Helping you to Do The Extraordinary!”