Life Lessons from Motorcycles Series

In 1954, a unique being came into this world and the branding began. The baby was a girl, the first child of first-generation Canadians and the granddaughter of refugees. Her Mennonite parents spoke German and ran a fruit farm. The nurses put a pretty pink bow in her fiery red hair and delivered her back to her mom. Five siblings would follow, and she would grow up to become a nurse like her mom. Although I’m still a redheaded female, the attributes that labeled me then are very different from the brand I’ve become. As a child, my farmer dad told me that Del Monte meant “kill the farmer.” Obviously, he was feeling squeezed by a giant food producer, and that image has stuck with me to this day. Branding is the tangible way in which you reflect personal philosophies and personalities. It reflects your values, perspectives, and interests. We immediately form opinions of the motorcycle—and its rider—based on whether it’s a BMW, Yamaha, Honda, Harley-Davidson, or Ducati. Not only do you run impressions of people and things through your own filter and assign them a brand, you also label yourself based on expectations that have been assigned to you. But you can redefine your brand at any time.

Communication skills are the lifeblood of our relationships with others and, indeed, with life itself. They help us establish, maintain, and nourish healthy relationships. If we’re receptive to feedback, they also facilitate our personal growth. The basic communication model is simple: there’s a feedback loop anchored by a sender and a receiver. Verbal and non-verbal messages are encoded by the sender and decoded by the receiver. Communication filters can significantly change the intent and effect of the original message and the response. The immediacy and potential severity of the outcome when you misinterpret or ignore signs when you ride make your motorcycle an excellent teacher of effective communication skills—skills that help you connect with other people as well. Learn their life lessons and enrich your life.

Look no further than motorcycles for life lessons on balance. When you’re out of balance on two wheels, the feedback is immediate and the consequences are real. Learning how to achieve balance in your life is every bit as important as learning to stay upright on a motorcycle. Maintaining a healthy life balance helps you heal energetically, emotionally, and physically, and helps you live life to the fullest. Knowing how to stay in balance allows you to change how you live and die. Balance promotes happiness, strength, and clarity, and leaves you feeling energized and productive. Understanding that and achieving it are often two different things. Balancing all aspects of life can be tricky. How do you balance challenging yourself intellectually with carving out time for your mind to rest? How do you balance giving and receiving love? How do you balance fulfilling social needs with the need for time alone? How do you push yourself to achieve work goals without forfeiting time for physical exercise or spiritual time? The outcomes of being off-kilter on life’s Road can be harder to recognize and take longer to become apparent than does being out of balance on a motorcycle. Left untreated, they are equally as disruptive. Not responding to messages from your body and your intuition depletes your energy and leaves you tired and feeling ineffective. Left unchecked for long enough, it increases the potential for developing an illness or having an accident. Life lessons on balance from motorcycle riding are vivid, forthright, and plentiful. Apply them in life as you would on a motorcycle—with skill, insight, and a sense of adventure.

One need look no further than the relationship between motorcycle and rider to glimpse what is as close to a perfect relationship as there is. It has to be. Aside from the initial passion that draws them together, learning to work together is a matter of survival. A relationship that thrives is dependent on understanding the other’s needs, effective communication, and sharing a common goal. Healthy relationships create joy, harmony, and a sense of well-being. Partners travel, have fun together, and belong to a community of like-minded others. Together, solid relationships are more productive than the sum of the individuals and can accomplish greater feats. They evolve and strengthen over time as partners get to know each other and add life experiences. Humans thrive on healthy relationships. We need to connect with others for survival, happiness, commerce, and abundance. Many wonderful experiences occur because of the people we share them with. Lessons that motorcycles teach us enhance relationships of all sorts, whether the connection is personal or professional, with an individual or within a group. And remember—just because a relationship doesn’t last forever doesn’t mean it wasn’t meant to be.

Having your motorcycle tires inadvertently lose contact with the ground is an indication your ride is about to come to a grinding halt. That’s not a good thing. Likewise, staying grounded in life is a fundamental state of being. Being grounded literally means connecting to vital earth energies. Practically, it refers to a state in which we feel centered, calm, and balanced. Often its importance isn’t given the credence it deserves because we get so immersed in our day-to-day-activities that we fail to notice when we’ve lost touch with who we are and what’s important in life. We lose perspective. Grounding implies balance between our spiritual and physical beings. Since we’re spiritual beings in a physical body, it’s also important not to lose sight of our physical, mental, emotional, and social needs at the expense of focusing too heavily on our spiritual side. Aside from the innate need for balance, our physical bodies house our spirit, so we want to make our bodies as hospitable an environment as possible. Staying grounded during two-wheel travel or on our life’s Road requires a concerted effort and regular practice. If we watch closely, motorcycles are excellent teachers of the fine art of grounding and balance.

A motorcycle engine has no shortage of power, but to use it effectively, you have to understand how to control it. It’s not intuitive, but it is readily developed through training and honed through practice. How you coordinate the controls on a motorcycle—i.e., the throttle, brakes, clutch, and shifter—allows you to manage the engine’s power. This requires that you know what the controls are, how they work, when to operate them, and how to use them together. Of course, it’s not quite that simple because you also need to learn to apply them differently for the different situations you’ll face. With lots of practice, you develop muscle memory, so when the unexpected does happen on the road, your automatic reaction will be more likely to be the correct one. While you don’t come with throttle, clutch, or brakes, there are direct parallels and lessons on how to manage your power from motorcycle riding. Get to know what controls your thoughts, emotions, and actions through reflection, meditation, and time alone. Recognizing your patterns is a big part of making better choices. Then it’s up to you to practice these insights and this wisdom on a regular basis. Better choices become routine and make your responses to personal or work situations the best choices for you.

Generating epic energy is all about choice and how you use the resources that are at your fingertips. On a motorcycle, you alone are at the controls. How you use them determines not only how well you manage the bike, but also how well you manage the energy it generates. Your choices influence how far you'll go on a tank of gas, the motorcycle’s reliability, and the motorcycle’s longevity. The quality of fuel that you put in the tank, keeping the engine tuned within its tolerances, and choosing actions that minimize fuel consumption are all within your control. You and I each have a great deal of energy available to us, often accessed just by asking for it. Yet, so often in life, we feel exhausted, drained, and unfulfilled, because we think our energy isn’t lasting long enough to do what we feel needs to get done. It feels like we can never catch up. We think that if we could only manage our time better, we’d have more energy. The truth is the secret to sustainable high energy levels, and stimulating the creative juices has to do with the choices we make. Like our motorcycles, our energy is influenced by the nutrients, thoughts, and feelings we allow into our space. It’s influenced by how we care for ourselves and the activities we take on. Let your motorcycle teach you how to generate energy and unleash your potential. It’s simple once you see it, and you wonder how you could have missed it for so long. The tips that follow will give you a solid start.

Motorcycle mirrors remind you where you’ve been and show you things you couldn’t otherwise see. They add valuable information upon which you can base decisions that affect your future. What you see when you look in the mirror can quickly change your perception about what’s going on around you and about what could be about to transpire. Yet, every time you look in the mirror, the view is different. Your environment is dynamic and circumstances change. At any one time, the view in the mirror is a single snapshot that is but a piece of a larger puzzle. That view reflects back only what it’s focused on. Mirrors that are dusty or foggy prevent you from getting a clear picture. They filter the message such that it’s distorted when it reaches you. In life, people act as your mirrors. They come into your life to further your personal growth and keep you safe on your Road. When you look at others, you see what exists in yourself. Life gives you all kinds of experiences, many pleasant and joyful, but also others you’d rather forget. They all serve a purpose on your journey. Mirrors teach you to honor the past by learning from it and carrying its lessons into your future. Learn how to read the messages from mirrors to navigate deftly down the Road of life.

Learning to use your vision to control your direction is the first lesson new motorcycle riders are taught. The same principles apply to life and for the same reason: you’re drawn to where you’re looking. Unless you know where you’re going, how can you expect to get there? Establishing a vision based on your interests and desires, then taking the steps to reach that destination, paves the way for you to get there. Even if you’ve never articulated a personal vision, or if the one you came up with is something completely different than what you’re currently doing, use this wisdom to get started living the life you were meant to live. Like riding a motorcycle safely, fulfilling your vision requires keeping an eye on the future as well as the present. Constantly scanning your environment prepares you to respond to curves, traffic, and the unexpected. At the same time, you need to look well down the road and focus on your destination. Life’s road is full of adventure, curves, obstacles—and gifts. While there may be areas of construction, detours, and unexpected delays, making these steps the basis of your actions means living your vision.

Caring for your motorcycle demonstrates respect for what it is. Although it’s easy to become complacent and take its performance and reliability for granted, doing so puts your safety and wellbeing at risk. While many people cringe at the thought of picking up a tool, learning a few basics exposes how simple maintenance can be. Beyond the benefits of the mechanical education, the insights you discover about yourself change your perspective on your own power. Sometimes you overlook yourself in your quest to serve others. Yet, if you don’t demonstrate that you value yourself, how can others value you? Taking even a remote interest in tending to routine motorcycle maintenance—like checking tire pressure, checking your oil, or changing a bulb—can awaken personal insights. Looking behind the covers exposes qualities you may not have known were there. Take your maintenance activities to the next level, even if that’s just the starting line. You’ll be amazed at what it teaches you about yourself and where that will take you.

Holistic nutrition is derived not only from the food you eat, but also from community, meditation, wisdom, sensuality, and play. A healthy diet now paves the way for a healthy future. Not only do you feel better, but it can prevent illnesses that hold you back from your potential—and your dreams. Motorcycles are excellent teachers of nutrition. The manufacturers make it easy to know what to do. Bikes come with an owner’s manual, complete with specs and maintenance intervals. Your manufacturer didn’t send an owner’s manual. But you do have your intuition, and that’s even better. It’s easy to see the effects of malnourishment on machines like motorcycles. Short-change them on what they need to thrive and you risk performance and safety. While it’s less obvious to see the effects when you disregard or scrimp on your own needs, the consequences are the same. Eventually it catches up with you. Compare the tips that follow to the activities you devote your best time and energy to. If they’re not supplying essential ingredients, step back and assess if what you’re doing is really your calling. If not, then it’s time to do some serious reflection and consider making life changes. If so, fantastic! Carry on!

Unleashing your personal power requires understanding where it comes from, how much is there, how to access it, how to apply it, and, lastly, ensuring there’s enough fuel. A motorcycle’s engine holds a tremendous amount of power—more than most of us come close to using. However, just because it’s capable of performing at a certain level doesn’t mean it always will. The rider needs to keep it maintained, feed it the proper type of fuel at the right time, monitor its health, know how to use that power in different situations, and be able to use the controls to manage that power. We too have more power than we ever use. It’s there if we just allow it expression. The same concepts apply to us as to our motorcycles. Using that power means trusting that it’s there, caring holistically for our being, making wise choices, understanding what blocks our power, and discovering how we can best access it. Even though this perspective forms merely the starting point, it can be hard to arrive at. The only way to find out what you’re capable of is to test your power and move past the barriers that hold you back.