Lesson #9: Reach Out

Note: To see all the messages, click on the category: Making Big Things Happen

No matter what you’re trying to do, you will do it better, faster and more effectively if you reach out to others. It’s hard to make big things happen alone. I have tried. It’s really hard. The problem with reaching out—and you probably know this from experience—is that you never know what people will say or do. Let’s say you ask your mom for money for summer camp and, instead of saying: “Of course, Honey. Go get my checkbook,” she says, “Summer camp? I just wrote a check for your new tennis shoes. Do you think I’m made of money?”

Sometimes it doesn’t go the way you want. Reach out, anyway. Do it over and over again and it will work eventually. If there’s no interest or energy, try a new direction. I contacted bike shops and bicycle organizations and bicyclists and told them about the Tillie Ride. They were curious, but they weren’t that interested. So I didn’t take it personally and kept on going. Don’t get me wrong. It’s hard.

But you have to keep talking to people. You have to keep telling your story. When someone asks what you’re interested in, you might say: “I really want to be a vet and I think it would help if I had a summer job that involved animals. Do you have any idea, Aunt Shari? Mrs. Newsome? Coach Elliott?”

I pretty much gave up on the bike people and concentrated on the Swedish people. They were a lot more excited. Then—out of the blue—I got a call from Tom Tilma, who was organizing the 2011 Bike Summit in Grand Rapids. He invited us to have a table at the summit so that more people could learn about the ride and he paid for our registration. He also introduced me to David Bosch, who helped me get my bike ready for the trip—he got me a mirror and side bags and a water bottle holder. That’s really going to help on the ride.

So so many people have encouraged me and helped me. I try not to think too much about the setbacks and the disappointments. You have to conserve your energy to get to the end of something big and there’s no use, really, thinking about these things.

I am so grateful for the way both of these men got excited about what I was doing and helped me. I don’t have any pictures of Tom, but here are some pictures of the bike summit and of David with my groovy bike.