“A mind that is stretched by new experiences can never go back to its old dimensions.” -Oliver Wendall Holmes
I thought I would take a couple of days after getting back to Boulder to reflect on all the experiences that accompanied biking from British Columbia to Baja to launch SWAE Sports before penning my magnum opus. It’s been an interesting couple of days as I’ve readjusted to civilian life. My initial realization was that most importantly, the 2-½ months on the road helped to solidify our team and define the direction of SWAE Sports.
After getting off the plane and driving back to my Rocky Mountain home, I immediately began to miss the other four guys that I’d spent just about every waking moment with since mid June. After feeding off one another’s excitement, sharing the hardships of the road, and waking every morning to the team immediately talking SWAE, life as it was began to seem, well, rather quiet.
When I separate myself from being a part of this whole expedition, it seems truly amazing that a group of five highly dedicated young men would undertake such an endeavor to launch a company. As a consumer, it would hardly matter to me what it is SWAE was selling because if anyone was really that motivated, odds are that it was something I should be a part of. I’d rep their shirt. It would get even crazier for me as I started to explore their website and realized that the reason those boys were so psyched was because they held in their hands a truly paradigm shifting business model for the adventure sports industry. Of course they’d cycle 2,500 miles to spread the good news. It would all start to feel quite logical.
Whenever I return from a big trip it’s always a bit weird to think about the places I just was. Sailing through the waters of the San Juan Islands, biking through the primordial Redwood forests of Northern California, and camping along the rim of Crater Lake begins to feel like a dream, or clips from a movie I watched before falling asleep. But they are my memories, my life experiences, the way I became a part of an organization that will undoubtedly shape the course of my life.
The greatest thing I’ll take from this trip is being witness to the fact that my actions along the West Coast will not only benefit my own life, but every outfitter, guide, and outdoor adventure school that sat down with us and subscribed to the dream that is SWAE. I can only believe that they saw in our eyes the motivation to make our company’s principals a reality and that that kind of excitement was something they wanted to attach themselves to. When looking back over my notes, its almost ridiculous to see that the only companies we didn’t partner with after a meeting were those that didn’t want more business. That’s crazy and yet it’s the truth.
The way people get outside is about to change, and I’m truly humbled to be a part of that shift. It’s happening because the team that comprises SWAE is actually our targeted customer. We live and breathe this lifestyle and we’ve somehow figured out a way to make a career out of doing the stuff we love. I don’t think I could be more stoked.