I kind of wanted to throw up.
I was standing at the top of a double black diamond trail in Sedona, Arizona, staring down a steep, rocky chute called The Highline, listening to our coach Joanna tell us exactly what we were about to do. And I had a choice: walk away, or commit.
I've been mountain biking for a long time. My skills weren't the problem. My mindset was.
What happened next on that trail changed the way I think about building my real estate business.
About three weeks ago, my wife, our friend Aspen, and I went on a mountain biking trip to Sedona. We got coaching from an incredible local rider named Joanna, who also has a strong online presence and is genuinely one of the most brilliant people I've met on a bike. She's a young woman building something really meaningful and lifting people up along the way.
She coached us through a section of trail I had ridden past many times before but never actually attempted. There's a downhill section that always seemed completely undoable to me. Too steep. Too technical. Every time, I walked it.
This time, I didn't.
One of the first things Joanna taught us was the concept of the point of no return.
On a steep obstacle, there's a specific moment where if you try to bail, you will get hurt worse than if you just go. She said: when you get to that point, know that you cannot make a different decision. You already made your decision. You just have to go.
We started small. One steep roller. Then an off-camber section that turned into another steep roller. Each time, we built confidence. Each time, we proved to ourselves that we could handle more than we thought.
Then we got to The Chute.
The Chute is exactly what it sounds like. One steep section after the next, involving tight turns through a very narrow passage while going significantly downhill on red rock. It looks like Moab. It's beautiful. And it's terrifying.
Joanna walked the entire line with us first. We physically walked down and back up the whole section so we knew exactly what to expect. Then she asked if we were ready.
I hesitated.
She read me immediately. She knew that if she gave me a moment to overthink it, I would overthink it and not do it. So she said: just follow my line.
And we went.
There was a moment partway down where I had a split second between sections to breathe and reassess. And I almost talked myself out of finishing. I looked at the next roller and thought, I don't know if I can do this. I might bail.
I said out loud to myself: you got this, go.
And I went.
Right now, I'm going all in on my real estate business. I signed up for an expensive CRM and cold calling platform. I hired my first team member. I'm building systems, making calls, and doing the things I know are necessary to hit the goals I've set.
All of it has felt scary. All of it has felt unattainable, in the exact same way that riding The Chute felt unattainable.
But here's what I keep coming back to: the thing holding me back isn't my skills. It's trusting myself to use them.
Going all in on my business feels like standing at the top of that trail. I've committed. I'm going. And if something unexpected happens, like a rock that moved or something in the deal that I didn't plan for, I'm going to trust myself to adjust my line and keep moving instead of freezing up because I didn't think of every possible scenario before I started.
Whether you're picking up mountain biking for the first time or launching a business, here's what I took away from that day in Sedona:
The hardest part of any big challenge, whether it's a double black diamond or a business decision, is usually not the skill. It's making the decision to go, and then trusting yourself once you do.
I'm still learning that. But I think about Joanna's voice every time I hit a moment of doubt in my business: don't you dare stop.
So I keep going.
