Lessons From The Saddle Of My Bullet – Part 1

If you regularly read my musings, you will remember that my wife and I spent a month riding through India in the saddle of a ‘Bullet’. A Royal Enfield Bullet is a 500 cc single cylinder, 1950’s designed motorcycle.

Our last trip through the spectacular Himalayan mountains contained many life lessons for us – from finding Adele lying in the middle of the road after an accident with her Bullet hanging precariously over the edge of a cliff to being humbled by the sheer beauty and enormity of the mountains.

In the following series of emails, I’m going to share some of the life lessons I learned from the saddle of my Bullet while discovering India and how it all relates to living an Effortless Life.

Bullet School Lesson #1

It was day 9 of our 15 day Himalayan crossing. What I hoped would be a quick 200 kilometre ride, turned into 9 hours of focussed riding through some of the bumpiest roads known to man.

Having ridden the first 10km of the day on rock infested gravel road, I was already beginning to lose my sense of humour. My ass felt like it was going to fall off and my hands were numb from the vibrations coming through the handlebars of my Bullet.

In the middle of all this, I remembered my guide saying something about the faster you ride, the less you feel the road. As counter intuitive as this seemed to me, I increased my speed from 20km/h to 30km/h. My ass still hurt, so I kept opening the throttle. By the time I was doing 60km/h, I was hardly feeling the bumps at all and was clinging onto my handlebars for dear life.

60km/h on these roads felt like 200km/h on regular tar. However, before long I got used to this speed and with my inner speed demon unleashed, the rest of the journey was some of the most fun I have ever had on two wheels! I was grinning from ear to ear all the way.

The Faster You Go, The Smoother The Ride.

Life works in the same way…

The more action you take, the more momentum you gather and the easier success becomes. The faster you move towards your goals, the less significant you problems become. Life begins to feel like plain sailing. It’s only when we stop moving, procrastinate and slam on the brakes that the ride becomes bumpy.

So, the moral of this story is TAKE MASSIVE ACTION towards your goals. Keep moving. Even if you don’t know what the correct course of action is, ACT ANYWAY. You will only know of you are off course once you have moved forward.

Till next time,

Have a miraculous day and don’t bother about the bumps in the road.

Bruce