Comfort zone

“The long and winding road…”

Dateline: Lake Oahe, South Dakota

“There are always new places to go fishing. For any fisherman, there’s always a new place, always a new horizon.”
– Jack Nicklaus

Take the road less traveled.

Do something that scares the hell out of you. You’ll be better for it.

You want a career killer, become comfortable.

If your marriage has become comfortable, coming home from work falling asleep in your chair, same TV shows, same conversations, same meals…take your loved one to Paris, buy him or her an espresso under the Eiffel Tower, use all those points you have on that instead of a new lawnmower.

Do something new.

Do something that scares the hell out of you, you’ll be better for it.

If you are boxed in at your job, think outside the box to make your job, or the company, better. If that’s not possible leave the box and do what you dream of doing while you’re doing something that gives you nightmares.

Do something new.

Do something that scares the hell out of you, you’ll be better for it.

I think down deep within all of us, way down there pummeled by society and other people’s expectations of us, way deep, deep down we all know, maybe just feel, what we were put on this earth to do. ‘Cept things got in the way.

Listen to the whispers within you.

Do something new.

Do something that scares the hell out of you, you’ll be better for it.

That’s why publically I applaud B.A.S.S. for doing something new, for possibly scaring the hell out of many of us, applaud them for listening to the whispers within and coming here to Lake Oahe and South Dakota.

In fact, I believe this tournament that started today may be the most important tournament of the year for one simple reason: we’ve never been here before.

We did something NEW.

“…that leads to your door…”

“If you do what you’ve always done you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”
– Tony Robbins.

Tell you a couple inside-the-park stuff that’s happening here that doesn’t involve numbers:

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen so many smiles, so much energy on the faces of the families of the anglers, even on the faces of those of us who work these gigs.

Don’t get me wrong, we all are happy to be doing what we do, we just seem to get a little bit happier when what we do is new.

Because of the back-to-back tourney thing many folks had a day or so off before practice began, and they USED it, used it to explore a place and land totally new to most of us.

We became tourists. Trust me, that is special. Strangers in a strange land, and we went exploring.

To discover something new re-lights the flame within and that is apparent here, all during registration anglers and their families came up to me and said, “Did you go….” or “I couldn’t believe how…” and here’s why that’s cool, this is tournament number SEVEN for us, thousands of miles dragging boats and all sorts of things all over the place, we are beat up…coming here refreshed the whole troop.

And then there’s this as well, the Thank Yous.

“…will never disappear…”

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
– Andre Gide

At every registration I stand in line and shake the hands of all the Marshal’s who come through. I ask them their name, where they are from and what they do. I do it at every event. Here, though, it was a bit different.

Here in a dozen or so times I never had the chance to ask a question because the moment I shook their hands they said “Thank You,” to me, said “Thank you for coming here to South Dakota, we never thought that would be possible.”

Never thought that would be possible!

All of us should do what scares us, do what seems impossible, and that means us too.

If there is bass fishing where you are then it should always be possible that we will come to you and prove how good these guys really are, if you have a field of play that can accommodate us then we should come there and play on it.

It may scare the hell out of us but that’s how the big boys in sports do it and if we are to ascend to their level it is simply how we should do it as well.

“…I’ve seen that road before…”

“If you are offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on!”
– Sheryl Sandberg

So in the Marshal line I meet this guy, Rick Sorensen. An IT guy from, um, huh, I guess from, Everywhere.

“Hey db, I’m an escapee…”

Trust me no one has ever told me that in line before and honestly I was a bit freaked and started looking around for Trip…

“…I’m an escapee all over America…”

Ah, um Trip, oh Trip…

“…both my wife and I are escapees.”

Turns out neither Rick or Mary are on the lamb or anything, “We are full time rv’ers, we sold our house in Vermont and took to the road, have never looked back.”

Talk about comfort zones; this dude Blew It Up.

“db, we are always at home, it’s just that the front yard changes all the time.”

Rick has been a B.A.S.S. member for “at least 10 years now,” travels in a 5th wheel with Mary and “a puppy, a Boston Terrier,” and have lived full time with wheels under them for 3 years.

He’s a member of The Escapees, a club for people who live on the road they travel, and last year while doing a work/stay (you work at a place and they let you park for free) here in South Dakota he was in the state when we made the announcement that come 2018 we’d be fishing here.

“I was so excited; I signed up that day, got a campground that day. You could feel the excitement when the news came out. I was pumped.”

It’s not the first time he’s been around B.A.S.S. though, “I can’t remember when it was but it was at Cayuga Lake in New York, we just happened to park next to Rick Clunn, got to meet him, have parked near him since that time again, such a nice guy, I’m out in a campground where a bunch of the anglers are, always cool and such a pleasure to be around these guys, you know.”

I do.

“…it always leads me here…”

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”
– Neale Donald Walsch

Step out, of your comfort zone.

We did so coming here and trust me I believe we are better for it.

I hope in the future B.A.S.S. goes somewhere new every year, it would be good for the company, good for the sport and good for the anglers who play the game.

It will be great though for those new folks and new places they come to.

Try to at least, at the very least, to once a year scare the hell out of yourself, do something new.

Not something crazy, something new, something whispered within.

It doesn’t have to be espresso on the Avenue des Champs-Elysees in Paris; flowers, ice cream and a slow dance on the moon lit back porch some weekend night could be it.

Do something new.

Scare yourself.

No matter how young, how old you are, you can become new, it’s simple really, it’s just up to you.

db

“…lead me to you door.”
Long and Winding Road
The Beatles

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
– Mark Twain