So there I was. I was teaching my little girl, who had just gotten a bicycle with training wheels for her third birthday, how to peddle. She was having a really difficult time, even after a couple days, distinguishing between peddling forward and braking, which are all part of the same function: one moving forward and one moving stepping backwards.
We couldn’t quite get her to understand the difference between moving her feet forward, and braking by moving her feet backwards on the pedal.
Finally, I kneeled down in front of her (and the bike, of course) and I told her the following.
“Sweetie pie, a bike only needs to do two things. The first thing you need to do is steer. Do you see this? This is a steering wheel. Just turn to the left or to the right and you’ll be able to steer it to the left or to the right. See what I mean?”
“And the second thing you need to do is to be able to peddle. If you peddle like this, you’ll go forward. See what I mean?”
“Steer to the right or left, so you know where you’re going, and peddle, so you can move forward.”
“Now, you try it.”
Now, I can’t say that she got it. She certainly did better afterwards than before, but she continued to peddle backwards, occasionally, which made sure that she would hit the brakes. And, when it came right down to it, she forgot to steer from time to time also.
It dawned on me, as I was going through this episode, that I had to run for my dictating unit and make sure I transcribed the conversation.
I wonder how many people in business ride their bikes but are not totally clear on whether they should be steering to the right or left, or whether they should be moving forward or hitting the brakes.
For little Isabella, it’s something that she’s only beginning to understand for the very first time. However, for some business people, they’ve had experience in the past and they’re still not quite sure.
Let’s just simply take this one away. The rules are fairly simply:
1. When you’re riding a bike and not peddling, the bike turns over.
2. It helps a lot, as you’re peddling, that you know where you’re going.
3. And last, know when to move forward and know when to hit the brakes.
Learning how to ride a bike is not that all dissimilar to learning how to run a business.