Why Riding Sparks New Ideas

Ron 0:04

Hi friends and welcome back to the Peace Love Moto podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Francis, in Loveland, Colorado, and today we're shifting gears from discussions about how our love for motorcycling relieves stress to maybe something deeper. Well, how do you get much deeper than that? Well, let me try to tell you. We'll be exploring how spending focused, distraction-free time on your motorcycle doesn't just clear your mind. It can be a catalyst for opening your mind to entirely new ideas that couldn't get released until you were on the bike. Let's call that a mental expansion, for lack of a better term. Hey, I came from the corporate IT world, and I know firsthand that this day that we're living in with AI, the value of knowledge work is no longer measured in doing repetitive daily tasks quickly and accurately. No, there's more to it than that now. Rather, you're being measured on your creativity. This mental expansion thing that I will show you evidence of, it may be out there to help you gain a leg up in your work, in your career. Maybe just shake some brand new ideas loose that you haven't had an opportunity to even think about since you were a kid. And I think we can all do that if we're careful for a motorcycle ride. Maybe a motorcycle ride is just what we need for loosening up that creativity. Hmm. Well, let's talk about it. Thank you for joining me. Stay tuned. Recorded in beautiful, loveliness, Colorado. Welcome to Peace Love Moto, the podcast for motorcyclists seeking that peaceful, easy feeling as we cruise through this life together. Are you ready? Let's go.

The Noise That Shrinks Your Mind

Ron 2:16

Now, my friends, it's a good time just to relax, take a deep breath, and hey, let's have a little talk. Let's call this first part of our discussion the noise in the narrow mind. The reality is that we are constantly inundated by this relentless flood of noise, right? It's the 24-hour news cycle, along with various pressures related to our career, our family, financial pressures, all of that together. You know, that's kind of one big bundle there, but there's lots more. Even before that first essential sip of coffee in the mornings, many of us are immediately checking our phones to see what chaos has occurred while we slept, right? I'm as guilty as anybody. Our minds are essentially under siege, and many of us have these mental burdens that are just unfortunately self-imposed. The this constant bombardment causes stress, and stress not only affects your health, but as we've been speaking about, it's a creativity killer. Remember, we need that creative skill to keep that AI job killer bot from taking our job, right? Stress locks us into this defensive, narrow-minded state. When we're stressed out, our focus is only on the immediate, the pressing, what's right in front of us, as far as we can see. What's happening in the next few seconds, that's all we care about. Nothing beyond that. Because stress is something that has to be handled immediately, right? So any other options oftentimes get just shut off. No time for creative solutions when your prehistoric mind is being chased by a saber-toothed tiger. Don't have time for that. Just gotta run, right? Under stress, our minds become so cluttered trying to process all this external noise that there's no room left for the quiet, subtle whisper of genuinely wonderful, amazing ideas, of creative solutions. And for that matter, there's no time certainly to be thinking about our larger purpose, what we're here for. And just as I mentioned, it may be an understanding of our larger purpose to know what we're supposed to be doing day to day. So we're kind of going right in circles, aren't we?

Presence And Focus On The Bike

Ron 5:10

Now, let's shift gears a bit from that feeling of stress where your mind just doesn't know what to do, and essentially you're going into vapor lock. Let's contrast that with the experience of riding your motorcycle on the most beautiful day you can imagine. When you swing a leg over your bike, the bike that you love, something fundamentally changes in your head. You're forced to be in that present moment and you love it. You love being there. You're certainly not doom scrolling, you're certainly not focused on your phone. No, no, no. You're focused on hitting the apex of that corner perfectly and feeling the perfect gear change as you accelerate out of that corner. You can't be checking your emails or paying attention to anything else except your tires and assurance of its grip on that road as you make that corner. The world rushing past you on your bike is the only screen you're watching right now. This focused attention on the physical and the mental act of riding a motorcycle is what allows your mind to finally declutter. The stress chemicals recede, and the internal chatter, it quietens down. And in that quiet space, that's where the magic happens, doesn't it? That's where your brain stops processing all that junk and starts processing internal possibilities. Your physical experience on your motorcycle clears the slate. It's allowing for new ideas and a new idea that needs space to grow and it needs some quiet to grow. Quiet relaxation to finally bubble up to the surface. Maybe we need an example.

The Carousel Of Happiness Story

Ron 7:09

An example of how this creativity that we keep talking about can indeed bubble up to the surface. Yeah. Here's an example for you. It's a truly beautiful example of this phenomenon of making time and creating a setting that will loosen up your creativity. And it's found in the little mountain town of Netterland, Colorado, about an hour southwest of my home here in Loveland. The carousel of happiness is what it's called. This isn't just some quirky charming attraction. It's this profound testament to healing and the creative power of focus. As you may recall, a few weeks ago, we interviewed Bert Rashbaum, who is one of the right operators there. He told us the whole story. Told us his story too. So the carousel was created by a man I call my friend. His name is Scott Harrison. He's a Vietnam veteran. And over the years I have gotten to know Scott better and better over cups of coffee. We've had some good talks. So when Scott returned home, like many veterans, he struggled with the emotional wounds of war. He was in the thick of it, to say the least, lost a lot of friends. His path to recovery took a unique but really powerful turn. He began the slow, deliberate act of carving. Carving wooden animals with the dream of ultimately placing all of those animals on a carousel where everyone, you and I, could take a pause in our day and take a ride. Now, Scott didn't start off with a multi-million dollar business plan. He started off with a simple, repetitive, and most importantly, meditative act of carving. This focused, creative work was a tool for his own emotional recovery. It was his distraction-free act that in many ways is just like our act of riding a motorcycle. It was distraction-free mental rest. Just like what I experienced. Maybe you do too. So as he worked, this vision grew. That focused, quiet time of carving didn't just clear his stress, it opened his mind to this larger idea, this vision for helping the rest of the world. He decided to restore an old broken-down carousel that he found, and he used his beautiful, hand-carved animals to complete it. And the results, my friend, is the carousel of happiness. A place I have ridden my motorcycle and driven to countless times. A place where people of all ages can find a moment of simple, pure joy. That's their theme, Don't Delay Joy. A place that stands as a physical manifestation of one man's journey from trauma to creative purpose, born from a simple repetitive act of carving. And I can say it with complete confidence that I do not believe that any AI agent existing today or existing in the future would ever be able to create a more precious, meaningful object of joy than the carousel of happiness. Maybe you have your own carousel to carve too.

Your Challenge For The Next Ride

Ron 11:28

What should be happening when you do find time or you find that moment of peace on your motorcycle where your brain is just letting loose with new ideas? Well, maybe you're not meant to build a carousel and carve wooden animals. But maybe, just maybe, the idea you need, the idea that could have a positive influence on yourself, on your family, on your finances, on your career, is just one peaceful, relaxed, zen mindful motorcycle ride away. So, my friends, my challenge for you is this: just as I challenge myself. The next time you feel stressed, unfocused, or creatively blocked, don't turn to the screen. That's just too easy, and it's probably not going to do you any good at all. Instead, turn to your riding gear, put them on, and go for a ride. Just go for a ride. See what happens. Give yourself that essential period of unstructured, distraction-free thinking. Or not thinking, if you want to consider it that. Let the rhythm of the road and that beautiful bike underneath you that you love allow your brain to break free from the noise of the world that brings you down. And when you have broken free, then open yourself up to the possibility that the next ride you could be on, that next joy ride, may just be a road to revelation.

Sponsors And Closing Thoughts

Ron 13:15

Before we close, a special shout out to my friends at Vikingbags.com for their product support for this episode. I really appreciate that. Details on their new BMWGS custom saddlebags are in the show notes. And if you too would like to support this podcast, I would appreciate that consideration. Just check the show notes for descriptions on some options that we have out there. So until we visit again, my friends, go on out there, clear your mind, and make room for some big ideas. I'll see you out there. Peace out.