Week 4: A Healthy Dose of Humility

Sunset from our deck

This week has been AWESOME! After working and/or training almost every day since arriving, I took one day off to rest the legs, fulfill some duties for the ACS and Cymbal, and do some "planning for the future". After one day of rest I returned to the mountains to ski... and ski we did! The freeskiing and backcountry in Aspen is INCREDIBLE, and I know I have only just scraped the surface.

Earlier in the week, I had a nice ego boost when the leader of the Aspen Ski Instructor Training Team asked me to audition for this team responsible for training one of the most respected ski schools in the world. I took this as a compliment to both my ski ability, as well as my ability to develop others. I was feeling pretty strong about my skiing, and then I went skiing with my good friend Jesse Durrance (you might remember Jesse from our 3 Mountains. 3 Days. 1 Cure fundraiser in 2007 - you can see a video of it here).

Jesse jumping into Flip's Leap

Jesse is, hands down, the best skier I have EVER skied with. It was a healthy does of humility to try and keep up with Jesse - and a TON of fun!!!

In Aspen, as I imagine in most other places, there is always somebody better than you in pretty much everything. There are better skiers, instructors and trainers. There are people who are in better shape than I will ever be. Especially here in Aspen, there are people with far more material wealth than I will ever have. I thought I skied with the wealthiest man in Aspen whose private jet was too big to land at the airport here, and instead had to fly into Grand Junction. Then, the other day, I learned about a Russian man who's private 737 had to fly into Denver, where his 40 guests than transferred to his two Gulfstream G5s to make it the rest of the way to Aspen... ridiculous.

This is incredibly humbling. We don't deserve anything, and the only thing we are best at is being ourselves. To be clear, this isn't a defeatist attitude, its a humbling attitude. Skiing might be a strange place to have this reflection about humility, but I know this will carry with me for life. Be confident, be audacious, but always approach every day with a healthy dose of humility. I think AJ Leon said it best on his blog: "Maybe its your time". Go for it, but approach everything with humility.

In other exciting news, I booked my tickets to Europe which leaves on March 30th, and I also procured a one-way ticket from Europe to Kathmandu in the middle of April. My 'planning for the future' has been exciting, too. I'm almost ready to start sharing some of the key elements of my plan... stay tuned!

Here are my favorite photos from this week!

And here is my favorite run of the season!