100Pedals, 100Days, 100Stories: Sharing and Discovering Inspired Journeys
It all starts with my story… It was the Fall of 2009 when I first was hit with the shocking reality of my twenty-two year old son’s heroin addiction. Over the next eighteen months I turned my life upside down helping him fight a battle he was not prepared to or committed to fighting. The cost of this commitment was significant and the lessons were incredibly painful. I finally created a path that distanced me from the destruction of my son’s addictive choices, provided me control and clarity in the face of my adversity, and completely changed my life.
The path I discovered started with a commitment to ride my bike. One night while assessing the roller coaster experience of being the father of an addict, I knew I needed to do something to break free from this destructive cycle (no pun intended). I decided to take control of my life and do something for myself - I made a commitment to ride my bike for at least one hour a day for one hundred consecutive days. From the outset, every bike ride was a meditative journey that inspired me, calmed me, focused me, and transformed me. These bike rides not only enabled me to distance myself from the chaos of my son’s addiction; but, they also provided me perspective and direction for all the other activities in my life.
Following my personal cycling successes, known as my 100Pedals journey, I wrote a book to tell my story, share my experiences, and offer an inspiring, informational resource to others. This book — my story — was intended as a means to educate, help and guide others struggling with their own personal challenge. Once I completed this project, I realized finishing and publishing a book simply wasn’t enough. I started to become less interested about documenting my story and started to become more committed about sharing my experiences so that they may provide lessons and insights for those struggling to find their beacon — a shining light of hope, love, and opportunity — in face of all that we deal with in these difficult, challenging, and disruptive times. I realized there was so much more to 100Pedals than simply sharing my story — I needed to connect, communicate and touch people, in a larger, more impactful way than simply publishing a book.
100Pedals, 100Days, 100Stories: Sharing and Discovering Inspired Journeys
This is a documentary project about the story and experiences of my bike ride across the United States. Starting on March 2013, I am biking from San Diego to Detroit. While the final route has not been defined, it is my commitment to ride 5000 miles in 100 days!
This is my opportunity to:
- Connect with people all across the country
- Share the passion of my 100Pedals experiences and lessons
- Provide tools to young adults to help them manage the challenges in their lives
- Learn from others who are in various phases of their own unique, personal journeys
There are two significant commitments and outcomes of this bicycling trip:
- Documentary and Book: I will be capturing the entire inspirational and educational experience in a powerful, informative documentary and book!! Having secured resources of a volunteer to videotape, write, and act as my chase vehicle resource, every conversation, every interaction, every emotional moment will be captured and shared. This documentary will provide an exciting, inspiring, and informative lesson for all those who face a challenge in their lives.
- Presentations, Events and Meetings with Young Adults to share the experiences of bringing positive actions and behaviors in their lives. I have committed to speak at schools, clubs, churches, and sporting groups to share the valuable lessons of my journey.
Why is connecting with young adults is such an important component of this journey? Today’s youth struggle with so much — self-esteem issues; physical, sexual, alcohol and drug abuse problems; plus, the pressures and demands that seem to force the pressures of adult-like decisions on them at a very early age. The influences, information, and pressures of society and peers can be overwhelmingly negative and very difficult for younger, less mature minds, to manage, sort and handle.
I am committed to be an inspirational resource for young adults. If I can connect and inspire one child a day on this trip by providing them with the applicable, educational tools developed through the 100Pedals experience, I am making a difference in the lives of hundreds of families. The purpose of these presentations is to educate them on the process for introducing positive thoughts, actions, and behaviors into their life while providing specifically developed methods and programs to accomplish this. One of these tools, is the documentary itself, to be used as a follow-up tool as well as an informational resource for those who I didn’t have the opportunity to connect with.
My Journey: This experience has transformed every aspect of my personal and professional life
I have spent the last ten years of my life delivering keynotes, workshops, educational programs, and developing growth strategies for companies as they work through their growth challenges. I have comfortably braved as normal the pressures, challenges, and adversities of their business environment. My personal adversity has completely altered the perspective of my current business activities. The work I do with my clients today is intensely more personal as I focus on incorporating the lessons of my experiences in each and every engagement.
As I struggled to cope with the adversity of my son’s addiction, to maintain control of my life in the midst of chaos, I was able to access the love, support and guidance of a community of friends, family and strangers who helped me through my struggle. There are countless stories of people who have similar experiences or are struggling to find their resources. This documentary project is committed to capturing and sharing the stories that exist all across our country so that we can inform, inspire, and guide those looking for answers and inspiration. These are the stories of accomplishment, stories of pain, stories of hope and stories of the struggle through adversity. More importantly, these are the stories that provide hope, guidance, strength, encouragement and information to everyone!!
Whether we are a parent, an employee, an owner, or a student – we all have a story to tell, a lesson to learn, and a problem to solve. The mission of this documentary and my ride is collect, assemble and share these lessons and bring an entire community – informed, supported, and inspired – together!
If you would like to support the 100Pedals Across America Tour (Spring 2013), your contributions are greatly appreciated. We are building positive, supportive, and collaborative communities across America. We may not change the world today — but we are going to make a difference in our world NOW!!!
