Peace, Love, and Bikes

How Being in the Right Position with Yourself and Others, On and Off the Bike, Builds a Life Filled with Love, Purpose, and Possibility

The Things We Don't Know When We Begin

One of the strangest truths about life is that if we fully understood how difficult some journeys would be before we started them, we might never begin at all.

When we start a business, launch a magazine, write a book, pursue a relationship, raise a family, or chase a dream, we usually begin with excitement. We see the possibilities. We imagine the opportunities. We picture the destination. What we don't see are the countless lessons, setbacks, responsibilities, and moments of growth waiting for us along the way.

Looking back, I'm grateful I didn't know everything that would be required of me. Had someone shown me every obstacle ahead, every difficult conversation, every setback, every financial challenge, every lesson in patience and resilience, I might have talked myself out of taking the first step. Instead, life revealed the trail one section at a time, much the way mountain biking always has. Every climb taught something the map never could.

There is a certain romance to the beginning of any worthwhile journey. We fall in love with an idea, a vision, or a possibility. That excitement gives us energy. It gets us moving. It carries us through the early miles when everything feels new and full of promise. The challenge comes later, when the dream becomes work, when the opportunity becomes responsibility, and when the thing we love begins asking more from us than we ever expected to give.

Holding On to the Love That Started It All

I've come to believe that one of the most important skills in life is learning how to hold on to the original reason we started. The people who build meaningful things over long periods of time are not necessarily the most talented or the most fortunate. Often, they are simply the people who never completely lose sight of what they loved about the journey when it first began.

That lesson applies to nearly everything. It applies to businesses, relationships, creative projects, athletic pursuits, and communities. There will always be moments when the work becomes harder than expected. There will always be periods of uncertainty and doubt. The key is remembering that the difficult seasons are not separate from the journey. They are the journey.

For years, I spent a lot of time trying to get through the hard part so I could arrive at the fun part. Mountain biking eventually taught me that there is no separation. The climb is part of the ride. The challenge is part of the experience. The growth happens during the difficult sections, not after them.

Leadership Is a Different Kind of Climb

One of the greatest surprises of my life has been discovering how different leadership feels from the inside than it appears from the outside.

From a distance, leadership can seem exciting. It looks like influence, visibility, opportunity, and accomplishment. In reality, leadership is often a continuous process of adaptation. It requires us to remain calm when situations become stressful. It requires us to make decisions without having all the information. It requires us to continue moving forward when the next step isn't completely clear. Most importantly, it requires us to grow beyond the version of ourselves that got us started.

When I first began building businesses and media projects, I believed hard work was the answer to almost every problem. If something needed to get done, I would simply work harder. Over time, I realized that leadership isn't about doing everything yourself. Leadership is about helping everyone move in the same direction. It is about creating clarity, building trust, solving problems, and helping people succeed together.

The higher we climb in life, the more we realize that growth is not simply about accomplishing more. It is about becoming capable of carrying more responsibility while remaining grounded, grateful, and connected to the people around us.

The Right Position Creates Opportunity

One of the principles I've thought about for years is the importance of being in the right place at the right time. At first, I thought this was mostly about luck. Today, I see it differently.

Being in the right place at the right time is often the result of countless small decisions made over many years. It comes from continuing to show up, continuing to learn, continuing to build relationships, and continuing to move forward even when progress feels slow. What appears to be luck is often preparation meeting opportunity.

Recently, however, I've realized that the phrase itself is incomplete. The right place matters. The right time matters. But the right people matter just as much.

What sits underneath all three is position.

Mountain biking teaches us this lesson every time we ride. Good positioning determines balance, traction, confidence, control, and efficiency. The same principle applies off the bike. If we are in the right position mentally, emotionally, physically, and relationally, we dramatically improve our chances of finding ourselves in the right place at the right time with the right people.

Whether we're pursuing a new job, building a company, finding a relationship, buying a home, writing a book, or creating a life we love, there eventually comes a point when we must learn how to work effectively with others. Not because we are incapable on our own, but because meaningful accomplishments almost always involve cooperation. They require trust, communication, appreciation, and a shared commitment to something larger than ourselves.

Delegating and Elevating

One of the lessons I'm learning most deeply right now is the relationship between delegation and elevation. Early in my career, I often believed that growth meant doing more. Today, I'm beginning to understand that growth often means enabling more. As responsibilities increase, there comes a point where doing everything ourselves is no longer possible. We must learn how to communicate clearly, trust others, and create opportunities for people to contribute their talents and strengths.

Delegation is not about giving work away. It is about creating capacity. It is about making room for bigger ideas, broader perspectives, and greater impact. It is also about recognizing that the best results often come from collaboration rather than control.

Mountain biking provides a useful metaphor. Every climb changes what you can see. From higher elevations, the trail begins to make sense in ways it never could from below. Leadership works much the same way. Every challenge overcome, every lesson learned, and every responsibility accepted broadens our perspective. As our perspective expands, our ability to help others expands with it.

Filling the Cup Without Emptying Yourself

The more people I meet, the less interested I become in labels and categories. The more I listen to people's stories, the more I realize that most of us are searching for many of the same things. We want meaningful work. We want meaningful relationships. We want purpose. We want to contribute. We want to feel appreciated. We want to know that our efforts matter.

What often separates people is not intelligence, talent, or even opportunity. It is whether they have enough energy, gratitude, resilience, and love left inside themselves to continue moving forward.

We cannot continually pour into others while neglecting ourselves. We cannot support our families, communities, businesses, friends, and teams if we have completely exhausted our own reserves. We have to learn how to build enough happiness, confidence, perspective, and love within ourselves that we can share those things freely without becoming depleted in the process.

This is not selfishness. It is sustainability. It is the foundation that allows us to keep showing up for the people and causes we care about most.

The Next Thousand Feet

One of the beautiful realities of mountain biking is that every summit reveals another summit. You climb one thousand feet only to discover another thousand waiting ahead. Years ago, I found that frustrating because I believed progress meant eventually arriving at a place where the work would become easy. Today, I find it inspiring.

Growth is not a destination, nor is learning or leadership. Life continues to offer new challenges because it continues to offer new opportunities to grow. Every climb expands our perspective, and every new perspective reveals possibilities that were invisible from lower elevations.

The next challenge is not evidence that we've failed to arrive. It is evidence that we are still growing. It is evidence that there is still more to learn, more to contribute, and more to experience.

Speaking of That...

As I write this, I'm actually running late for a meeting. I've got to go try to be in the right position, with the right people, at the right time.

The funny thing is that this simple thought may summarize everything I've been trying to learn. Life is not about racing toward a finish line. It is about positioning ourselves thoughtfully and consistently so that when opportunities appear, we are ready to recognize them. It is about learning when to push, when to be patient, when to lead, when to listen, and when to ask for help. It is about understanding that success is rarely something we achieve alone.

Most of all, it is about building a life that contains more than achievement. A life filled with love. A life filled with purpose. A life filled with possibility.

And maybe that is what the bike has been trying to teach me all along.

About the Author

Liz Donahey is the founder and editor-in-chief of MTB Girls Magazine and the author of 23 Principles of Mountain Biking. Through her writing, interviews, and advocacy work, she explores how the lessons learned on the trail can help people navigate leadership, relationships, personal growth, and life's biggest challenges. Her mission is to help more people build confidence, community, and purpose, both on and off the bike.

This article is inspired by the principles explored in 23 Principles of Mountain Biking, where the lessons of mountain biking become practical tools for navigating life, leadership, and personal growth. The book is available on Amazon.