Alastair Humphreys » 10 Lessons

Book give away: Ten Lessons from the Road – chapter 10

Al Humphreys — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 07:58:56 +0000

My third book, Ten Lessons from the Road, came out earlier this year. I’m really pleased with it, and I would love people to read it. But I’m realistic about how few people will actually read the book. So I decided to give it away -for free- here on my blog. Hopefully it will reach more people that way.
Ten Lessons from the Road has ten chapters, each one short, sweet and ideal for a blog post. I’m reproducing them here, one each month, and I hope you enjoy them.

The only downside of this is that I can’t reproduce on the blog the beautiful photos and cool layout of the book which make the book what it is. But, hey, it’s free here! You can see how the actual book looks in the 30-second preview video above.

10 – THE WORLD IS A GOOD PLACE

Fear less, hope more;
Whine less, breathe more;
Talk less, say more;
Hate less, love more;
And all good things are yours.
– anonymous

This final chapter is not really a call-to-arms, nor is it particularly encouraging you to change anything in your life. I just wanted to end the book positively, and what more positive thing could I do than to try to remind you what a good and wonderful world we live in.

Dance as though no one is watching you. Love as though you have never been hurt before. Sing as though no one can hear you. Live as though heaven is on earth. – Souza

When I left home to try to cycle round the world I was worried about many different things. Friends, family and people I met along the way worried about only one thing on my behalf: my safety.

The world is a dangerous and wicked place. We all know that, we watch the news. Wars, murder, knife crime, terrorists… This daily diet floods into our lives. We become bigoted and paranoid. We become afraid. The world is a bad place.

Yet if one good thing and one thing alone came out of my journey round the world, it was the realisation (or perhaps the reminding) that the world is essentially a good place and a suitable place for us to live out meaningful, rewarding and fulfilling lives.

Camping one night beside a large haystack in a village, high in the highlands of Peru, I chatted for a couple of hours with a gathering of villagers. They sat around and shared their evening relaxation time with me. I began to set up my stove to prepare my dinner. But the people motioned me to stop. It had already been taken care of. Minutes later a young woman walked carefully down the field from the houses, carrying a tray with a bowl of soup and a plate of chicken and rice for my dinner. The woman watched me eat until my plate was empty and she was satisfied that the gringo had enjoyed her cooking. People who invited me into their homes often worried that I would not be able to eat ‘their’ kind of food. But an enjoyment and appreciation of food brought us closer together; it was something we could share and enjoy together whatever linguistic and cultural barriers stood between us. The villagers appreciated the concept of my journey, of adventure and wanderlust and seeing the world while I was young. They offered their support, asking what they could do to help. I told them that they were already helping me so much, as evenings like those made it all worthwhile. To feel at ease and welcome when you are far from home is one of the sweetest feelings of travelling.

Generosity, openness and trust were evident wherever I travelled. Perhaps I was exposed to these traits more often than in a normal life because of how I was travelling. I was always a novelty, I was young and broke and wandering free. I was potentially vulnerable, but I forced myself to be open and trusting and to smile a lot and it was reciprocated in waves. Strangers inviting me to stay and rest in their homes. Cars stopping to hand me an orange or a bottle of water. Villages in Africa permitting me to stay in the chief’s hut. People phoning radio stations to offer me their own bikes to replace my dying one. Schoolchildren baking me a birthday cake. A family lending me their home for a week while they were on holiday. The Yakut people in Russia whisking me in out of the cold. Cars on five continents beeping their support and encouragement. Thousands of people allowing me to fill my water bottles at their home or shop or village well. All the people who smiled and shared a joke and made me feel that I was not far from home, but actually at home in the world. Don’t believe what you see on the TV: the world really is a good place. A good place to set outrageous goals, to achieve them, and to make the very most out of life.

Finally: Simplify your life.
Slash away all that is superfluous. Get rid of everything –material possessions, emotional ties, time commitments, resentments– everything that does not add happiness to your life or the lives of others. Walk away from all that constrains and constricts you. Simplify your life and you will benefit.

THE END (or just the beginning?)

If you enjoyed this chapter you can read the others here.
Or solve all your Christmas shopping hassles with one swipe of the credit card by buying copies for all your friends, families and co-workers here!

Book give away: Ten Lessons from the Road – chapter 9

Al Humphreys — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 09:21:10 +0000

Ten Lessons from the Road has ten chapters, each one short, sweet and ideal for a blog post. I’m reproducing them here, one each month, and I hope you enjoy them.

9 – Shed a load. Hit the road. Save the Earth, save yourself.

Are you fit enough?
If not, why don’t you do something about it?

I am no bronzed and muscled gym god. I suspect that you are not one either. That is not what this chapter is about. It is about being healthy, increasing your self-respect and enabling you to perform better in every aspect of your life.

I am no athletic superstar. I was never in any sports teams at school. I realised, sadly young, that I was never going to play for Leeds United. In Los Angeles I nearly lost an arm wrestle to a 50-year-old woman. But by the end of my journey I was riding for more hours a day than cyclists do during the Tour de France. I could eat as much food as I wanted to, and I would not get fat, and I could sing at the top of my lungs as I rode smoothly and efficiently up Alpine mountain passes. It felt good.
I felt tired but satisfied at day’s end. I am not advocating an obsessive fitness regime, nor any fitness regime at all, actually. Rather, I encourage everybody to remember the benefits a healthy lifestyle can bring.

“Anima sana in corpore sano” – “A healthy mind in a healthy body.”

The ride had been a powerful learning experience for me. I had much to reflect on. I hoped not to lapse back into the sedentary life of our rich world, where even children do virtually no exercise and are prevented from taking risks. We drive everywhere, we eat crap food, we slouch indoors and we forget that doing exercise is something that makes you feel good, not bad. We eat too much, we run too little.
Healthy mind and healthy body: how mad we are to neglect our body, the very machine that carries all our thoughts, emotions, ambitions, dreams, fears and even our life itself. And yet we still expect to live smoothly, healthily and happily to a ripe old age.

Are you fit enough?
I am lucky. I am healthy, I’m not sick or injured. I live in a country with hospitals and clean water. Things are on my side. But I also do what I can to keep things that way. I eat pretty healthily. I like eating, and I eat a lot, but I don’t eat vastly more calories than I use. I like getting outside and running around and – when it’s raining and cold and I really don’t want to do it – I understand that it’s good for me so I just do it anyway.

Why don’t you do something about it?
It’s not easy to drag myself out of bed at 6am to run or swim or go to the gym before work. Every so often my weak side wins and I just roll over and go back to sleep, but usually I manage to beat the sleep demons, get out of bed, splash cold water on my face, and head out to do some exercise. And I never, ever regret it once I’ve done it. Never.

“Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.” – Plato

I had overestimated the physical side of the expedition. My body had gradually strengthened and hardened to meet the challenges of the road. It was a real thrill to have become so fit. To ride 100 miles a day, spending eight hours in the saddle on a laden bike over demanding terrain and to be able to wake the next morning and do it all again, and again, and again was something I was very grateful for. We greatly underestimate our bodies. People I met used to say to me, “I could never ride that far.” For most people that was nonsense. I am no sporting superstar.

“A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.” – A. A. Milne

Far less than half the adult population of Britain does what the government recommends to be the minimum level of physical activity required for good health (and they include walking to the shops in their criteria!). If that applies to you, do yourself a favour. Even if you don’t want to play a sport, have no desire to run a marathon, and do not feel the need to test your physical limits until you throw up, just do something for your health’s sake.
Go for a walk, and promise yourself that you will stick at it for a couple of months.

Alex Vero was a 16-stone obese documentary filmmaker. He decided to turn his life around and see how far his fitness could progress in a two-year period – with the ultimate goal of attempting to qualify for the Beijing Olympic Games! He didn’t make the Games, but he did manage to make TIME magazine and revitalize his life.

Push through the pain and the stiffness and the embarrassment and the reluctance and, after a while, you’ll begin to feel better for exercising. You’ll start to lose those wobbly bits, both physical and mental. You’ll have more energy, more enthusiasm for life.
Keep going a bit longer and you’ll miss exercise when you don’t do it. It’s not always easy. When rain and wind rattled my tent in some soggy, grey dawn the last thing I wanted to do was get up and ride my bike for eight hours. Back home, I sometimes regret days when I couldn’t be bothered to go for a run. But I never regret it once I’ve been. Being fit feels good.

“Those who do not find time for exercise will have to find time for illness.” – Earl of Derby

If you enjoyed this chapter you can read the others here.

Book give away: Ten Lessons from the Road – chapter 8

Al Humphreys — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:16:52 +0000

8 – THINK LIKE A GOLDFISH

What is the next minute step you need to take to edge you towards your goal?

Does your outrageous goal appear like a tiny dot on a distant horizon? Worse still, perhaps it is not even in sight – hidden far beyond the horizon, over hostile mountains and unimaginable rivers. This is not a time to be discouraged. Nor is it a time for thoughtful reflection and introspection. It is time to disengage your brain.
If goldfish do indeed have but a 3-second memory, they would have no difficulties here. For all we need to do in order to reach our far-off goal is just to keep moving. Certainly it may take a long time, and the way will be arduous. But if we can ignore all that, it is actually very simple to take just one small step.

Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
– Henry Ford

The morning I began riding from Patagonia to Alaska, I found it even harder than usual to get out of my sleeping bag. How do you persuade yourself to leave a nice warm sleeping bag and begin cycling, when 17,848 kilometres lie between you and your destination? From Ushuaia, the world’s southernmost city, to Prudhoe Bay, on the shore of the Arctic Ocean in northern Alaska. Staying in bed seemed a far more attractive option.
All the riding I had done counted for nothing now. I was back at the beginning, a brand new start at the bottom of a continental landmass, whose top was one third of the circumference of the globe away. I was intimidated by the road ahead. The old self-doubt rose through me. But I was going to enjoy this ride up the Americas. I was determined. I climbed onto my bike and began to pedal, away from one sea towards another distant one. Come on, Al, let’s go have some fun! Just ride your bike for a day. That’s all you need to think about. A fun day ride. An easy day ride. String those day rides together, but don’t think about any more than each single, precious day.
I took the first pedal strokes of millions, turning up the crunching dirt track through the lichen-covered forest, away from the sea, back into Ushuaia and out the other side. It was mid-February. I hoped to reach Alaska by the end of summer next year. My ride up the Americas was underway.

Eighteen months later I arrived in Prudhoe Bay, on the northern shore of Alaska. I was amazed to have made it. Reflecting back I thought about my map. All the red lines of roads and yellow blobs of towns had been transformed in my mind. They were now real memories for me, fleshed out and brought to life by hundreds and hundreds of day trips. If you ride enough day trips, you can make it round the world.

What is the next tiny step you need to take to edge you towards your goal?
I am currently working towards an expedition in Antarctica, skiing all the way to the South Pole. Logistically it is a larger project than anything I have done before. The budget, the equipment, the strategy: there is so much to do. But first, all my current steps are directed towards finding sponsors.

Though the way is full of perils, and the goal far out of sight, there is no road to which there is no end: do not despair.
– Hafiz

Things were looking good. I had set my goal. I had taken steps to begin it. I had not quit when times were hard, and I was still going. I had got through some bad times and had many more good times. But that did not mean I had the job nailed. I still had so, so far to go. And when I thought about the end it seemed so far away, so unattainable, that I would sometimes grow really discouraged.

Although we need to think big and bold in coming up with our goals, and have the tenacity to back ourselves to begin them, it’s not a good idea to think too often about the far-off destination. I found the journey to be far more manageable if I adopted the memory span of a goldfish, thinking only about the next minute step I needed to take to keep on moving in the direction of my ultimate destination. If we only think as far ahead as the next faltering step, every journey is manageable.

Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life. People in industries are all encouraged to continually think of new, small improvements that can be made. Little by little this leads to great success.

You are capable of so much more than you imagine. You have within your grasp virtually whatever target you set your sights on. To get there may not be easy. It may take your whole life, but if you are sufficiently determined, patient, bold and imaginative, you can reach it. If you think small, you need not grow disheartened. Act only on the next tiny step ahead of you. And if even that appears too large, then figure out how to break it down smaller still. Walk on through the rain,
though your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart and you will arrive someday.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short time and time again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
– Theodore Roosevelt

If you enjoyed this chapter you can read the others here.

Here’s a good way to save some time: do all your Christmas shopping in just 2 minutes, and save yourself £10 too!
Buy all three of my books for just £16: that’s a discount of £10!
All books are signed by the author: a nice touch that is always appreciated.
Offer available only in the UK.

Book give away: Ten Lessons from the Road – chapter 7

Al Humphreys — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:12:41 +0000

7 – WHAT DO YOU REALLY WANT?

Is this year important to you?
When did you last think, “What do I really want?”

Is this year important to you? Then use it! Make a New Year’s resolution today. The peak age for running a marathon, something that many people consider vaguely as being on their ‘Things to Do in Life’ list (and if it isn’t on your list, it should be!), is generally acknowledged to be between 30 and 40 years of age.
If you are aged 20 now, and procrastinating signing up for a marathon, each year that you waste is at least 5% of your potential. If you are 30 now, each escaped year is some 10% of your best opportunities gone. Imagine voluntarily agreeing to give up 10% of your lifespan!
If you are over 40 now, do not despair. You may not be able to achieve the best marathon time that you could have run years ago, but you can still run a marathon. And the older you are the greater that achievement will be.

If you were to die right now, how would you feel about your life?
– Fight Club

The years thunder by, the dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.” So I chose to leave everything that I was familiar with, everything that I knew and loved and enjoyed. I turned down a good job offer. I chose to leave my friends, family, girlfriend and country. I decided to let go of everything that makes a life normal, secure and conventionally happy.
Like the movie poster blu-tacked to the wall in my student halls, I chose not to “choose a big television, choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments, choose a starter home, choose sitting on the couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows.” I chose something else.
I was tremendously excited by life and I didn’t think that I would find it where I was. I knew that leaving would be hard, but, like Candide, “I should like to know which is worse, to be raped a hundred times by negro pirates, to have a buttock cut off, to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and flogged in an auto-da-fé, to be dissected, to row in a galley, in short to endure all the miseries through which we have passed, or to remain here doing nothing?”

Is this year important to you?
I worry at times that each year is almost too important to me. I dislike birthdays for their celebration of another year gone. I feel a tremendous pressure to make the most of each year, to make all my days as full and worthwhile as possible.

When did you last think, “What do I really want?”
Returning home from four years on the road, it took me a long time to decide what to do next with my life, how to make the next years as rewarding as the last. So I spent a lot of time thinking about my life and what I want from it.

At the beginning of my journey, I was overwhelmed by its scale. A large part of me would have preferred not to upset the status quo. I had a good life; I was taking a risk by leaving it all behind. But, upon beginning my expedition, I knew that I was doing the right thing. It was what I really wanted to do, despite the obstacles and the fears. I was taking active steps towards achieving what I wanted with my life, and making the most of my days.

How much better to know that we have dared to live our dreams than to live our lives in a lethargy of regret.
– Gilbert E. Kaplan

My mother-in-law and I ran the London Marathon the same year. When I crossed the finish line she was just reaching the halfway point. Whose achievement was the greater? Mine for running it quickly, or hers for completing an event twice as long as mine? My mother-in-law certainly gained more from the experience and, rightly so, has a greater sense of achievement than I do. Only those who have run a marathon can call themselves marathon runners.

The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky

Perhaps you have got more sense than to want to run a marathon. No problem. But we all have our own ‘marathon’. A watershed moment in life. Something that you will use as a marker. My life before ‘x’ and my life after ‘x’. Something we would love to accomplish, something difficult (that, at times, will seem to be too difficult). Remember, failing is acceptable. It is looking back with regrets that is not.

The time to act is now. Sign up now for a marathon, a half marathon, a 10k, a fun run. You’ll never put your trainers on and get fit if you don’t. Join a Spanish class. Learn how to use your camera properly. Quit your job and do something you love. Do something you care about. Do something to add value to the planet.
Every year is a significant percentage of all your time that remains on this spectacular place we call Earth and home. The older you become the greater that percentage is. The younger you are the more lasting your change can be. So, whatever your age, whatever your personal marathon: Act Now. Put down this book and take one step towards making the most of this year.

Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.
– Stephen Vincent Benet

If you enjoyed this chapter you can read the others here.

Book give away: Ten Lessons from the Road – chapter 6

Al Humphreys — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:10:28 +0000

6 – BE BRUTALLY HONEST WITH YOURSELF

There are two types of people in this world; people who find excuses, and people who find ways through, round, and over their obstacles.
– anonymous

How common it is to hear excuses. Tales of bad luck, injustice, foiled plans, all the fault of somebody else. How rare to hear someone say, “I failed. I was not good enough. I will start again and do better next time.”
It is hard to accept you have done badly or made mistakes.
I am always happy to absolve myself of responsibility and blame somebody else.
But I am learning, slowly, that in order to remain clear-sighted about what I am trying to achieve, it is helpful to be honest and self-aware. I am learning not to believe my own excuses.

My journey round the world was, most of the time, a solo activity. My success or failure did not particularly impact on anybody else. Alone, I became extremely self-aware, very conscious of my moods and my subconscious feelings. I knew my physical capacity and my mental strengths and weaknesses. I knew that my body could hold out longer than my mind could. And so my expedition became one fought out, more and more, within my own head. Curiously, my ride around the world was likely to be determined by the journeys inside my mind.

I was only too eager to blame things on anything but my own shortcomings, However, the long, slow quiet miles allowed much time for introspection. Time to whittle away the excuses and to allow the open sore to heal. Time to acknowledge my limitations and to feel stronger for having done that. Paradoxically, perhaps, if you are willing to admit your weaknesses to yourself, they stop being weaknesses.

If you enjoyed this chapter you can read the others here.