Journey of The white Bear #14: The corridor concept

Before you play the clip above, in the still image, you can see a cameraman just to the left of the rider's back wheel, wearing black shorts and a white shirt with big black circles on it.  That's me in 1989, shooting video of the 2-Hip King of Vert for sponsor Vision Street Wear.  At 1:06 in the clip, Mat Hoffman does a barspin disaster right in front of me.  The way I stumbled into video work is an example of the "corridor concept."

Life Lesson:  When you set a goal and head towards it, other opportunities spring up along the way.

I first heard of the "corridor" or "hallway" concept at a business seminar I went to in about '91.  The speaker was talking about goal setting, which is a big theme in business and success lectures.  But he threw out an idea that I'd never heard before.  He said that when you set a big goal, and start working towards that goal, you will often have great opportunities come out of nowhere.  He compared it to walking down a long hallway in an office building.  Your big goal is the door at the very end of the hallway.  But as you work towards your goal, walking down that hallway, a door will open on the side and present you with an opportunity.

When that happens, you have to decide if you should say "no" to that opportunity, and keep working towards the original goal, or take the opportunity.  The speaker said that this happens continually to people who set goals and work hard toward them.  Sometimes the door that opens, the opportunity, is just a minor distraction and you need to keep going towards your goal.  Other times the opportunity may be much greater than your original goal.  In each case, you have to decide which way to go.

My big goal when I started seriously getting into BMX freestyle in Idaho was to become a pro freestyler, get a factory sponsor, go on tour across the country, and meet lots of girls.  Instead, my family moved to San Jose, California, and I started a zine.  My goal in self-piblishing my zine was to meet and ride with the great riders in the San Francisco Bay Area.  I soon achieved that goal, and focused again on becoming a pro freestyler.  But I liked doing my zine, and kept at it.

Several months later, I got a call from Andy Jenkins, the editor or FREESTYLIN' magazine, asking me to write an article about a contest for them.  A door opened out of nowhere, and I took that opportunity.  Then they offered me a job at Wizard Publications, the publisher of BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines.  Another door opened as I walked down the corridor.  But I kept working towards being a pro freestyler practicing two or three hours nearly every night.  Then I got laid off at the magazines.  I was still a long way from being a pro caliber rider, but I found a factory sponsorship with Raleigh.   I got free bikes for a year, but didn't get paid and we didn't tour.

 I found a job at the American Freestyle Association, editing their newsletter.  A new job, and I kept riding to improve my abilities.  One day, after working a few months, Bob Morales, my boss, walked in and asked me if I wanted to produce a TV commercial for the upcoming contest in Austin, Texas.  I had absolutely no idea how to produce a TV commercial.  Another door opened up along the corridor, and I took the opportunity.  I produced the commercial, with tons of help from the people at Unreel Productions, the video company owned by Vision Street Wear. I went on to produce six contest videos for the AFA that year, and spent a lot of time at Unreel.  In December of that year, Unreel offered me a job.  Another door opened and I took the opportunity.  a couple years later, I was the Unreel staff cameraman, and I wound up on the ramp in the video clip above.

I never became a pro freestyler.  But I did have a factory sponsor for a year, even though it wasn't a company that focused on BMX.  I also wound up going on a summer tour for three weeks with Vision skateboarders Buck Smith, Mike Crum, Chris Gentry, and Mark Oblow.  When Vision got into business trouble, another door opened, and I wound up working on TV shows.  I worked on over 300 individual episodes of a dozen different TV shows in the 90's.  I produced my own bike video, which led to the opportunity to produce and edit the first two videos for S&M Bikes.

As a kid in Idaho, I had what seemed like a ridiculous dream of becoming a pro BMX freestyler, getting a factory sponsorship, and going on tour.  I didn't achieve that goal of becoming a pro.  But  I did get sponsored, and I did go on a tour, and I met a few women along the way.  More important, because of that initial goal, I had opportunities pop up that went far beyond my initial dream.  That's the corridor concept in action.

Sometimes you set a big goal and avoid all distractions to achieve it.  But sometimes even greater opportunities come along on the way to that first goal. Either way, the initial goal and work is worth the effort.

Journey of The White Bear #13: Goal setting works... sometimes

You'd think an old school, has been, BMX guy like me would show some amazing BMX feat as an example of goal setting.  But this amazing move by Kyler Storm sums it up better.  I worked on the crew, I was one of the guys in the black shirts and shorts with the big pads, like those you see in the background.  I saw this happen live.  Kyler spent the night before visualizing this move over and over and over in his head.  I know this because he told me.

Life Lesson: Goal setting works, but not every time

In my four seasons working on the crew of the American Gladiators TV show, I met a wide variety of people with great athletic ability.  But Kyler Storm stands out among them.  He was a good athlete.  But he was also a guy who was really into using goal setting and visualization to achieve an amazing feat.  In his first season on the show, Kyler pulled off this crazy move on our Hang Tough game, where the contestant swings across rows of rings and attempts to get past the gladiator to the opposite platform.

For us working on the show, especially my crew of spotters who actually practiced the games with the contenders, we spent several days working with them.  Most of the contenders, and the Gladiators themselves, trained hard at weight lifting and other athletic pursuits, in order to win the weird games on the show.  But Kyler Storm stood out as a person who took visualization and goal setting to a much greater level.  He told us this as we practiced with him.  I remember him telling me, the year before about trying the flip over the Gladiator like in the clip above.  It wasn't a spontaneous move, he spent a long time visualizing that particular move until he felt he could pull it off.

So in the course of competing on the show, Kyler pulled a couple of the most amazing moves in the whole eight years of the show.  He set very specific goals, he visualized these particular goals over and over and over until he was able to pull them off.  It was a great example of the power of setting a goal and visualizing that goal until it was achieved.

Every human being has the power to set very specific goals, visualize those goals over a period of time, work towards achieving those goals, and ultimately succeed.  But there's another part to goal setting, and that's deciding if your goal is truly worthwhile.  Over the course of my adult life, I've seen entrepreneurs on TV infomercials, and now on the web, talking about how they can help you get rich and live your dreams.  Then these guys take you on a video tour of their huge, but empty, house and garage full of Lamborghinis, Ferraris and other expensive cars.  Those guys have achieved their financial goals.

But, are they better people because they have achieved their goals?  Is the world a better place because they have achieved their goals?  Maybe, maybe not.  It's easy to judge these guys and say they're just materialistic and shallow.  But maybe they're donating to a good cause and just not telling us.  Maybe they're teaching other people new ways to make a decent living and that leads to positive outcomes for a bunch of people. In most cases, those "get rich quick" guys come across pretty materialistic and the world's not a much better place because they have a Lambo for each day of the week.  But they do show us that goal setting can work, like Kyler did for us on the Gladiators set.

Just because some dorky guy makes a fortune in real estate or affiliate marketing, and spends the money on a big house and fast cars to attract women, doesn't mean that goal setting and visualization are bad things.  Each of us can learn these skills practice these skills, and use these skills how we want.  Or we can not use them at all.  We can use them in the ways we think can have a positive impact on those around us and the world, or we can just try to accumulate lots of stuff.

Goal setting, visualizing, and achieving goals are a set of skills.  A big part of that set of skills is stepping back and considering whether that particular goal is really worth achieving.  I've spent much of my life struggling with self esteem and self worth issues, and was afraid to set big goals.  I'm now, finally, starting to set some pretty big goals again, but I'm carefully evaluating whether the goals do some good for more than just myself.  It's hard to achieve a goal if deep down you don't think you deserve it.  Dealing with that and other issues is one part of goal setting.

Goal setting can work.  But it's a skill that you spend a lifetime working on.  Goal setting, whether they're written down, thought out goals, or more intuitive goals, is probably the main thing that sets apart people who achieve a lot from people who cruise through life but don't get or give much out of it.