What’s Hotdogging?
When I was a kid growing up in the Poconos, I ran a snow shoveling business to earn some money. The fruits of my back-breaking work were ski lift tickets, cheeseburgers at lunch during ski days, and “hotdogging.”
Amazing Skiing
My old, clunky skis were a $5 purchase at a yard sale, my boots were real ankle-breakers, and my drab green parka was an army surplus job that leaked feathers. It didn’t matter. I was thrilled to spend a lot of days on the mountain. I got really good.
Eventually I started participating in jumps and tricks with fellow skiers, or as we called it, “hotdogging.” Doing flips on skis seems pretty risky. I might crash, and look like a fool, but you’ll never accomplish anything if you’re afraid to look bad trying something.
Hotdogging
Some friends were doing things that were foolish. For instance, some of them would ski off cliffs – fly blind off jumps that were ten, twenty, or thirty feet high. They had no idea what was below the jumps – trees, rocks, or gullies. That was reckless.
Reckless or not, these moves were real crowd pleasers among our group. I thought about working them into my bag of tricks. As I thought about it, I realized that this activity had a lot of applications in life. It’s not the leap that’s dangerous, it’s the landing.
Thinking Backwards
The leap is scary because the landing must follow. Why not plan the landing first? Figure out the landing and then work backward to the leap. With this perspective, the leap becomes the easy part. No one gets hurt in the air.
I started scouting cliffs, and noted where the hazards were. Then I planned my jumps and avoided the dangers. The onlookers didn’t know this. They just thought I was another maniac. My jumps appeared to have unknown dangers, but I was not a daredevil.
So when it comes to financial planning, are you taking unknown, daring, and dangerous risks or are you planning a safe landing ahead of time? If you’d like to talk about skiing, hotdogging, or finances, you can set up a free consultation.