Getting Coloradical

I slammed my truck door closed and caught a whiff of myself in the parking lot on my way to work. "I smell bad," I thought, inhaling the remnants of yesterday's campfire and the three days worth of mountain bike dirt stuck to my skin.

I caught my reflection in the window of the Battery621 building on my way up on the ramp to the front door. My trucker hat hid the dried sweat in my hair. Kind of. I had new bruises and dried mud on my not-so-recently shaven, tan legs, and my shirt was wrinkly from being stashed in the back of my truck after a rainstorm. It smelled musky. Gross. Was I wearing mold? As my steps reached the front door, I noticed my muscles were sore from putting down miles and miles of trail around Monrach Pass and Crested Butte, but that one made me happy. It was a great weekend in my favorite part of the world. I smiled.

I don't belong in a city, but here I was on a Monday morning at 6:45am in Denver.
​I made it. I showed up.  That counts, right?

I walked into the office and found Josh, our Colorado Operations Manager, already at his desk with headphones, deep into editing our new demo reel. I've known Josh since high school. He's talented, and I'm happy he is one of the four new members of Wheelie Creative. He gave me a wave as I tossed my backpack down and wandered into the shared kitchen to make coffee for the building. 

I like getting to the Battery621 building early. I like being the first one to make a giant bucket of coffee and empty the industrial dishwashers. I like the way the early morning light looks when it slides across the freshly-mopped concrete floors. I even like scaring the shit out of the janitor when she doesn't expect to see anyone in the kitchen this early. (sorry!) I've been getting up at 4:30am every weekday for the morning commute from either the mountains up I-70 or Fort Collins where I've been staying with my twin sister. I'm learning to become a morning person. So far so good.

This summer has been one for the books. 

• I opened a second branch of my creative agency, Wheelie Creative. Now our HQ is in Whitefish, Montana, and our second branch is in my homeland of Colorado. Something about this growth just feels right, even though I've been working harder than I ever have, and this step of the journey has been much harder than I anticipated.
• I got to hang out with my Colorado crew. I was reminded that I have the best friends a person could ask for. I love my friends. We biked. We camped. We laughed at old jokes. It has been one of the best summers of my life. I didn't realize how much I have missed my core people. I've been stashed away deep in the woods of Montana for five years, and it was good to reconnect with my roots.
• I drank great coffee, got sunburnt at 13,500 feet, and listened to a whole lot of bluegrass. 
• I learned a lot about hiring people I don't know. Because I live in a town with 7,000 people, I have never hired someone I've never met before, sat with on a chairlift, or is a friend of a friend. While passing judgement seems counterintuitive to me, it turns out gut reflexes are part of the hiring process when bringing strangers on board to represent a company I've been building with love since 2009. They won't be strangers for long. I have a habit of bonding with my employees because they're all awesome. I can't help it, and I'm okay with that.

Life is funny, though.
I have never had too much of a plan. It drives my manfriend crazy. I'm good with just loading the truck and seeing what happens. I'll always figure it out. This outlook defines me as either totally nuts or fearlessly unstoppable, although I'm not sure which, and sometimes that line seems blurry. 

I try to bring this fearlessness into my business. I like to have fun, to live lightly, to be thoughtful and bold at the same time. It works for this industry-- it attracts other people who think this way too, and I like that. We work with great people, and I love my work. I get to combine adventure with creativity every single day. Sometimes I can't believe it, but success and failure and life didn't come without hard work. Despite the smile and backwards hat, I'm tactical as hell. 

I got to see some family while I've been home, and I was talking to my little, Norwegian grandmother. She's 88. I asked her for her best life advice, the best she had from that brilliant brain of hers and a lifetime of experience. Here's what she said, not even wordsmithed:

"If you're good at riding your bicycle, then ride your bicycle. And keep riding. Just pedal. And then you will meet people who like to ride their bicycles. And some you'll say hello to and then wave goodbye, and others are worth talking to. So you ask them about what they like to do and how the world is treating them. You ask them what makes them happy. You ask them about their life. And they'll ask you, so you tell them, without getting too personal, of course. Next thing you know, you'll be skating together. And skiing. And swimming! And you'll have a life together with other people you meet doing these things, these adventures. So I suppose, just ride your bicycle."  -my badass grandma

​On it. 
​-Lisa