By: Lisa Slagle

I finally bought my very own snowmobile. It’s an old M7 from 2005 with a cracked y-pipe, but I don’t care— to me it’s perfect.

My little, green sled just opened up a whole new world of Montana backcountry, and now I can access different, steeper mountains than I have been able hike to for the last few years. I have so much more to snowboard now thanks to my trusty ol’ M7!

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately trying to act like I fit in with the snowmobile community. While I’ve been a backcountry snowboarder for 7 years now, I have never owned my own sled, and I realized this week that the culture of snowmobiling is a beast of its own.

Being a newbie in sled culture actually refreshed my entire perspective on branding.

It's Sunday night, and I'm curled up on my couch with my Golden Retriever, tired and happy from a terrific weekend. The past few days were filled with friends, home-cooked meals, bikes, cold hands, and snow. Winter is my favorite, and the pre-season excitement this year is as strong as it has ever been. That ski bum inside my brain is getting louder, spinning off my thoughts and handplanting on my concentration. I think this is happening to most of the Flathead Valley right now. 

I'm going to be completely candid right now-- it's hard to be an adult during times like these. I, like everyone else around here, would rather wax my snowboard and start searching for powder lines than sit in a confined space in front of a computer all day. I'll admit that, right here, in writing. But I love my job, and I love my clients, so the screen time is worth it. This annual battle between my inner ski bum and businesswoman has left me thinking a  lot about the definition of success and why we do the things we do, like own businesses and work our faces off.

So... I'm gonna get all kinds of existential on you on this quiet Sunday night. 

In Our Modern World, What Does It Mean to be Successful?