With the technology available these days, you can start an online business, run it out of your basement, and promote it as if it were something much bigger than it really is. While it may work for some people, it doesn’t work for me. I can’t pretend to be something I’m not even if it means my business doesn’t grow very fast or have a lot of customers. Being myself and being honest is more important than making money so in today’s post, you get to learn a lot more about me and how I operate.
Me – The ultimate dorky cyclist
I am not you or anyone else, and I don’t want to be. I am me with all the weird, quirky and dorky that goes along with it.
I’m a husband and a father
Cycling is my passion.
My core values are Honesty, Integrity, and Respect. I try to live by these each and every day.
I’m a lefty and had to suffer in elementary school with those stupid right handed desks. But us lefties will prevail.
The highlight of my week is when my son and I ride to school on the tag-a-long.
If offered a luxury car or a bike, any bike, I’d take the bike every time.
My temper has been known to get the best of me. But sometimes it’s nice to have that temper to get me fired up.
My dream is to race the Tour Divide.
I don’t fit into a mold.
My friends nicknamed me dorkboy and our riding group is team “I’m With Stupid”. Obviously, it had nothing to do with our crazy antics and my being a complete goofball.
I obsess over the small stuff trying to get it just right.
Sarcasm is my friend
I have lots of ideas, with most of them being bad. But every once in a while, one of them will make sense.
I believe hard work pays off.
How does this affect Pale Spruce?
At this point, I am Pale Spruce and Pale Spruce is me. You should know who is behind the blog posts, the products, and the tweets.
We all know about large corporations and small businesses. But Pale Spruce is in another class – the micro business. It’s a tiny side business that is struggling to get started. It has support from my family and I want to grow it. My wife helps me with product descriptions and filtering out all of the bad ideas. My mom helps by doing all of the sewing. My kids help by testing and being guinea pigs for new ideas.
As this journey that is Pale Spruce unfolds, you can expect to see a wide range of topics. It’s already covered bikepacking, running, and paracord. Cycling will always be involved, but who knows what other topics are around the next corner. You won’t find me pushing products hoping for sales. No, I will only support and discuss items that I use myself and believe in. Obviously, the goal is to make the business profitable, but being true to myself will always be first.
My Core Values
Honesty, Integrity, and Respect are how I live my life and how I run my company.
With my kids, I always tell them that there are lots of mistakes they can make and there are lots of things they can do wrong. But there is one thing they absolutely cannot do and that is to lie. Being honest in everything you do is always the better way. I wish more people and especially more companies would live by this. I will always uphold my word and will never do anything to compromise that.
Aaron Tippin’s song “You’ve Got to Stand for Something” says it best – “Whatever you do today, you’ll have to sleep with tonight”.
Master of None
My interests have always been varied and I’ve never been a master of one topic.
With cycling, I’m a bikepacking, rigid singlespeed, roadie, full suspension guy. Mountain biking is my favorite type of riding, but I end up riding more on the road these days.
At my IT job, I’m the data warehouse, Java, Microsoft .Net guy. It’s not a normal list of skills and I’m certainly not the best at any of them. But when combined, I have the ability to solve a variety of problems and help in a lot of ways.
In high school, I hung out with people from all kinds of groups. In classes it was the nerds. After school is was wrestling and hanging out with the jocks. On the weekend, it was taking out my cheerleader girlfriend (nothing against cheerleaders, but that’s not my style and it’s a good thing she dumped me).
My dreams – go big or go home
Above all, I want to be a good husband and father. I can live with failure in business because family is more important.
My dreams tend to be big and way out there. For motivation, I have a few songs that help me. One of them is Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”. Yes, I have just referenced Eminem and Aaron Tippin in the same post, but that is the range of music that I listen to. The opening lines are a great way to get you moving towards a dream:
“Look, if you had, one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted, one moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?”
Racing the Tour Divide is my ultimate biking dream. I have had the Tour Divide bug for the last 2 years and I drive my wife crazy talking about it. When riding, my thoughts almost always come back to thinking about how I would pack for the Divide, or what singlespeed gear would be best, or the incredible scenery that is along the route.
Owning my own company has been a dream of mine since I was a kid working for my dad. I’m now living this dream. It has been one of the most exciting yet demanding years of my life. So far, it hasn’t become what I want it to be, but big dreams require big effort.
I’m an odd duck but I’ll always be honest
There you have it. It’s probably more information about me than you ever wanted.
Am I weird? Oh yeah. Do I try to be anything I’m not? Nope. What you see is what you get with me. Will I be upfront and honest in everything I do? Absolutely.
