Kudos Micheal !

[alex4922]

I have watched your show for... a while. I always thought of you as a nice guy, well informed and a great source of info on guns. I forget where I stumbled on your book "Over the edge" but WOW. I have done a few adventurous things in my life, but nowhere near your quest to conquer the challenge of the cocktail napkin.

What your book has really done is to challenge me to get out of my comfort zone. Getting old, I think, is a result of not getting out and doing the things that are hard and exciting.

I would recommend this book to all downrange readers.

You are truly The Dude Micheal.

                                                     Thanks, A 

[Michael Bane]

There's something to be said for having a checkered career...sadly, financial security isn't one of them! LOL!

I used the lessons learned from the OVER THE EDGE experience to basically spin a television career out of thin air. The process works amazingly well...years and years ago I blogged about that process:

http://michaelbane.blogspot.com/2006/12/over-edge-me-looooong-postsorry.html

As I've gotten older I've come to believe that the most important part of the process is the mental jujitsu necessary to accept the desired result as a given...that is, rather than creating an if/then equation — if everything goes as planned, I'm going to do this, whatever this happens to be — you accept the summit as a given and the actual steps to accomplishing the summit are simply strategy and tactics.

There are 2 huge obstacles to this simple process. The first is the belief that "proof" exists in the Real World...this proves that. "Proof" is actually a pretty specific word — the validation of a proposition by application of specified rules, as of induction or deduction, to assumptions, axioms, and sequentially derived conclusions. We use "proof" much more casually, e.g. the fact that I was unable to hit the 1000 yard target today, or yesterday, or the day before, ad nauseum, "proves" that I can never be a 1,000 yard shooter.

Realistically, it does nothing of the sort. The fact that I was unable to hit the 1,000 yard target on Tuesday "proves" only that on Tuesday I was unable to hit the 1,000 target. Nothing more.

Because we overly believe that the universe is trying to tell us something by allowing us to discover these 'proofs," we face the second huge obstacle, the tyranny of intermediate goals. Let's say we do indeed break down a big task into a series of smaller tasks...if we fail at each of the smaller tasks, does it necessarily mean the true goal is unattainable? Absolutely not. But we get confused.

Strength is the ability to live in the present, and living in the present requires the acceptance of chaos. IDuring my brief stretch as a motivational speaker — where, BTW, I was repeatedly told that I had actually accomplished too much, which was "daunting" to other people — I used to teach a concept I called "tabling," as in tabling a discussion until a later date.The way I used tabling was as a mental trick when facing a new summit...I 'm perfectly willing to accept the summit as impossible, but I'm not going to have that discussion (with myself or others). Rather, I'll "table" that argument to a later date. Instead, I'll ask myself that if I was going to do such and such, how might I go about it? What are the necessary strategies that will yield the tactics that would allow me to accomplish such a thing. Of course it's impossible for some guy with no television experience, in fact not the slightest idea of how a television show is created, sold and produced, to launch a television series unlike anything else on teevee...I'll accept that as a given, but rather that wrestle with that argument, I'll just table it and go on to the "fun" stuff, like how might a guy who knew nothing be able to pull that off? Ten years, 5 Cable Emmys, a "Lifetime Achievement Award," 4 Golden Moose Awards, numerous industry awards for excellence in broadcasting and a "Communicator of the Year" award, I'm still here, and it still cracks me up.

Pretty much everything we do for the shows go through this same planning process. Take the potential upcoming African safari...my "summit" was an African safari circa 1952. Obviously, that's an impossible goal, but setting aside that impossibility, if we wanted to do such a thing, how might we do it? We've been chipping away on that for 3 years, and I think we actually have a plan that will work. Now, it's obviously impossible for an old, overweight television guy to do a brutal walking safari in the Kalahari desert. But setting that aside, if I was going to do such a thing, how might I go about getting ready to do it?

LOL!

Glad you enjoyed the book!

Michael B

[twyacht]

Enjoyed the book as well Michael, and I think the Flaming Skull shirt would be very appropriate for an African Safari.

All The Best.

tw

[tombogan03884]

After seeing this post I dug out my copy and started rereading it.
Just finished the part about your little jaunt from Bad Water to Mt Whitney in July.

[Magoo541]

Something registered, "clicked", when I read your blog about OTE.  "If this happens...then this is the next step..." or something to that effect.  We all know that is not true but we count on it everyday.  If the light is green then I am safe to drive through the intersection...

So why did I expect an immediate change in my work life when I finished my Business Degree program?  Dunno... BUT I realized that this is the chaos of which you speak and it is in this type of environment where I have flourished in the past-SO-o I need to do what I've done in the past-as soon as I figure that out.  BUT WAIT!  That is not how it works    Do or do not the choice is mine 

[Sponsor]

[tombogan03884]

Finished it last night.
One question remains.
Do you live with the memory of the "beast at the bars of his cage", or do you find less strenuous ways to go visit him on occasion ?