'ALL I LEARNED ABOUT LIFE I LEARNED FROM SKIING' -Kashish Kalra

Following is an excerpt from the book ' How to Become an Extraordinary Human Being' by Robin Sharma.

I have rekindled my boyhood passion for skiing. My children as well as my brother, who has 

become a huge fan of the sport, are the cause of this - and I cannot thank them enough. I 

had forgotten how it feels to ski down a mountain on a gorgeous sunny day, inhaling the 

crisp, clean air as flakes of powder snow dance by me. As you know if you^ve read The Saint, 

The Surfer & The CEO or any of my books, communing with nature is one of my favorite 

things to do. And I have realized yet again, that communing with nature with two boards 

"strapped" to my feet is a great way to go. My brother actually said that "skiing is a spiritual 

experience". I completely agree: as I ski, I feel at one with the larger world around me and engage in "the flow" that holds me in the present moment. I^m not concerned about any 

worldly issues or any petty thoughts. Instead, as I make my way down the mountain, my sole 

focus is on what^s present before me and the experience I am enjoying. 

I^ve also realized how many life lessons can be understood from skiing. Here are a few that 

have surfaced for me: 

1. We grow on the tough runs. I could spend weeks and months on the simple runs 

where my form is strong and my confidence is high. But, as in life, we only grow 

through the challenges that we are presented with. On the simple runs, there is little 

growth because there is no room to stretch ourselves. We are playing within our 

comfort zones. To advance, we need to have the awareness that the "tougher stuff" 

is what brings us out of our comfort zones and into the areas of growth, learning and 

testing. I^m sure you will agree with me that, in life as well, we evolve as human 

beings when we experience our trials and tribulations. Adversity and challenging 

experiences introduce us to who we truly are and shape our character. They test us 

and cause us to go deep. And in doing so, we expand and become higher versions of our higher visions. 

2. Integrating what you have learned takes time. I am a true believer in the value of coaching. In my own life, I have enlisted a series of coaches for specific areas that I am committed to improving in. For example, I have a nutrition coach as well as an 

exercise coach. I deeply believe that any investment in coaching is money well spent. You learn from the best. You significantly decrease your learning curve. And you see results quickly. In keeping with this philosophy, though I am a relatively strong skier, I have engaged the services of an expert ski instructor. During our lessons, I often find myself overwhelmed and even confused. This is because he is addressing so many areas in need of improvement over a short period of time. For example, in one lesson alone, he coached me to carve more with my outer ski, to shift my weight to the center more regularly, and to improve my form. Trying to focus on so many different things was very difficult for me and moved into a state of overwhelm both during the lesson and shortly afterwards. As the hours of that day and the subsequent day on the hill progressed, something fascinating happened: I noticed 

that with the passage of time, his instructions started to integrate gently. On one run 

I would integrate one of his ideas. I would play with that idea until it felt comfortable. Then I would move to his next idea. It was almost an organic process where his teachings moved into my practice of skiing as I gave it time to become part of who I was, as a skier. I have found that life is a lot like this. When there is a new skill for us to learn, whether this is becoming a leader in a new job or leaning how to open your heart in an intimate relationship, you may be overwhelmed at first by all the new learning and growth that is going on. Our human tendency is to run away from this kind of confusion as it brings stress and uncertainty. However, I encourage you to commit to the process and understand that confusion always gives way to understanding. In other words, if you stay with the process of learning, all the confusion and complexity brought about by the new information you are learning will most certainly fall into a state where you have integrated the new information, 

understand it and - even more importantly - live it as if it was second nature (without 

any of the previous stress, with the feeling of high confidence and with a sense of 

serenity). 

3. There is no better moment than the present one you are experiencing. As I 

suggested above, skiing almost forces me to be fully present to the experience. Our 

human nature is to worry about the past and be consumed by the future. It is very 

difficult for us to be fully engaged in the present. We worry about uncertain careers 

or past difficulties or financial concerns or relationship challenges. We live in a world 

where our minds are full of seemingly endless chatter and we rarely savor the beauty 

of being fully engaged in what we are doing. The great masters all understand one 

thing: to glimpse your greatness, you must be fully focused and deeply centered on 

what you are doing at any given time. This is when you are most alive. When skiing a 

difficult run, if my mind wanders, the mountain teaches me a fast lesson and a fall 

comes swiftly. So I have learned to concentrate on what I am doing and in doing so, 

experience that state that we are all seeking: happiness. 

4. Awareness precedes change. As I wrote in my book Leadership Wisdom From The 

Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: The 8 Rituals of Visionary Leaders, you will never be able to 

improve on a weakness that you do not pay any attention to and are not even aware 

of. The path to mastery of any skill is as follows: we start at a place of unconscious 

incompetence, meaning, we don^t know what we do not know. With a little practice 

and coaching, we then move to a place of conscious incompetence. In other words, 

we begin to pay attention to what we are doing wrong and make some course 

corrections. Yet, at this level we are still at a level of incompetence. As we progress 

and deepen our commitment, we rise to a level of conscious competence. In other 

words, we know what to do and we are generally competent at doing it. The highest 

skill - the level of mastery - is when we become unconsciously competent. In skiing, 

it would be illustrated by behavior where the skier expertly moves down the 

mountain without even giving a thought to what he is doing. This process also 

applies to the journey of life. So many people in our world today do not pay 

attention to their lives. They do not learn from their lives. They are so consumed by 

the little things that they do not have any awareness of what needs to be improved 

and what new choices need to be made. I do not say this with any judgment but 

simply as an observation of what I believe is the truth. Yet, as we commit to 

deepening ourselves (as any good leader does), we begin to move from a level of 

unconscious incompetence in the way we conduct our lives to a way of conscious 

incompetence. We begin to see how we might be mistreating people or not caring 

for our inner worlds or not developing our careers or not making the time to enjoy 

the process of our extraordinary lives. As we continue this inner work and reflection, 

we start to change our behaviors and make higher choices in terms of the way we 

live. We then rise to the level of conscious competence.