See the Croatian translation below.
People are asking me why I am riding a motorcycle when I am not young anymore. It is dangerous they say. You can get killed. They are also asking me why I love sailing when it is so boring. Why I love ham radio when there is no action or excitement? Why I like skiing when I can break my neck … to all that I am saying:
In any duel one should win and another one should loose. The one who wins – celebrate and the one who loose is miserable. Someone enjoys watching someone else’s misery (as for example while I was skiing a snowboarder knocked me down and almost ripped my legs off, one person enjoyed watching me suffer and was smiling all the time), and someone does not enjoy watching anyone’s misery.
All the winnings in a duel are based on a deception – based on “How to deceive an opponent”. This is how you win in sports and in business.
At a time I was practicing karate, I was able to beat people who were bigger and stronger than me, not because I was better, because I knew more tricks. When I was playing a table tennis, I would spin a ball in one direction while making a fake move for the opponent to think the ball is going to another direction, so the ball would go out of the table and I would win. In soccer, if you catch the opponent on a wrong foot (if the person thinks you will go left and you go right), you are going to score. Boxer can also make a fake move and the opponent will be knocked out. In essence, to be a good athlete (and a good business man), you have to be a good cheater.
Have you seen what differentiate a salesman who is selling the same things as some other salesman? What can you get from the fact where many people are selling the same thing and only one is successful? They all are providing the same facts, but only one is winning. What this is telling you?
The one who challenges other people behaves the same in sport, business or at home. At work, they will try to find weakness in his colleagues to elevate themselves – “to win”, when among friends they will always try to be at best and at home they will try to humiliate their partner. They will always try to prove their value by measuring it with the money or the size of their property.
In essence, the one who challenges another person (or likes to watch it passively on a television) has different character then the one who loves to challenge a nature. Who is better of these two? – it is up to you to find out for yourself.Those who like to challenge a nature; they know the nature cannot be beaten. They know that they are only challenging themselves. When dealing with the nature, winning is not a goal. The goal is to stay alive.
If you are in the middle of the storm while sailing on the sailing boat and if the wind is carrying you to the rock, you know that you cannot stop the wind, but you know that you can change the angle of the sail and go to another direction. The challenge is to find a harmony with a boat, wind and waves. The challenge is to coexist with the wind and waves and to use the wind in your advantage to take you wherever you want to go – not where the wind is blowing, but where YOU want to go.
If the wind is carrying you to the rock and you don’t know what to do, you would probably curse a wind, the sea and every living thing. You would probably say, “Who in a right mind enjoys this?”
The point that I am trying to make is that it does not matter how unpredictable the nature is, you can always survive if you know your thing. Once you survive, you are going to respect yourself even more because you have not fallen.
The goal in duel with another person is – victory. The goal in a duel with the nature is to stay on your own feet – not a victory. This is the main difference between these two.
The nature is cruel when you’re losing, because when you lose, you lose everything (sometimes you can lose your life). Nature will take you without mercy. When losing in a challenge with another person, there is always someone in between who has a power to stop a boxing match or will stop soccer game – if it goes out of hand.
When you are on a vessel between two hurricanes in the South Pacific between New Zealand and Chile, when you see the power of the sea, where waves are in size of four story house, when the boat is rocking like a nutshell, when a little mistake can cost lives – a victory is to stay alive. You can stay alive only if you understand yourself, your tools and the nature. When you make it through the eye of a needle, you know you won, and your winning price is that you become a better person. You are better because you realized how small you are. If you knock down some other person, you did not become a better person. It is a false success. Success is not to throw someone in their knees. A true success is to help someone to get on their feet. This philosophy reflects in choices we make, jobs we choose or people that we choose to hang width. Those people are easy to love and hard to lose.
Going back to the beginning of the story … when skiing there is a chance to break my neck, but if I know the terrain and skiing technique, the probability is smaller. It’s just a probability – nothing else. There is still a chance to break my neck, but the chance is significantly smaller if I know my thing. When I operate ham radio station, the success is to catch a long distant connection (DX), since the ionosphere is constantly changing and the propagation are changing along with it. Success is to squeeze all the knowledge about the atmosphere, electronics, telecommunications, radio transceiver, transmitting antenna – to squeeze everything in a single moment where I am able to hear someone from the other side of the globe, which no one else can and when that person answers my call.
And finally, although driving a motorcycle is dangerous because, after all, there are only two wheels touching the ground, which are very unstable and in the event of an accident there is no metal cage around to protect you, but despite that if you know yourself, the road and the engine in the same way to know the sea and the wind you are still enjoying a motorcycle ride.
The nature is unpredictable, but honest and consistent. Although it is sometimes dangerous, we all know the rules of the game and we all know that these rules are not going to change ever. You always know what you are dealing width and in entire challenging process, we all are becoming better people. It’s not like in soccer game where the rules are changing at any time. At the first half the one can get a yellow card and in the second half for the same thing the one can get nothing.
However, I know that I am doing the right thing as I see people are coming to me just because they are enjoying my company and not because they need a favour from me.
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CROATIAN TRANSLATION
Pitaju me ljudi zašto vozim motor pod stare dane kada je to tako opasno, zašto volim jedrenje kada je to tako dosadno, zašto volim radio amaterizam kada tu nema nikakve akcije niti uzbuđenja, zašto skijam, kada mogu slomiti vrat, a ja kažem …Postoje dvije vrste ljudi, oni koji vole odmjeravati snagu s drugim čovjekom i oni koji vole odmjeravati snagu s prirodom. Po meni nije nikakav izazov pobijediti drugog čovjeka. U vrijeme kada sam trenirao karate, pobjeđivao sam ljude koji su bili veći i jači od mene samo zato što sam znao više trikova, ne zato što sam bio bolji. U nogometu je isto tako dovoljno prevariti protivnika tako da ga se uhvati na lijevoj nozi da ovaj misli da ćes desno, a ti odeš lijevo, pa zabiješ gol. Nikakva mudrost u tome. Bokser isto tako napravi fintu da protivnik spusti gard i onda ga nokautira. Kada na stolnom tenisu zavrtim lopticu u jednom smjeru, protivnik misli da se loptica vrti u drugom smjeru, pa kada je dotakne lopticu, loptica ode, za njega sasvim nepredvidivo, na drugu stranu i onda izgubi meč. Sve se u biti zasniva na tome kako prevariti protivnika tako da misli da ćeš napraviti jedno, a ti napraviš drugo. To je način kako se pobjeđuje i u sportu i na poslu. U biti, za biti dobar sportaš (i dobar poslovni čovjek), moraš biti dobar prevarant. Netko tko prodaje nešto, mora uvjeriti kupca da kupi, na isti način kako nogometaš gleda kako će ostvariti svoj cilj, kako će zaobići braniča i zabiti gol.
Onaj koji voli odmjeravati snage s drugim čovjekom (ili to voli gledati pasivno na televiziji) je karakterno drugačiji od onoga koji voli odmjeravati snage s prirodom. U bilo kojem duelu s drugim čovjekom, jedan je pobjednik, a jedan je gubitnik. Onaj koji je pobjedio – slavi, a onaj koji je izgubio je u mizeriji i povrijeđen. Netko uživa gledati nečiju tuđu mizeriju i naslađivati se tome (kao recimo jedan koji je uživao kada sam pao na skijanju kada se neki snowboarder zaljepio u mene i skoro mi otkinuo noge … smješak mu nije silazio s lica cijelo vrijeme), a netko to ne voli. Tako kako se ponašaju u sportu, tako se ponašaju i kod kuće i na poslu. Na poslu će nalaziti mane kolegama da bi sebe uzdigli, “da bi pobijedili”, doma će ponižavati i nalaziti mane partneru, u društvu će se kočoperiti da su najbolji, a mjerilo za sve im je novac ili veličina posjeda.
S druge strane, onaj koji voli odmjeravati snagu s prirodom, zna da ne može pobijediti prirodu i zna da u stvari odmjerava snagu sam sa sobom. Ako jedrim u jedrilici u sred oluje i vjetar me nosi na hridinu, ja znam da ne mogu zaustaviti vjetar i da ne mogu pobijediti prirodu, ali mogu promijeniti nagib jedra i odjedriti u drugom smijeru. Izazov je naći suživot s vjetrom i valovima, iskoristiti vjetar da te vodi u smjeru u kojem ti hočeš, a ne u smjeru u kojem vjetar puše. Onaj koji ne poznaje prirodu i koji ne poznaje jedrilicu će proklinjati i vjetar i more i sve živo kada se nasuče na hridinu. Reći će: “pa tko normalan uživa u ovome”. Taj ne razumije da ako poznaješ prirodu, ma kako nepredvidiva bila, ako poznaješ jedrilicu i tehniku jedrenja, da dobiješ percepciju kao da su ukrotio vjetar i more i tek tada možeš uživati u prirodi. Tek tada možeš početi poštivati sam sebe, jer nisi pao.
Cilj u duelu s drugim čovjekom je pobjeda, a cilj u duelu s prirodom je – ostati na nogama. Priroda je okrutna kada gubiš, jer kada gubiš, gubiš sve (ponekad i život) i tu nama milosti. Nema sudca koji bi zaustavio bokserski meč ili koji bi svirao faul u nogometnoj utakmici. Kada te love dva uragana na juznom pacifiku izmedju Novog Zealanda i Čilea i kada vidis snagu mora, gdje je val veličine četverokatnice, i kada se brod ljulja kao orahova ljuska, kada te samo jedna mala neopreznost može koštati života – pobjeda je ostati živ. A ostaje se živ samo tako da upoznaš prirodu i njene zakone, pa kada se provučeš kroz iglene uši, znaš da si pobjedio, a pobjedio si tako da si postao bolji čovjek, a bolji si tako što si shvatio koliko si mali. Ako nokautiraš nekoga, nisi postao bolji čovjek. To je lažni uspjeh. Nije uspjeh baciti nekoga na koljena. Pravi uspjeh je pomoći nekome da stane na noge. Ovakva filozofija se odražava i na poslove koje biramo i na ljude s kojima želimo provoditi vrijeme. Takve je ljude lako zavoljeti i teško izgubiti.
I da se vratimo na početak priče, kada skijaš, možeš slomiti vrat, ali ako dobro poznaješ tehniku i teren, vjerojatnost da slomiš vrat je manja. Radi se samo o vjerojatnosti. Ništa drugo. I dalje možeš slomiti vrat, ali je barem šansa manja. Kod radio amaterizma, uspjeh je odraditi neku daleku vezu, buduci se ionosfera stalno mijenja, pa se i propagacije mijenjaju zajedno s time. Uspjeh je sabiti svo znanje koje imaš – o atmosferi, o elektronici, o telekomunikacijama, o radio stanici, o anteni – u jedan jedini trenutak kada čuješ nekoga s drugog kraja žemaljske kugle, kojeg nitko drugi nije mogao čuti, a koji tebe čuje. I na kraju, iako je vožnja motorom opasna, jer na kraju krajeva ipak se radi o samo dva kotača koji dodiruju zemlju, koja su vrlo nestabilna i u slučaju nezgode nema metala oko tebe kao u autu da te zaštiti, ali usprkos tome uživaš u svemu što ti motor pruža ako poznaješ sebe, motor i cestu na isti način kako poznaješ more i vjetar. Priroda je nepredvidiva, ali poštena, jer ne mijenja svoje zakone. Iako je ponekad opasna, znaš s čime računaš, znaš pravila igre i u cijelom procesu nas izgrađuje u bolje ljude. Nije kao u nogometu gdje ti svaki čas mjenjaju pravila, pa svira faul u prvom poluvremenu, a ne svira faul u drugom poluvremenu za istu stvar.
Ako želite znati da li radite dobro i da li ste izabrali pravi put, pogledajte da li ljudi dolaze k vama iz čista mira i žele biti u vašem društvu. Ako je odgovor pozitivan, znači da iz vas zrači nešto što inspirira druge.