100 Pedals

Significant Outcomes in the Face of Adversity

## Five simple steps to creating change in your life

December 2, 2025 by Dave Cooke Leave a Comment

When you find yourself at that place where you are not celebrating the outcomes you desire in your life, you have two choices — do something or do nothing. Ultimately the situation will not change until you decide it must. The easy part is knowing what to do; the hard part is making the commitment.

Rather than getting all hung up on an overworked action plan, here are five steps you can take to change your future outcomes:

1. Declare: “I am not satisfied with where I am.”
2. Inquire: “What can I do differently?” or “What can I do better?”
3. Explore: “How will this change the outcome I am experiencing?”
4. Confirm: “This is what I need to do!”
5. Act: “I will…” Make the commitment, challenge yourself, do the work!

Whatever the situation, there is a solution. Everything begins with embracing personal responsibility for the outcomes in your life. Once you openly, honestly, and receptively explore the options you will find the answer. Armed with the solution, the only step remaining is taking action and making it happen.

The answer is usually quite obvious. What holds us back is not the solution; it is the work, the risk, and the task of implementation. Have the courage to trust your path and embrace the challenge. Successful and incredible outcomes to change are just around the corner.

On Sunday, December 1, I challenged myself to step up and make some changes in my life. This challenge reflects behaviors and activities that I were once part of my life routine and that I had fallen out of. I have challenged myself to actively focus on making the necessary changes in my life to get back into those routines for the next 100Days. I will be sharing comments from my daily experiences on my 100Day Challenge Facebook Group. Please join me and follow along with my experiences and thoughts on this journey.

Filed Under: Make A Commitment, The Four Wheels of Personal Leadership Tagged With: change, change behaviors, commitment, creating change, embracing change, focus, personal responsibility, The 100Day Challenge

## I hate being stuck…

October 21, 2025 by Dave Cooke Leave a Comment

What does stuck look like to you?

I know we have all been there. Some, I am certain are sitting there right now. Stuck.

When I think of stuck, I think back to a time in college when a friend of mine was into taking his four wheel drive truck out and getting it covered in mud. He was so ecstatic about this truck. He would take it out to the nastiest, muddiest, dirtiest places and drive through without missing step. Until….

Until the day he took me along. Not believing it was possible to drive wildly through the mud with any vehicle, he just had to show me how cool it was to go four wheeling.

Needless to say, we got stuck. Did we ever. All I remember is that truck getting buried so deep in the mud that we had to climb out of that cab, step into the thickest, deepest, nastiest, shoe grabbing mud ever. Worse than that, we had to walk back to school to get help towing the truck out.

That mud-strong, all powerful, truck got stuck. It was going nowhere and there was not one ounce of creative energy that was going to get that truck out of that spot.

That is stuck. You know you are stuck when a vehicle designed to conquer everything mud related, gets swallowed up by the very thing it is expected to be invincible over.

We all know what stuck feels like. That feeling like we are in a quagmire, a swamp, a mud hole and there is no way to simply flip a gear and pull ourselves out.

Sometimes, when you find yourself stuck, you simply need to walk away. Spinning your wheels, pushing forward without any progress, and staying determined to drive through sometimes isn’t the answer.

This does not mean give up. It merely means you may have to find, discover or create another path. Finding another way to your objective, creating a new course, or stepping back completely to rethink the entire situation is often very productive.

When you find yourself stuck, in the mud, knee deep in garbage, I would encourage you to to completely detach emotionally and physically from the situation. Allow your mind and your body to relax, regroup, and rethink. Trust the mission you have created for yourself, allow yourself to believe that there may be a better way, and create an environment that enables you to peacefully discover it.

Knowing when to grind it out and when to regroup is the difference between will and wisdom. Sometimes a little wisdom is all you need to get out of the mud.

Filed Under: featured, Managing Adversity, Uncategorized Tagged With: being creative, commitment, detachment, four wheeling, getting creative, Managing Adversity, perseverance

## Maintaining momentum over the forces working against you!

October 7, 2025 by Dave Cooke Leave a Comment

“The directions of your actions when you find yourself in a hole define whether you are digging in or climbing out.”

Things do not always go in the direction we desire. We have good days and bad times. Sometimes the wind is at our back. Other times the climb up the hill is long, hard, and challenging.

If you are like me, I can feel when a slump threatens. I can choose to let the slump take me over and set me back; or, I can find a way to keep moving.

The 4th Wheel of Personal Leadership is all about making a commitment. Making a commitment is finding a way to keep moving no matter the situation. There is nothing more disruptive than lost momentum. Once that forward inertia is lost, recovery is more painful that working through the challenge in the first place.

Avoid letting setbacks create another adversity. Keep moving no matter what.

I have a good friend, Kristi Trimmer, who has taken her passion for running and inspiring other to an entirely new level with her Girl on the Run campaign. She is six months into a continuous road trip and adventure that started in Phoenix and has taken her to the coasts of California and Oregon, to Vancouver, Chicago, New York, Virginia, and Washington DC, and more! Along the way, she has been connecting with old friends, making new connections, and celebrating success by completing several half-marathons.

Despite having her car broken into, much of her running gear stolen, and suffering a serious achilles injury, she has not missed one single, solitary beat. Can’t run? No problem. Try cross fit. Windshield smashed. Get it fixed.

Keep moving.

Honor the commitment.

Wind, storms, peaks, valleys — adversity — is part of the process of each of our adventures. The directions of your actions when you find yourself in a hole define whether you are digging in or digging out. Whatever you do, keep moving and dig yourself out!

Filed Under: Inspirational Perspectives, Make A Commitment, The Four Wheels of Personal Leadership Tagged With: commitment, girl on the run, honoring commitments, Kristi Trimmer, managing a slump, managing adversity, orange dragonfly, perseverance, success

## Trust Your Instinct

September 30, 2025 by Dave Cooke Leave a Comment

The battle between instinct and intellect is a perpetual, ongoing fight. While it often possible to prove what is known, it is difficult to be confident and certain all is known about what is being proven.

When dealing in the absolutes of something such a math, we have learned to qualify and quantify the rule that we often trust our calculations. The rules of math as we have learned them give us confidence in the answers we come up with, unless we make a calculation error. In that situation the rule is probably still correct, but the answer is wrong.

How do we trust our “math” when it comes to the areas of our relationships, opportunities, and conflicts. How do we know what the rule is for the situation. How can we know that we didn’t make a calculation error or apply the wrong formula to situation.

We don’t!!

While we all desire to avoid making a bad decision, taking an incorrect action, or make an untimely move there are no success formulas to guarantee the outcomes. While we desire a certain result from any action we take, sometimes we calculate wrong. It happens. Sometimes we don’t calculate wrong . Which happens less than not.

Trust your instincts. Your subconscious mind spends a great deal of time — much, much more time than you realize — assessing all the situations in your life. Your brain is constantly calculating and recalculating the score, the situation, the scenarios, and the experiences of the past as it assesses your options. When your “gut” gives you that call to action, chances are it knows what it is talking about. The odds are in your favor that it has given you the advice that reflects the best answer for that situation.

Why don’t we take it? We don’t want to make a mistake. Who does?

When in doubt, where do we go? Often we go to a more conscious thought process, which is more deliberate and confusing than the fluid, continuous, subconscious thought process your brain has already engaged in. Or we go to our friends — the people who know you best, yet have no earthly way of knowing all the work your subconscious mind has already completed. Or we go to the source of the problem, who will spin their story in any way possible to minimize an adverse outcome for them.

Trust your instincts. Your mind has put in the time already. It has done the math, calculated carefully, and used the best formula to discover the solution for you life. Your instincts know you best, has your best interests in mind, and rarely makes a calculation error — trust in that!!

Filed Under: Embrace Responsibility, Learning From Experience, Maintaining Focus, Managing Adversity, The Four Wheels of Personal Leadership Tagged With: commitment, conflict, controlling fear, decision making, fear, inspiration, integrity, managing fear, responsibility, trust

## What’s Your Story?

September 26, 2025 by Dave Cooke Leave a Comment

“Every life story begins and ends exactly the same — the difference is what you do in between.”

Usually one of the first questions I ask people when I meet them is “what’s your story?” I find the simplicity of the question allows anyone I am talking with to share with me whatever they want - business, personal, a little of both. I open the door, invite them to share and I they to choose the topic. I have the pleasure of listening and learning.

Each of us has a story. Actually, there are two stories. The story you tell yourself and others while you are here on this earth and the stories others tell long after you are gone.

Every life story has three parts: birth, life, death. There is nothing really different in the beginning or the end. Each story begins and end exactly the same. There may be a special uniqueness about how we entered or left this world; but, that is only a small part of the story and it isn’t what most people will spend much time reflecting on.

How you live your life — who you loved, touched, inspired — is your story.

Years ago, my college swim coach reminded me that being the superstar athlete on the team was not going to be what people remembered. What they were going to remember was the experience of the interaction and how my life evolved following my college days. I didn’t get it at the time because I was too immature and self-absorbed about my superior athleticism (or so I thought) to grasp the power in the lesson.

I get it now. Each of us is living a story. It is the story of our life — who we are, how we lived, and what we did with the gifts we were given. I am not interested in creating or building a legacy because that is not the real purpose our existence. We are not here to build monuments as a testimony to our greatness.

I am interested in and committed to sharing the power of my gifts, experiences and love to those who need me and them most. It my quest that long after I am gone the gifts I shared are passed on to others in the same spirit of passion, joy and love.

That’s my story. What’s yours?

Filed Under: Live With Passion, Living Your Purpose, The Four Wheels of Personal Leadership Tagged With: commitment, gifts, honor, integrity, living your story, love, passion, story

## “Find A Way”

September 16, 2025 by Dave Cooke Leave a Comment

By now many of you have probably heard about Diana Nyad and her successful quest to swim from Cuba to Florida at the age of 64. Whether 64 or 24, this is one momentous accomplishment. Having been a committed and dedicated competitive swimmer through high school and college, I can really appreciate the how difficult this quest is.

Back in the day, I used to swim somewhere between four and five hours daily. I would usually swim around 12,000-14,000 yards or just under 8 miles a day, six days a week. All I remember about that period was I was exhausted – emotionally and physically – at the end of every practice. Unlike many other sports, swimming does not offer a whole lot of down time between sets or swims to catch your breath, talk, or relax. Every single workout was a series of endless laps – back and forth, back and forth – in complete isolation. While there were other swimmers in the pool, working out with me, I was either racing against them or simply doing my thing in the water alongside them. The limit of my imagination and my experience is swimming eight miles over a five hour stretch. Even that seems amazing at my age considering I was swimming at that level nearly forty years ago.

About ten years ago, I decided to swim a 3.1 (5K) open water swim in the Detroit River. I loved it. It was a great mental and physical challenge. It took me just under 2 hours to complete the task. With that swim, reality took over and I had to admit that it is quite possible I am not as young as I used to be. During that swim I was reminded about the complete and total physical and emotional isolation that comes with swimming.

At 64, Diana Nyad found a way to complete her quest to swim 110 miles from Cuba to Florida. 110 miles, 53 hours – at 64! This was her fifth attempt at this crossing. FIVE attempts! Five times she went on a quest to swim 100 plus miles in complete physical and mental isolation. With each setback she increased her resolve and her commitment to accomplish this task. When she finally and successfully realized her objective she reminded all of us to examine our hearts and look at our dreams and quests and exorted us to “Find a way!”

Whatever your mission is, I am certain it is not as clearly mapped out as a 110 mile swim. What is lost in all the excitement of her 53 hour accomplishment is that it actually took her much longer to achieve her goal. It actually took her 35 years to accomplish her mission. From here first unsuccessful attempt in 1978 until her victory in 2013 – a span of 35 years – she never gave up, even when age, adversity, or doubt could have easily stopped her.

True, sustainable, and incredible successes often take time, commitment, passion, and perseverance. It takes the will to believe when no one else does. And, it takes the determination to “find a way” even if the answer, the solution, or the next step is not readily visible. Whatever you are dreaming about today, go after it, and “find a way”!!

Filed Under: Make A Commitment, The Four Wheels of Personal Leadership Tagged With: achievement, commitment, Diana Nyad, inspiration, motivation, passion, perseverance