It has webcams, weather conditions from the National Weather Service, and the current trail map.

Showdown Montana Ski Area – Webcams and Weather Conditions.

Entrepreneurship is perpetual cliff jumping. Once you’ve done it the first time, you must do it over and over again. A smart entrepreneur jumps with a parachute, and only pulls the string at the moment its needed, and not a moment too soon.

I am a newly minted perpetual cliff jumper, also known as entrepreneur. I still laugh when I think about the rush it was for me when I took my first cliff jump, landed, and then got frightened at the prospect that I had to do it again, except next time the requirement was to wait a wee bit longer before pulling the ripcord.

How I got to this point

All my life I was raised to “be your own man“. Those are the exact words that were oft slipped to me by my late Grandpa Mac. He was a wise man, a wisecrack to some, and a cliff jumper at heart.

Sitting around the dinner table as a kid with Grandpa Mac meant listening to excited conversations about politics and the economy, with a few risque comments intermingled. It was common for him to challenge others to a healthy debate.

What I learned the most from him was to truly, be my own man. He was well versed in many things, from science and technology to fine art and photo journalism. His background as an early photo journalist in the 1930s and 40s always impressed me, and I lived vicariously as a kid in his history.

By being your own person you learn to be driven. What drives you might be different than what drives me. Being driven by something is key. Key to a life long pursuit of an array of things that may, or may not, bring you ultimate happiness.

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it never killed me

I am driven by curiosity. In fact I believe so strongly in it that I put it on one revision of my resume. During an interview process, one of the interviewers, the VP of Marketing for an innovative technology company told me that my statement, driven by curiosity, be your own man, and putting it in my resume caught his attention. While I didn’t get the job, what I learned from that experience is that by being myself, listening to the inner self, it pays dividends, and gets noticed.

Having a curious nature is natural in children and youth. Society squashes this through various means, and I know a few others have captured this well through their writing. By nature I am an optimist. Because of this, I have hope. The hope that society, locally, nationally, and internationally can change this.

A curious society is one that involves some more dreaming, more art making, more productivity. Sitting as a cog and being complacent isn’t an idea of flourishing. Think of a vine plant. In my garden recently some of the pole bean vines began growing together because I neglected to put in a proper channel, simple mesh nets. After putting in the mesh net, I had to pick up the vines and separate them, albeit carefully, to put them back on to the right path and climbing up the mesh net. A week later and they are grasping firm, climbing like crazy, and flourishing.

Where I am headed

In the midst of a great transition, I knew I needed to write this lengthy post. If even not only for me, to look back and remind myself why I am doing, what I am doing.

Leaving full time employment to develop and grow a business that you create, bootstraps and all, isn’t the easy route. But in my opinion, might just be the best route. From the past two years of moonlighting I’ve learned that anything worth pursuing must at least have your passion behind it. The passion forces you to learn just enough about business and the things that aren’t necessarily your forte, so that it will survive, and flourish.

On goes my journey to full time develop and grow my business, Keenpath, an inbound marketing and social media marketing company. What started out as a blog three years ago has grown into a company. My first clients got some free advice and free work for the taking, only because I was testing the market. Then they began turning in to paying customers. Through this I learned that my skills, having a knack for understanding how the web, technology and tools like social media work to help business do better business and ultimately drives sales, lead me to a critical point. I could continue milling along doing something that is profitable, yet, at least for me, at the time was losing meaning, or I could jump the cliff, and work hard, sweat, bleed and have victories doing something that felt right.

Being driven by curiosity, and being my own man, has gotten me to this point. Where I am headed from here is only a hop skip and jump away, and you better believe I will be working on my hopping skipping and jumping, while jumping those cliffs, sometimes on a daily basis.

Special thanks: My family and friends for their support, other entrepreneurs I’ve always looked up to, thought leaders, and my Heavenly Father, who made this possible for me in the first place

Watch this video of Guy Kawasaki, author of The Art of the Start, talk about the importance of making meaning in a company, or any venture for that matter, because the pay off is great.

There are constant benefits, and side effects of being curious. Try it, and try it often.

‘curiosity’ from Nic Askew on Vimeo.

I recall the night sitting in an old cabin, in the mountains near Lincoln, Montana, after a day of fly fishing the Blackfoot River. The rain pouring outside against a dark night sky, with the fresh smell of wet grass and leaves. Inside, subtly warm and comfortable, pondering the days venture.

These are the timeless raindrops that forever are etched in my mind.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters. – Norman Fitzroy Maclean “A River Runs Through It and Other Stories”

(Photo credit: Ashlie Dove)

You make the world go ’round
You build the strongest bridges, those that can’t be broken
You teach the best lessons, to those who need them
The love you give and the sacrifices you make, don’t go unnoticed
Thanks for all you do and say, may this Mother’s Day be truly yours

(Photo collage created by Mark Mathson)
(Photos credit: Hanoi Mark, Lars Plougmann, pj_in_oz, D.A.K. Photography, Sean Dreilinger, Squiggle)

Perception is reality.

How do you get from one point to another? Through movement. Newton would explain to you the principle of inertia, and tell you to avoid the battle of the opposite forces.

What do we do each day? Push through. What are we pushing through? Trial and error. Challenge and success. With a wonderful opportunity at your fingertips, you can expand your pathway into a full fledged red carpet when you have to. I’ve seen many others doing this successfully online, and many others doing this successfully offline. What is a common trait? They have a sense of optimism.

They are looking through a lens so unique to them that others wonder where it came from. In my writing about various topics across the Internet, whether it be business related, personal branding related, or leadership, I try to center my focus around a couple of things. First, the constant need for improvement of situation. Humans like to increase their chance of survival. That is an innate need, according to Mr. Maslow. But beyond that, we have a desire to further our knowledge. That has been in place since Adam and Eve.

What lenses exist?

Many lenses exist, in many different forms:

• The lens of self-righteousness- Admit it. We all struggle with it. Its something that whether you consider yourself humble or not, it could be worked on
• The lens of empathy- Women are better at this than men
• The lens of desire- Yearning for something
• The lens of sadness- To know joy you must know sadness
• The lens of joy- To know sadness you must know joy

Why are lenses important?

Lenses are fitting, quite literally, to the beholder. This doesn’t mean that the lense won’t take the shape of another’s perception or reality, however, typically you shape your own by the history you live daily.

The real established goal of shining your lens to make it clearer to see through is accomplished with good old fashioned elbow grease, hard work and a little help from those whom you can trust.

(Photo credit: marcomagrini)

(Graphic credit: Minimal)