¦ Optimism isn't near as powerful as realistic expectations
¦ Awareness is key to recognizing opportunity
¦ Action often involves waiting for a better opportunity
¦ Unmet expectations reveal opportunities for personal growth
¦ Take up the opportunity the first time it surfaces

Discuss Expectations

You remember Alex Laudon from the previous episode said;

"Daniel the thing that's holding you back is your equipment. This wing on your foil is one of the first ones and it's fabulous. It's carbon fiber. It's beautiful but it's slightly smaller than what you need because we've been able to develop wings further since then."

What you need is this. You need a much bigger wing for you to have a stable jibe.

So I called the factory and because of COVID they're inundated with production and it would be months and months. It'd be way past the end of this season before I'd get a wing. Wait a minute you just showed me a wing. I thought you said you needed that. I did. There were none of them available. I had no idea how I was going to go about getting one.

Watch what happened.

I had my ears and eyes looking for a solution - I believe by anticipation. I'll figure something out but I'm not going to get in there and grind and hammer and pound. Listen to this story of how it worked out so as you practice this for yourself.

Keith I was inviting you to be part of the evidence for this episode because you've done something highly unusual in today's world which is to trust another human and also be part of a solution which most people are not. I wanted to have you tell the background of how this came about and all that you've been through on the other side of the story.

Keith: "This is my first foray into foiling. I decided to get into foiling and late 2018 after my third knee surgery and said well this high wind sailboarding isn't for me. And this looks like it is. So there's a local guy who's making these in the gorge and I went and bought this from him and then this year I started foiling on this. I was down at Stevenson one day and I got it all together and put my suit on and went for a sail. I didn't put these in the board."

Keith: "It took me 10 minutes to put this string in there and I forgot these so I went sailing. I swam out about 25 yards and I got on the board and I sailed about 25 yards when this fell out of my board into the river."

Daniel: "Into the river?"

Keith: "Into the river! 75 yards off the beach at Bob's Beach in Stevenson, WA. What are you gonna do? Well, I hired a scuba diver to come and look for this. I spent 200 bucks and he couldn't find anything. He spent about three hours looking. So I gave up on it and bought another foil. Three weeks after that the scuba diver called me up and said you know I don't want to give up on that foil. How about you give me 400 bucks if I find it and if I don't find it and I spend all year looking for it you don't owe me anything. Well, that sounds like a no-lose deal."

Keith: "So long story short. One day he went out and found it and pulled it up out of the river. Well, now I have two foils."

Keith: "I was down on the beach one day and here came Daniel asking about this. It's a newer foil system from the original. It has a bigger front foil. It's friendlier. Daniel decided he wanted to buy it all and we came to a deal and here we are."

Keith, I want to appreciate your retrieving it and paying for it because it turns out this thing is an absolute solution to my riding problem. In the previous episode as you can see Alex said; "Daniel it's your gear" and there it is - there's the bigger wing that I've needed to solve that. Thank you so much for all of your anguish and for being part of a solution.

Keith: "Hey you know we got to make this work and we're all connected. It's my belief you help somebody out and it turns out well in the end. So I hope you enjoy the foil."

It turns out that Keith's character and generosity combined with an unexpected loss combined with the diver's perseverance on top of Alex's suggestion that I look at my tools all became a solution.

I then grabbed some of my physical tools and added a new hole in my fuselage, put threads into that. Mounted the adapter and wing and had an entirely new riding experience per Alex's suggestion. This st