Finding Happiness and Success …On-Snow and In Life
Have you ever just wanted the answers? Life — like skiing — is sometimes frustrating, at other times joyful. Finding the joy in everyday things is fleeting.
No matter. I decided to write about it, anyway, finding that there are ways to discover truth that will help guide you to greater joy and happiness. Whether you have ever skied or not, you can almost feel the crisp wind in your face when you look at a picture of a mountainside. No matter who you are, you know the joy of success and the sudden impact of a fall. This book was written for you, both to discover the joy of skiing and to uncover the joy in your life.
Testimonials for Open Your Heart with Skiing“This book is for people who are ready to be inspired and quit whining and start winning! As an expert Whine Tester, I’m here to tell you that after you read this book you will be ready to tackle not only the ski slopes but life itself in a new and exciting way. It is time to Stop Whining, Start Smiling and Start Skiing again and again. This is an especially wonderful book for parents who are thinking of introducing their children to a family sport that everyone can enjoy and do together.” January Jones, “Stephen Hultquist’s words spoke to me in a way no other skiing book has. To my heart and the connections many feel when we become avid skiers through the wonderful experiences that are available to us when we go up to the mountains to ski or to just enjoy the great mountain environment.” Gary Zimmerman |
Last spring on a beautiful, crystal clear Colorado morning, the sun rose over fresh snow across the Rocky Mountains. It was going to be a great day. I would be with friends, enjoying clean air, laughter, and making memories that would last forever.
It has been a good season for me. I had been on snow about 40 days, and, although I hadn’t been skiing in a few weeks, I was in pretty decent form. These friends are all world-class skiers. A movie star famous for his ability to ski steep and challenging terrain. Instructors who coach other instructors in both their skiing and their teaching. A recreational skier who has grown leaps and bounds in his skills over the past few years. A film crew. And me.
We spent the morning playing with various demonstrations and filming a bunch of turns on both video and high-speed stills. We skied much of the front side of Arapahoe Basin, the wonderful, old-fashioned ski area near the top of the Continental Divide.
After a fun morning, we sat laughing and eating in the new mid-mountain lodge. Dan told stories of his exploits around the world, traveling with Warren Miller film crews, and then about his own media company who was with us to film.
…and I was clueless what was coming…
After lunch, we took the chairlift to the top, then I followed Annie across the ridge. She stopped, and stepped out of her skis, shouldering them for a climb. Too late to do otherwise, I followed her and did the same.
As I crested the ridgeline, the wind hit me broadside, nearly knocking me down. I wrestled with the skis on my shoulder as the wind threatened to rip them out of my hands. But, after a persistent climb, I arrived at the snow-packed cornice where the others were waiting.
…and I looked down…
I was standing at the top of the North Pole, a steep, narrow gash through the East Wall of Arapahoe Basin. The only way to get there is to climb. It’s not far, but it’s down on both sides. I hadn’t been ready for what it would look like when I first looked down its throat, and I felt fear welling up from the back of my brain…
It’s easy to live. It’s harder to live well. It takes new insights. Everything you learn, you learn from stories. They might be age-old stories that teach life lessons or they might be a story that a friend tells you about what happened to them. It’s stories that teach.
If you are anything like me, most of what you learned in school, you tried to learn from textbooks. They are boring! It’s all you can do to stay awake while you read them.
It’s likely that if you learned anything about life, you learned it from your mom, your dad, or your grandpa outside looking at the surface of a fish pond, looking across a field, or looking at freshly fallen snow. They told you a story, and you’ve never forgotten it.
Open Your Heart with Skiing is full of stories. Stories about skiing and about life. It can show you things about skiing that you haven’t seen before. It can show you things about life that make sense in a new way. It can even transform your experience.
So what did I do there on the top of North Pole? I took a deep breath. I looked out away from the couloir across the valley towards Breckenridge. I closed my eyes and saw my successful run. I held that movie in my mind until I could play it all the way to the end. Then, I took another deep breath and dropped in. That picture of me skiing was taken on that run by one of the videographers.
That’s a story like many in the book, and you don’t have to be a skier to get a lot out of it.
Whether you are an Olympian or a person who will never ski, there is something for you to discover from its pages:
Testimonials for Open Your Heart with Skiing“Skiing can produce such varied experiences. “A chance to meander along the flow lines of gravity, a struggle against the world’s best, or an opportunity to test your own limits. The wide-open vistas of a blue sky day, or the cosseted eiderdown of the ‘white room’ in a snowstorm. Serene solitude, an intimate gathering of friends and relatives, or the biggest party imaginable. Chest-bursting exhilaration, or humiliation and pain. Vivid life, or the cold, black nothingness of death. “In offering us all these modes of existence, skiing is in one way unique, but in another way just an extension of the nature of our sojourn on this planet. What Steve has done so brilliantly in this book is to link everything together. “For those of us lucky enough to call skiing part of our lives, these are connections that somehow we all sensed – but could never have put into words like this book does. For those yet to discover the world of winter whiteness, this book gives a tantalizing glimpse into another universe that is worlds apart from, yet intimately related to, ‘normal’ life.” Martin Bell “Skiing offers challenges for all of us, from Olympic medalists to the novice taking her first hesitant slides down freshly groomed snow. Skiing also helps us to see more about ourselves than we might otherwise know. In this book, Steve shows us some ways of finding those connections and expanding our joy in skiing and in life. Read it and strengthen your experiences.” Deb Armstrong |
The book Open Your Heart with Skiing: Mastering Life Through Love of the Turns is available on Amazon, at Barnes and Noble, and at your local independent bookstore.
For a limited number of people, I offer signed copies, as well.
As a special gift to yourself or your favorite skier, you can purchase an autographed copy of Open Your Heart with Skiing directly from this web site. Be sure to let me know if you’d like me to inscribe it to someone other than you so you can give it as a gift!
To purchase an autographed copy for $14.97 plus shipping and handling, just click:
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To YOUR success,
Stephen Hultquist
P.S. Don’t forget to expand your love of life and enjoyment of your experience of the alpine life: pick up your copy and one for a friend today!
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