I ended my bicycle trip five days early as I stopped at the Snake River to fish for catfish with friends who were already there. One of my friends towed my 20-foot aluminum pontoon boat over to the river. On day three we motored down the reservoir about 5 miles to a favorite spot to catch fish. We had been fishing for about 5 hours when someone said that it looked like the boat was setting lower in the water than normal. So we started up the motor and headed for the dock. The boat started going slower and slower as it was obviously getting lower in the water. All of a sudden the motor stopped and I looked around and the motor was submerged under the water. The pontoons were under the water and only the deck was above water, barely. We were still a couple hundred yards from the dock but the wind was blowing us and we had a paddle and we managed to drift right to the dock. Everyone jumped off, we got the trailer backed down quickly, and we managed to get the boat on the trailer by backing the trailer way under the water. We pulled it out and while the boat was still at an angle on the ramp we opened the plugs on the pontoons and they were almost full of water taking a long time to drain. I have the pontoon boat home now and I plan on drilling and tapping a couple of plugs and putting in some Schraeder valves, with the doctored plugs in the boat, then putting air pressure in the pontoons and spraying it with soapy water to find the leaks. Once found I then will find me a friend who can weld aluminum to fix the leaks. I love adventures.

(A day later) I found the leaks, I didn’t need the soapy water, they were easy to hear as air whistled out. Now I just need to find someone who knows how to weld aluminum to weld the leaks for me, and I will be ready for fishing.

The term “The Big Moe” comes from John Maxwell who I regularly listen to on pod casts on leadership. Moe is momentum. In our life, in groups, and organizations momentum is a great friend. A physical law is that it takes much more energy to get a stationary object, such as a car, moving than it does to keep it moving once it is. In our life when we aren’t reading our Bible every day it takes a lot of discipline to get that habit going in our life. Once we are successfully doing it, it takes much less discipline to maintain our Bible reading habit. If our life is pretty much a picture of apathy, laziness, and lack of discipline in all of the important disciplines in life the best way to turn that around is one discipline at a time. Put all your energy, focus, and determination into one discipline, such as riding a stationary bike every day for 15 minutes. Once you are doing it successfully for awhile do the same thing with another, and then another. A couple of keys; it is the regularity of the discipline that is hard to get going so start with a small amount of time or effort, such as 15 minutes and then when the frequency is consistent you can add time or effort a little at a time. I often suggest to people that they fix their haphazard prayer life with five minutes of prayer daily, and then when successfully doing that to up the time to six minutes, and continue that process until they are where they want to be. Another key is that disciplines that are done daily create more momentum than those that are six times a week, and six times a week more than five times a week, and so on.

Another term is “The Big Slide.” When a day is missed on a discipline because of busyness or tiredness, it is now easier to miss again, and then again, and then two days, and then three and “The Big Slide” is in full gear. “The Big Slide” is “The Big Moe” in reverse.

People who are successful in life understand the basic laws of success, and operate by them. These laws are like the physical law of gravity, they are consistent and they are no respecter of persons. “The Big Moe” and “The Big Slide” are powerful laws of life and success.

A principle or law that will help circumvent “The Big Slide” if you want to take a break from a discipline or you have a change take place in your life that requires some adjustment in your disciplines is “The On-Purpose Rest.” Choose specifically the adjustment or change, write it down as a goal, and include the date when the discipline goes back to daily or whatever it once was.

I normally have a dozen daily disciplines, but when my bicycle ride started I adjusted those to six disciplines until July 1st. The goal is to operate our life on the basis of commitments, and not just be blowing in the wind of our own fickle desires and changing circumstances.

I lost 20 pounds on my recent bicycle trip so I have some momentum going for me on weight loss. I want to take advantage of “The Big Moe” so I have established some goals and disciplines to continue this progress until I reach my goal weight of 188 pounds.

Be in the driver’s seat of your life turning the steering wheel, putting on the brakes and stepping on the gas as needed. The number of people who are living their lives out of control is very high, so decide not to be one of them.