Making your whole personality about fitness


Back in my corporate days I always had a short "elevator speech" to tell people who I was. It was mostly about my job, what jobs I'd had, and maybe where I'd lived while I was doing those jobs. In other words, my whole personality was about my job.

And to be fair, that's what I was all about, a professional graphic designer. If the conversation were to drag on a bit, I might mention how much I liked to play golf, but that was about it. I wouldn't talk about how much I liked to workout, and ride my bike, those were things that the average person couldn't relate to. They may, or may not have seen that I was wearing an athletic-fit suit, but mostly if they even noticed they would have just figured that it was just the way that I was built, not something that I worked on just about all of the time.

After I retired, last year, I pondered on how I would describe myself. Of course I would tell people that I was a retired graphic designer, but that started to annoy me. I wasn't dead yet, and just talking about what I "used to be" seemed wrong. I had to define who I am now, and with the help of a good friend of mine, I decided that I was the guy who rode around suburban Phoenix on a recumbent trike. He even had some cards printed up for me, and the pic at the top of this post shows the newest cards, which has my new trike, and a more current photo. The link is to my YouTube channel, where I started posting videos of the trike last month. Here's an example:


I don't go very fast, or very far, but just getting out and about has been good for my fitness. And I do like to talk to people who walk up to me and ask about the trike - I've always been that way, going back to when I used to own sports cars.

I just joined a new social media app yesterday, Bluesky, and my first post was a short introduction about myself. My whole personality is "the guy who rides around on the recumbent trike in suburban Phoenix", and it's really about my fitness, both physical and mental.

It's nice to meet you! Tell me about yourself.

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