Check engine light is on

Imagine you are on a roadtrip to your dream vacation location. 

For me it’s in the mountains. 

Somewhere remote with small town vibes and a big lake, epic hikes and little to no cellphone service. 

Me, my dog and a cabin above the tree line looking out over a beautiful valley below. 

We’re not there yet, but that’s what it will be like when we get there.

Still miles away from the peak a light pops on your dashboard. 

It’s signaling that one of your tires has lost some pressure. 

There’s not a gas station anywhere in sight so you slow down and decide to keep going. 

“It’ll be fine, I can make it.” 

But, just a few more miles down the road and the tire blows. 

“Shit” 

Your destination is still a ways in the distance but now you have an immediate problem to deal with. 

An unexpected detour, but you’re not going to let it stop you. 

You pull over, change the tire and start back out. 

Progress is slower with the spare and the steady uphill incline puts added pressure on the unbalanced wheel base — and the first thought of doubt creeps in.

“Will I even make it?” 

For a moment, let’s ignore the lifelines like AAA+, cell phones and roof rack mounted extra-extra tire and agree that four wheels get you to where you want to go. 

Each wheel is properly balanced to evenly distribute the load and make travel relatively effortless. 

With regular maintenance we rarely stop to consider how important these four parts are to the journey. 

But, the moment one goes out we realize just how important they really are. 

Now, let's take this off-road. 

The vehicle you’re driving in is your human experience, it takes you from point A to point B and all the detours along the way. 

Each tire represents one of your four parts that propels your experience forward. 

• Body, your doing and your Fitness. 

• Heart, your feelings and your Family. 

• Spirit, your being and your Faith.  

• Mind, your thinking and your Finances. 

The four parts are designed to live in harmony just like the wheels on your car.

When all parts are healthy they intersect and affect one another creating alignment and forward motion.

Sadly, we seldom pay attention to how critical each part is until we experience a blowout. 

Most men, myself included, have at some point neglected the maintenance on one or more wheels only to find ourselves stranded on the side of the road in a desperate attempt trying to patch a gaping hole with some duct tape and elbow grease. 

Realizing, sometimes too late we’ve been driving on our thinking and doing and our faith and family have been sacrificed in the process. 

Or we’ve been in one wheel drive redlining for miles and experienced a true catastrophic collision. 

A heart attack, divorce, bankruptcy or death in the family. 

That will get your attention. 

But, worse than that, a slow leak, in not one but all four tires… 

Something you barely notice until your speed slows to a stop and you have nothing to keep the vehicle moving forward. 

Not a sudden halt that wakes you up, but a slow drift off road. 

Conditioned over many miles to just accept the steady decline. 

One that places you at the base of your dreams looking up with no way forward… and little motivation to move. 

A slow drift that leads to a permanent detour. 

[...]

So how do you stay on the road to what you want? 

Well, the first step is vision, that much you already know. 

You have to know where you’re going or you’ll spend your entire experience just driving around. 

A vision that includes your faith, fitness, family and finances. 

The second step is a set of values that keep you on the road. 

Every man needs a maintenance schedule for his four parts. 

A way to “check the air” if you will on your Faith, Fitness, Family and Finances. 

Since these four parts; Spirit, Body, Emotions and Mind all intersect in the experience you’ll need a way to measure the fullness of each part. 

Think of values as dashboard lights that indicate the vehicle is healthy for travel. 

The third step is progress, overcoming challenges and stacking victories. 

Every challenge you overcome turns into fuel giving you confidence and competence to take on the next challenge. 

And there will be challenges. 

Plenty of obstacles in the road. 

Twists, turns, changes in elevation, ice, rain and storm – but, all these are all external conditions that you have to navigate just being on the road. 

What complicates matters is when your internal engine is misfiring, you're almost out of gas and your tires are all nearly flat. 

The same way you’d take your car into the shop to diagnose everything that is going on under the hood, we also need a way to assess our four parts. 

That’s why I created the GAP MAP, a diagnostic tool to give you insight into how you are doing in each of your four domains. 

It’s 25 carefully selected questions to give you a snapshot into which of your four tires might have a leak. 

This way you can drive some attention to that weaker area before it detours you off the road. 

After you take the quiz you’ll get a customized report (that kind of resembles a wheel) so you can visually see what area to focus on. 

====> Check out the GAP MAP here and complete your 25 Discovery Questions