Persistance Pays Off

Two months ago I was sitting behind a desk at Columbia River Bank in The Dalles, Oregon.  Life for me seemed to revolve around going to the gym, church activities and sitting behind that large oak desk with my head buried in a credit file.  I’m thankful for my time at the bank and grateful for the friends I made there however the suit and tie lifestyle has never been me and I’m thankful to have finally had the opportunity to move on.

I remember telling my mom when I was in high school that I wanted to drop out and race quads for a living.  Thankfully she talked me out of it, but I was ready again to pursue this dream the moment I graduated from high school.  Call it faith or just the right thing to do but I felt that attending college was the appropriate next step.  By this point I had pretty much kissed all my ATV dreams goodbye as I was off to southern Illinois, leaving my quad behind for the next four years.  College was a tough season as I did my best to keep up with the industry, but at the same time it was discouraging because I wasn’t out doing what I loved, riding.

As my senior year drew to a close, I managed to finagle my way into the Indianapolis Dealer Expo in hopes of pulling some strings and making a few industry connections.  Thankfully I managed to score a meeting with John Prusak and Jerrod Kelley and they gave me a shot at writing a story.  I can honestly say that this was my first break.  I finally realized that maybe I had a shot at doing media related work within the industry.

The story made it in print and I was on cloud nine, unfortunately nothing came of it immediately and I returned home and succumbed to the corporate world of a banking professional (or something like that).  Though discouraged, I didn’t give up hope and I began shooting photos and video for Justin Homan, notable X Games Medalist, as a means of staying involved in the industry.

Sometime in July of that year, Jerrod Kelley contacted me about writing for this blog…and here I sit.  It’s been a neat opportunity and I’m excited to be back sharing my experience.

I share this dissertation as I’m a firm believer that you can do anything you set your mind to.  I’ve found that the problems come when we face hardships or somewhere, someone tells us that we don’t have what it takes.  It’s easy to lose heart when you feel like you’re taking one step forward and two steps back but persistence will pay off.  An important thing to remember is to take care of the people that are taking care of you.  I can’t tell you how many favors or freebies I’ve done for people just to prove to them that I’m serious about what I’m doing.  Hard work will pay off.

So to the teenage kid out there building jumps in his backyard with a shovel and a wheelbarrow or uploading short videos to youtube in hopes of being the next Wes Miller, keep at it.  That’s where I started. All of my jumps are still there and it’s a neat reminder every time I see them to work hard and keep chasing the dream.

Last 5 posts by Seth Fargher

• Quad FMX on Oprah? - August 28th, 2010
• Back in the Saddle, Kind of - August 7th, 2010
• MX Training School with WORCS Pro Tim Shelman - June 25th, 2010
• Bomb Squad WORCS Report - April 26th, 2010
• Bomb Squad Goes Nuclear!!! - April 19th, 2010

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