Embracing Your ‘Taco Truck’

 

 
You read that right: Your Taco Truck.

An important principle that I address here at Dare To Evolve in making the changes, shifts and leaps we make in propelling meaningful Evolution in our lives is getting ‘naked’. Starting from a place of honesty. You’ve heard me say:

 

“Only when we stand ‘naked’, open and honest, before ourselves
can we truly begin to evolve.”

 
Because to create truly evolutionary change, it requires starting from where we are at. Actually at. Which is uncomfortable, because with it we face all that is not working for us. We face our fear. We face our vulnerability. All that we perceive to be our weakness.

If we choose to ignore that starting point, we can still make some impressive ‘gains’. But we will never outrun what we need to address and eventually have to come face to face with it in order for the deep evolutionary shift to meaningfully move forward.

 

So where does the Taco Truck come in?

This summer I hit a very important milestone in the life of Dare To Evolve, and along with it, my life. I am often re-assessing, re-addressing and re-visiting the effectiveness of the services I bring in contribution to supporting your greater journey. I arrived at a major crossroad and once again came back to stand ‘naked’ before the mirror.

 
And I saw a deeper understanding of Dare To Evolve’s actual starting point to evolve further. A starting point that earlier got rushed along the way.

Dare To Evolve, at this time, is a Taco Truck.

• It’s a down to earth, face to face connection at the park or by the beach.
• It serves amazing food, but it’s a smaller menu.
• Because the meals served aren’t standard fare. They are high end custom creations, that leave you deeply satisfied after every meal, yet wanting more.
• There is a limit though and eventually the truck’s stock runs out and needs to be replenished for more to be made.
• The flavours are intense, unique, spicy, loud, subtle, deep, fun… and there is salsa. Lots of salsa!

And there is one Dude. With the incredible support of family and friends at various stages. But for the most part, on a day to day basis, it’s a one man show.

• He drives the truck.
• He fuels the truck.
• He washes the truck.
• When his mechanic is unavailable, he fixes the truck.
• He buys the food.
• He preps the food.
• He cooks the food.
• He takes the orders.
• He serves the food.
• He does the dishes.
• Cleans the kitchen.
• Takes care of the permits.
• Makes the posters.
• And the list goes on…

Thing is, in his sincere desire to reach more people, cook them great tasting nutritious food that improves the quality of their life and genuinely provide increasingly impactful meals, he ended up trying to operate like a 20 location restaurant chain.

 

Taco Truck vs Restaurant Chain

Neither is necessarily better than the other. They are just very different.

• They provide different experiences.
• Serve different needs at different times in a person’s life.
• They have different perspectives, different approaches, different energy.
• They also require a different set of resources available to successfully operate.

And when you are trying to do one with the resources or approach of the other, there’s a disconnect that will leave you floating… yes, we’re still in our Taco Truck here folks… out in the ocean without oars or sails. Leaving everyone who showed up for their favourite evolutionary meal standing around wondering what’s up with the truck.

“SHANE!! What are you doing out there?!! We can’t… we can’t get out to you. How are we supposed to…” (turns to another) “What’s he doing out there?”

 

Are You Truly Aligned?

An important element of deep, meaningful evolutionary progress is the necessity for alignment between vision and the action required to get there. And while simple to understand on the surface, it is far trickier to implement than we might think.

Because having alignment of vision and action doesn’t just mean “I have this big ambitious vision for X in my life. So I need to surge forward as fast and big as I can.” And then in that rush try to do and live as if you are already there.

Don’t get me wrong. We all need to have big, immense, high reaching visions for ourselves. To dream bigger than we think is even possible to attain. I’m a huge proponent of doing so, because our capacities are so much greater than we think.

We also must challenge ourselves to grow beyond where we are now.

But if we try to ‘operate’ as if we have already unearthed and harnessed our capacity to that degree without growing into it, then what we take on simply becomes too much. And we find ourselves juggling to many balls, navigating with to many holes in our sails, serving food with too many mistakes in the order and fires in the kitchen. We once again face the weighty sense of failure. Not being good enough. Begin believing our capacity to not actually be that great. Which couldn’t be further from the truth.

We need to have a Grand Vision.

We need to think Big and feel Big.

But we need to look honestly at where we currently are in relation to that Vision.

And start there. So we can see the next best step to getting there.

That’s part of being “in the moment”.

We have to be here. Now.

But we have to look to and reach for the heavens of dreams and possibility.

But with our feet on the ground so we can move forward.

Tricky.

 

Are You Embracing Your Taco Truck?

I share the above example of Dare To Evolve as the Taco Truck to illustrate that this process and finding ourselves caught mis-aligned in it:

• a) Happens to all of us.
• b) Can happen in different ways at varying stages and levels of our journey.
• c) Does not mean failure.

Look at your training goals (whether you are engaged with them now or not). For health, physique or performance, it doesn’t matter. It’s another facet of your life that reflects the same process. And it’s one we can all easily relate to.

You have a vision. Often, when it comes to our body’s health, look and function, it’s a pretty ambitious one with a clear picture of what we want. As it should be.

You then hold on to that end vision and start training as though you have already built the capacity for training at the level of the end point. Then about 2 or 3 weeks in, you find yourself tired, in pain and overwhelmed. Not to mention not seeing the vision being manifested before your eyes despite your full out commitment to it. “I’ve failed. Again.”

Well, no, you haven’t failed.

It’s just that your vision and the action required to get there from Your Current Starting Point… are simply out of alignment. An alignment that comes from first being honest with yourself. As honest as you can get. And if you can accept that, you can begin to see that the “failure” is in fact the indicator trying to help you come back into balance.

Same goes for if you’ve been training consistently for a few years, yet you have been stuck for some time now and can’t seem to progress anywhere beyond it. Time to check where you are really, currently at. Re-visit the vision in detail. And then look at what steps are required to progressively and effectively get from here to there.

 

                       

 

“I’ll have 3 Please! Extra Spicy!”

The thing is, in the process of challenging ourselves and striving for more out of our lives, while honestly discovering, developing and enhancing our gifts we will always have times when we must re-align. Just as in navigating by sea, air or land, we have to constantly come back to retake a bearing. Because while we feel we are moving straight, everything around us is moving and changing. And we have to adjust for that constantly evolving condition.

That is why here at Dare To Evolve, the focus revolves around an ongoing Life Evolution. Utilizing our physical training as a ‘vehicle’ for more. Because it reflects a deeper process in life that we can carry with us and harness to empower the journey.

Where are you at right now? Get as ‘naked’ as you can about it. If we are sincere, we will constantly discover greater depths of honesty through the process.

Are you a ‘Taco Truck’ at this stage? If so, THAT’S GREAT! Embrace it. And start moving towards your big, beautiful, courageous, outrageous vision. It’s yours to reach.

Dare To Evolve,
Shane Heins.