Billy's Boots—New Shoes . . . New Attitude!

This month, I had the joyous experience that comes around every three to four months of buying a new pair of running shoes. My local store of choice, Runner's High in Long Beach, lets shoppers take prospective new shoes for a spin around the block to get a good sense of how they feel. Now that's service. And each time I go through this sacred process of test running a new pair of shoes, I am transported back to the same place in my childhood.

When I was a young boy, around 7 to 10, one of my favorite comic strips in England was called, "Billy's Boots." The story revolved around Billy Dane, a school-aged aspiring soccer player. (Of course at that time, I considered him a "football" player before I moved to the US.) Anyway, our Billy was an extremely poor player until he found a pair of old soccer boots while cleaning his grandmother's loft. The boots, which his grandfather had bought as a souvenir, had once belonged to the famous striker "Dead Shot" Keen. The boots possessed magical powers, which turned Billy into a fantastic soccer player. In addition to giving him the physical skill to score great goals, the boots also granted him the intuition to always be in the right place at the time on the pitch, leading him to feel that they have a "mind of their own".

Now a big question still rages as to whether the boots were, in fact, magical - or if they simply gave Billy a psychological boost that allowed him to play to his full potential. And as I have been running these last few days, I wonder if the same is true of my new shoes. Sure, they have the support and cushioning that comes with their being new. Yet, somehow inside of me, I feel new, too. Running as I often do along the dusty horse trail along the LA River near where I live, they don't stay clean for too long, but lacing on a new pair of gleaming running shoes does feel magical. I just feel better inside. Stronger, more prepared, faster even. And my times prove it. with my new shoes, I seem to have a whole new spring-cleaned attitude about my running. My commitment goes up, my willingness to stretch myself during my workouts increases, etc, etc.

So I got to wondering this morning, if I couldn't do the same elsewhere in my life. If, in those (of course, very occasional!) moments when my attitude sucks, if I couldn't just pull on a new attitude like a new pair of shoes. Well, I have to say that I've been trying it and it has been working well! When I get into that tight place inside my head—perhaps I'm asked to do something I hadn't planned into my day and the whole world has momentarily toppled off its axis—I take a moment to visualize myself pulling on my brand new pair of Adidas Supernova shoes, gleaming white with orange accents.

And as I do, I can feel how Billy did. I open to the magic inside of me that is represented by the shoes. New shoes, new attitude. Stronger, more flexible, guided by magical forces! Walking through this image in my mind helps me remember that I get to choose my attitude in any given moment; that I can take action inside so that outside everything is right with me, and I am cruising along in life on an attitude that supports and cushions me.

Now that's a pair of "shoes" we can all use!