Today on Stories with Sass we’re talking about having a voice, breaking the rules, and knowing what they are before you break them. You may think that sounds a little like being a writer and entrepreneur (and you’d be right), but this week we’re actually talking about something much more exciting than that – legal steer axle weight.
And while you’re probably thinking that sounds like the subject of a highly specific advanced calculus class, it’s actually much simpler than that. Well – okay, it’s simply an advanced high school math class.
But never fear, today’s article is here to explain what legal steer axle weight is, and how you can apply that to your writing to maximise your results, and get that wheel back in the center line.
So, legal steer axle weight is specifically the weight in your car (or truck) that is supported by your front tire (or tires). Simple, right? Well, no. You see, you don’t just hop into your car, turn the key and off you go – there are limits and standards upon which your vehicle was built for a specific reason, and those limits and standards all come down to steering.
Because if your front end isn’t balanced right you could be looking at an understeer. What is understeering? Well, it’s when you go to take a turn and you’re moving too fast for your wheels to handle – you lose control, go off track and hit a concrete barrier before your tires get enough traction to regain speed and control and put you back on your way.
In other words, you went over the legal steering axle weight and it cost you.
Now, maybe to you this all sounds a little far fetched. I mean, we all have a personal steering axle that’s just fine, right? Maybe we overdo it once or twice when we have our writing mojo on full throttle, but we don’t end up barreling off the road into outerspace, do we?
On the highway – no. But out in the wilderness of entrepreneurship, taking some corners too quickly means going off your game and damaging your business.
So let’s hit the brakes for a second and look at how perhaps you’re slightly healing from your latest crash into outerspace.
The first step to staying in your lane is knowing your limits. Legal steering axle weight keeps you focused on the road ahead and within your lane so you can navigate the corner with speed and make it out the other side safely. In the same way, setting creative limits to your writing helps you to maintain your focus on your ideal audience.
Don’t write for everyone and you’ll be fine – as long as you know where you’re going to be most successful, you’ll see a traffic light ahead and you can pull over safely again and again and again.
Of course, one of the obvious joys of owning a manual transmission is the ability to adjust any aspect of the car that you don’t particularly like. You can shift all kinds of things in your car, but without the security of knowing the legal steering axle weight, you could shift too far and go flying into a ditch somewhere.
Being in a supportive community that not only knows the legal steering axle weight in terms of what is considered to be in control, but helps you understand when you may have gone overboard is essential to steering any project in the right direction.
When you know what to expect – when you know the rules – it’s much easier to break them for your own good. But on the other hand, you don’t always have to know the exact specifications to get the help and support you need to stay on track.
Navigating from point A to point B means guided accuracy, so if you have someone who can help keep you in your lane, do it. There’s no ‘too far out there’ – only new.
Staying within specifications makes driving a quick and easy process.
One of the main reasons we create pieces of art and share them with others is so that we can be a part of the story. Writing has an inherent healing quality, and there can be safety and comfort in the fact that you already know where these words are going to lead you.
So if you know where you want to go and you feel safe in taking the corners at breakneck speed without damaging your wheels and ruining the tires, do it. We live in a constant state of breaking boundaries and pushing the limits so that we can experience everything all at once.
Yes, sometimes that means crashing and burning…it has to happen to someone. But typically you can stop before you roll over and fall out that hole you’ve dug, and that’s always nice.
And if it means you need to take some time off to replace your wheels and redo the brakes, that’s fine, too.
Sharing my writing with you is just like breaking the legal steering axle weight – I know exactly where I want this post to go and how to get it there. And hopefully, that’s congruent with exactly where you want this post to go, and now how to get it.
If it isn’t…that’s okay. I got this.
Because I’m not just writing for you to enjoy. I’m sharing a part of my journey with you, and can advise you along your own journey based on what I’ve learned.
So now I recommend you think to yourself this:
If I can put up with the rules and the safety, I might actually start enjoying the ride a little. But then again, what are the rules?
And you can answer that question by checking out the source for this legal meaning and requirements of steer axle weight here.